Here is Thames, a vigorous young company, producing programmes which continue to win worldwide acclaim, able to carry proudly back to Britain for a second year the most coveted award in the whole of international broadcasting. Here is Thames earning £3m annually in foreign currency for Britain, by exporting its programmes to more than a hundred countries overseas. Yet simultaneously and paradoxically here is Thames, in common with the rest of Independent Television and the BBC, under yet another scrutiny and with yet more uncertainty about its future. It is a situation which puzzles our broadcasting colleagues throughout the world. When I go to countries like Australia, where British programmes are regarded as the excellence to which their own productions must aspire, the idea of these continuing enquiries into television is regarded as a British eccentricity. Unfortunately, it is not so amusing for the people who work in broadcasting.

What is especially difficult for us in ITV is the double standard which is so often applied by those who write about, talk about, or take part in committees about us. For our part we are prepared to admit frankly that when ITV began 22 years ago, commercial necessity produced a service that was engrossed with ratings and seeking to maintain its existence. But that was very long ago. ITV has now achieved a public service of high quality, rivalling anything that broadcasting can offer in Britain or elsewhere in the world – and limited only by expansion into an additional channel. It is no accident that ITV companies have become increasingly attractive to some of the finest talents in the BBC: men and women who would not join an inferior service however rich the rewards.

Nevertheless there are still people reluctant to acknowledge how ITV has developed, from its beginnings as the brash newcomer of 1956. The BBC, for example, still refers to its monopoly of public service broadcasting’. A respected critic, writing in the Sunday Times, suggested that a BBC play about welfare state bureaucracy ‘would have had no chance’ of being screened ‘on the commercial networks’. There remains a kind of snobbism behind such blinkered attitudes.

THE ANNAN COMMITTEE mostly managed to avoid this trap, but then made some surprising conclusions. Having recognised that ITV now offers programmes quite as good as, and in some cases superior to, the BBC; having acknowledged that ‘it is difficult to make comparisons when the BBC has two channels’ and that ‘ITV output cannot be expected to have the range which BBC can provide on two channels’; and having argued for the inauguration of a fourth channel as ‘a challenge to broadcasters’ and ‘a nursery for new forms and new methods of presenting ideas’ the Committee then promptly rejected the proposal that it should be run by the ITV companies. They claimed there would then be a risk of giving the public more of what they already had, and intensified competition between ITV and BBC.

This is out of touch with reality. The best way to make a fourth channel thrive, in a world where the viewer increasingly expects free choice of what he watches, is to dovetail it with ITV’s current service. A fourth channel having to compete against BBC’s two and ITV’s one would be fighting a losing battle, which all the taxpayer subsidy in the world could not win. The result would be an elitist service for a tiny minority of viewers, subsidised at enormous public cost. Yet one of the main areas in which ITV producers can fairly claim to have established unequalled experience and success is in popularising minority subjects. That experience, coupled with complementary – not competitive – scheduling between ITVl and ITV2, is the key to providing a new and exciting service on the fourth channel.

AS TO THE ASSERTION that ITV2 would provide ‘more of the same’, there are scores of ITV programme makers who are clamouring for the chance to prove this judgement of Annan wrong, once the straitjacket of a single channel has been removed. But if we were to assume that the staff and managements of ITV companies would want to produce on ITV2 a service identical to ITV1, the machinery of the Independent Broadcasting Authority is there to prevent such a duplication. We at Thames (and most of our colleagues in ITV) would expect to provide an ITV2 service which is obliged by statute and by IBA control to fulfil requirements not yet met by ITV or BBC. One of those, for which we put forward the original proposals in 1971, is the acquisition of programmes from independent producers for showing at peak time. We would welcome these additional freelances, though I suspect that they are neither so numerous nor so devoid of opportunity as the critics of BBC and ITV suggest. The fact remains, however, that the ITV companies are already equipped to provide a service which will meet the philosophical demands of the Annan Committee and also win a sizeable audience. Alternatives to ITV2 can do the first, but not the second.

The Annan Committee reported almost a year ago. As I write, the Home Office is about to produce the results of its deliberations on that report. So once again broadcasters have halted to await their future. We wait also to hear when and how the new IBA contracts are to be advertised and awarded. At Thames we await with confidence the confirmation that our record will ensure the continuation of our contract in the future. But we wait. And while we wait, we have to go on working.

Elsewhere in this Review you can see what ‘going on working’ means. In 1977 it meant producing 300 hours of programmes for our region and a further 700 for the ITV network. It meant raising a bountiful revenue from our advertisers, establishing new records. It meant selling more programmes overseas than any ITV company has ever done before.

Those achievements are made possible by what I believe to be the most professional staff in British television. But those bare facts could imply that Thames in 1977 was identical in all respects to Thames in 1976, ploughing the same familiar furrow. Far from it.

IN 1977 we introduced Thames At 6 – a daily regional programme which replaced the former Today and brought Andrew Gardner from ITN to be its chief presenter. Already the new programme has been praised for its impact, and this is only the first stage of impressive developments in television journalism covering local news and current affairs.

In 1977 we introduced Time For Business, a weekly 45-minute programme for the London region, not only a forum for the world of business, manufacturing and the city, but emphasising to the general public the importance of business and its contribution to their life style. Presented by the unique popularising talent of Eamonn Andrews, the programme is ITV’s first in the field. It arose directly from the consultation between business and union leaders and ITV companies, promoted by the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

In 1977 our outstandingly successful Light Entertainment Department produced another string of entirely new hits. There were the situation comedies The Upchat Line and Miss Jones & Son; the sparkling variety shows Night Out At The London Casino; and a range of superbly spectacular productions, including the highly acclaimed Tommy Steele And A Show, now chosen to represent ITV at this year’s Golden Rose of Montreux.

In 1977, the year in which the Annan Committee put into ITV’s mouth the words ‘If the public prefers series, why produce one-off dramas?’, Thames’ Drama Department in fact transmitted in peak time two seven-part series and fourteen ‘one-off dramas’, or plays.

DETAILS OF THESE and other innovations are in the Managing Director’s accompanying report of the year’s programmes, together with information about other imaginative projects. But it is not only in our programmes that new developments are to be found.

In 1977 our Technical and Engineering Department, in addition to its many other technological developments, launched a new Outside Broadcast unit of its own design, which packs into a single vehicle the resources of a vast studio.

In 1977 our Sales Department launched Enterprise, its own entirely new computerised airtime sales system, which provides a faster, more comprehensive service to advertisers and also increases the efficiency of our internal operation.

In 1977, with London Looks Forward, Thames created and financed an unprecedented investigation and debate about London’s future, on which the Duke of Edinburgh commented: ‘This is the first time a television company has become so deeply involved in the organisation of a project of such great public interest. It must also be the first time that a television company has managed to establish what might be described as two-way communication with the public.’

Those are considerable achievements, but it is inevitable that hundreds of other successes go unrecorded in a formal Chairman’s statement. The award of the OBE to our brilliant Controller of Light Entertainment Philip Jones and other honours to our staff – and the programme awards, both to complete production teams and to individuals like cameraman Nick Downie (Royal Television Society News Feature Award) and designers Alex Clarke and Rod Stratfold (RTS Design Award for Rock Follies) bring pleasure and pride to all of us. In the same way, the achievements of week-by-week programmes like Help!, Money-Go-Round and Magpie (which has now raised more than half a million pounds for children’s charities), go largely unsung although they remain a crucial part of our service to the public, especially to the underprivileged. These are not the routine achievements of some shapeless thing called a company, but the creation of dedicated, imaginative people; for people are the main ingredient of a television programme company.

DURING THE YEAR we have made several changes in our structure and management, building a younger team to move Thames forward. This energetic group is now led by Mr Bryan Cowgill, the outstanding BBC programme maker and channel controller, who joined us as Managing Director in October. He took over from Mr George A. Cooper who had reached his retirement age after contributing so much to ITV as well as to our company. The first Sales Director both for ABC Television and for Thames Television, Mr Cooper succeeded me as Managing Director in 1974. His knowledge and advice continue to be available to us on a consultancy basis.

AFTER TEN SUCCESSFUL YEARS, changes in the Board were inevitable. One of our earliest directors, Mr Humphrey Tilling, formerly Company Secretary of EMI Limited, and a member of its Board, also came to retirement age. The wise and polished contributions of Mr Tilling will he missed at our Board meetings, but we shall continue to enjoy hearing his scintillating after-dinner speeches at our social events. In his place, we are fortunate to have another EMI director, Mr John M. Kuipers, particularly because of Mr Kuipers experience of electronics and his recent supervision of EMI’s interests in Australia and the Far East. Retirement age was also the reason for the resignation of one of our two independent directors, Lord Wolfenden, and we were sorry to lose his guidance on educational programmes, dating back to his pioneer work on the Schools Advisory Committee in 1957, when Rediffusion Television introduced the first television programmes for schools. Succeeding him as another non-executive independent director we are fortunate to have the services and experience of the distinguished film and television producer, Lord Brabourne.

The collaboration between Bryan Cowgill and our Director of Programmes, Jeremy Isaacs, is already producing new ideas, new programmes and new ways of extending our public service. At the time of Mr Cowgill’s appointment, the Board also made other changes to the senior management. Ian Scott became Director of Administration and Finance, with Jim Shaw continuing as Director of Sales and Marketing. A new senior management team was formed to work alongside the four executive Board members: Muir Sutherland, Managing Director of Thames Television International; Bob Godfrey, technical and Engineering Director; John Hambley, Planning and Development Director; and John O’Keefe, Industrial Relations Director, with Ben Marr continuing as Company Secretary.

All the promotions involved in these moves, and those immediately resulting from them, are internal appointments from among our existing management. At the same time, we have begun to make structural changes to our departmental system where we think them necessary. Current Affairs and Documentaries have now been split, for example, into two different departments under Mike Wooller and Peter Pagnamenta. Further changes will follow, including the establishment of the ambitious Regional News Unit about which the Managing Director writes elsewhere.

NEW POLICIES ARE EMERGING at Thames, for example, in relation to sport and to filmed programmes. When Rediffusion Television, the pioneer London weekday contractor, was merged by the Authority with ABC Television, the weekend contractor for the North and Midlands, then dominating the Saturday/Sunday afternoon audiences, LWT took over ABC’s World of Sport with outstanding success; but no longer can ITV sport be concentrated into the weekend. With such international sports specialists as Bryan Cowgill, Managing Director of Thames, and Paul Fox, Managing Director of Yorkshire, recruited into the Independent Network, there should now be vigorous competition with the BBC on weekday sports coverage and commentaries.

In terms of filmed programmes, and with all the studios of Thames Television now overflowing with both live and videotaped programmes, this company must turn increasingly to the medium of film to augment its programme output. The international success of Sweeney!, in the cinema as well as on television, has proved that British drama series of the highest quality can be filmed entirely on location, and therefore Thames’ subsidiary film company, Euston Films, will extend its production.

Benefiting by all the expertise which has been gained by this company over its busy seven years, Thames Television will now take the further step of making a series of full-length feature films for television. It is hoped to revive and refurbish the reputation of British feature films at their very best, except that these films will not be produced for the cinema, hut for today’s greater audience television.

To the makers of our past and future programmes, and to every member of the staff of Thames Television, I express thanks for a highly successful year, and look forward to another period of exciting progress.

The post Chairman’s statement appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

But even before the Eighties arrive, the next couple of years are crucial to our future. We are faced by the need to secure a new contract from the Independent Broadcasting Authority and to justify its award, before and after the event. We are faced by the prospect that the Government may provide ITV with a second channel, and we must be ready to take the opportunities it would offer. But we recognise equally that this long overdue move might be even further postponed. If it is, we shall have to find other ways to ensure that our talents and energies can range more widely, and improve our service to the public even further.

PROGRAMMES ARE THE KEY to realising these aims. Conceiving programmes, creating programmes, transmitting them, selling them, making them better, bolder and sometimes bigger. So my priority as Managing Director, now and in the future, will be to work with my colleagues to ensure the excellence, invention and effectiveness of our complete range of programme production and scheduling. That process has already begun with a new annual Programme Plan developed with Jeremy Isaacs and his Controllers. The operation of this plan will be the basis of all the company’s future activities. As a result of that plan and its varied programme aspirations, we have a busy and rewarding year in prospect.

OUR NEW STRATEGY includes the development of a stronger, more comprehensive local journalism for our region with the creation of a fully-staffed Regional News Unit. This unit will also, I hope, see the introduction of lightweight electronic newsgatherjng techniques (ENG) which are such an important part of our future broadcasting technology. It will be responsible not only for the daily Thames at 6 but also for lunchtime regional news bulletins and other programmes. We shall also be developing our weekly network current affairs programme into new areas.

We intend to enlarge and improve our range of sports programmes and look afresh at what the viewing public want from sport on television. And we plan to introduce a complete new programme for the afternoon, designed by Thames, which will encompass the current variety of programmes seen during that period on ITV.

IN ADDITION to these extensive new developments we shall continue to concentrate on those areas where we have shown such outstanding success. In light entertainment we shall be producing no less than 70 situation comedies in the year, together with the variety and spectacular shows which have given the department such an unparalleled record. And it is our aim to continue to attract the finest talents in this field, as in others. The main newcomers in light entertainment are already household names: Morecambe & Wise, the record-breaking entertainers who have joined Thames to make television programmes and a feature film; and top DJ Kenny Everett, who will have his own pop music and entertainment show starting in the summer.

THE DRAMA DEPARTMENT will be producing Edward and Mrs Simpson, the story of Edward VIIIs abdication starring Edward Fox and scripted by Simon Raven, together with John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey, ten new plays for peaktime and, I hope, a new run of daytime dramas from Teddington. Euston Films will have a new series of The Sweeney and will begin to work on the first dramatic episodes of Danger UXB, featuring the heroic work of army bomb disposal.

We will have two highly popular and informative series in Botanic Man, David Bellamy’s study of ecology shot on location around the world, and Hollywood, a riveting documentary series about the silent era that gave birth to the world film industry.

I HAVE BEEN QUOTED as saying that the primary aim of a television company is to make fine programmes and that ‘the rest is housekeeping’. I do not underestimate the importance of everything that goes to make up ‘housekeeping’. In addition to Jeremy Isaacs I count myself fortunate to have alongside me controlling these activities Ian Scott, Director of Administration and Finance, whose wide-ranging experience is proving invaluable; a Sales Department under Jim Shaw which is the most effective of its kind in the country; an extremely successful international sales operation led by Muir Sutherland which has trebled Thames’ income from overseas sales in three years; and under Bob Godfrey’s direction a Technical and Engineering Department of high accomplishment and many varied and impressive skills.

Our plans for this coming year will require the cooperation and enthusiasm of staff in all areas and the gradual expansion of our facilities together with the maximum utilisation of existing resources. I know that all will be forthcoming.

I regard it as a privilege, as well as a challenge, to lead the 1750 men and women of Thames in maintaining our standards of excellence in the interest of the public we serve.

The post A message from the Managing Director appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Rainbow, the pre-school children’s programme, has received worldwide praise for its pioneering documentary films for pre-school children. The latest in this occasional series, designed to introduce the youngest viewers to traumatic aspects of growing up, showed the arrival of a new member to the family, in Rainbow Has a New Baby.

‘Rainbow produces another fascinating look at the toddlers this evening. There’s an “ooooh” in every shot as three-year-old Dominic North – a smashing cherub – learns to live with an interloper in the house, his new sister Felicity. There is a great deal of illuminating observation in Charles Warren’s production. These programmes may be aimed at under-fives, but they prove irresistible to adults, too.’

Daily Express

Straight into the London Top Ten in third position, the summer series of Get Some In! continued the success story of Tony Selby and his ‘erks’ from the RAF.

For the first time, marriage guidance counsellors and their clients were filmed in the throes of consultation, in Nick Broomfield’s often disturbing and intimate film Marriage Guidance. Subsequently, he was invited to tour American colleges, to show and talk about the film.

Ken Ashton’s Lonely Hearts portrayed the problems of loneliness in our big cities through the eyes of ten young people, all of them desperate for friendship.

The Ruth Ellis Story, by Chris Goddard, looked back two decades to one of the most controversial postwar murder trials, that of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain.

Frank Cvitanovich combined newsreel film, Japanese propaganda footage and specially-shot material to recreate The Hunting of Force Z, the story of how the Japanese hunted and finally sank the battleships ‘Repulse’ and ‘Prince of Wales’ in 1941. Sir Michael Redgrave was narrator.

Michael Aspel narrated Joan Aiken’s Mice and Mendelson, a lunchtime story series for children about a group of mice and a pony named Mendelson.

Secret experiments in a laboratory lead to a mysterious murder: Whodunnit? asked Jon Pertwee, in the first of a new series of the successful early-evening panel show. Magnus Pyke, Bill Pertwee, Tessa Wyatt, Jimmy Jewell, Connie Booth and Alfred Marks were among the guesting sleuths.

Tom O’Connor, described by The Stage as ‘the sort of compere the old masters at the Palladium would be proud of,’ took the television variety show back to a theatre setting, and straight back to the top of the National Top Twenty with Night Out at the London Casino. With audiences of up to 14¼ million, the show followed the chart-topping format of the established Wednesday at Eight, including the Name That Tune audience contest. Guests in this entertainment highlight for ITVs summer season included Tommy Cooper, Twiggy, Norman Wisdom, Mike and Bernie Winters and Frankie Howerd.

The months between the end of Today, and the start in September of its successor Thames at 6, vacated the 6.00pm slot for new series. Allan Hargreaves turned quizmaster for The London Quiz, in which teams from London schools pitted their knowledge of London, past and present, in a knock-out tournament. Monty Modlyn returned with A Town Called; among the towns he visited were Chatham, Hampstead, Guildford, and Dinard in France. Get Out and Push was a series of half-hour documentaries about ordinary people who are committed to helping others – neither famous nor rich, their only motive being that they want to help. In Mavis, Mavis Nicholson met six people, first in their home and then in the studio, to discuss topics of special interest to them – from Barbara Cartland on girls’ morals, via John Aspinall on the dignity of animals, to John Mortimer pleading for more freedom of choice. And in preparation for the coming soccer season, Brough Scott returned with Sportscene, reviewing London’s sports.

Exactly one year after a chemical cloud escaped from a factory in Seveso, Italy, John Fielding returned to make a shock This Week Special: Seveso, the Poison Cloud. He revealed a state of maladministration which had allowed the poison to continue spreading, while failing to protect the victims of the disaster.

The Miss Thames competition, and sporting events ranging from the Australia versus the Rest of the World Jubilee cricket match, and international soccer with England against Switzerland, to a series of darts matches, were covered by Thames’ Outside Broadcasts cameras in the late summer.

Rolf Harris returned with a new series of Quick on the Draw, and was also one of the guests in The David Nixon Show; others included in David’s guestlist were Ron Moody, Ray Allen and Lord Charles, Diana Dors and Anita Harris.

This Week produced disturbing evidence that 8000 pounds of MUF nuclear material unaccounted for – were potentially on the illegal world arms market. Llew Gardner, joining the programme from Today, reported on a little-aired crisis, that of Quebec nationalism, in The French Disconnection.

Early in 1977, Orient Street, London SE11 was stripped of its television aerials and double yellow lines, as producer Paul Knight transformed it into Dulcimer Street in 1938 – setting for London Belongs to Me, a drama series based on Norman Collins’ internationally best-selling novel about London and Londoners during the early years of World War II. Derek Farr, Madge Ryan, Patricia Hayes, Peter Jeffrey and Terence Budd starred.

‘Few successful novels become successful TV series. The Thames adaptation of Norman Collins’ best-selling novel London Belongs to Me looks like the exception. Collins’ wry sympathy with his characters has been skilfully transferred to the TV series by writer Hugh Leonard and producer Paul Knight. There are excellent performances by Terence Budd as Percy Boon, Peter Jeffrey as Mr Squales and Patricia Hayes as Connie Coke.’

Sunday Times

‘A long overdue recognition of sub-Dickensian literary artifact that is made for television. It has a large cast of fascinating characters – what the trade calls a “human story.”. Hugh Leonard sticks close to the novel, stressing the essential “ordinariness” of Collins’ extraordinary people, with every part a cameo and every cameo well carved in sharp relief. The design and mise-en-scene are admirable and the direction efficiently unobtrusive.’

Broadcast

‘What’s different about this telly period drama is that it’s funny – which period dramas, in general, are not. The series is as tasty, and nutty, as a fruitcake.’

Daily Mirror

Two years after it began as a five-minute insert. Help! became a daily programme in September, expanding from volunteer recruitment to include information on health, employment and welfare rights. By Christmas over 15,000 enquiries were received by the programme, many requesting specially-produced publications: ‘Help Yourself to London,’ a listing of facilities and opportunities for pensioners produced in co-operation with Age Concern (Greater London), was sent to 8,000 viewers. Gordon Honeycombe read the news in Hindustani (illustrating the language problems of home-hound Asian women), Cilia Black spoke about losing her baby, and Instant Sunshine even sang a special song on curing the Christmas hangover, as Help! used different forms of presentation to illustrate their topics. The year of Help! ended with an appeal for wool and unwanted woollens to make patchwork blankets – a mile-long strip of wool and 5,000 jumpers were the result.

This Week returned to Ireland, with a remarkable secret film made in the Maze prison, and an investigation into the RUC’s interrogation techniques; while at home, Peter Williams reported on the threat of a footballers’ strike.

Michael Robbins, Nigel Lambert, Mike Savage and Lynda Bellingham starred as the hilariously ineffective crime-fighting force of a small, outer London police station in The Fuzz, a new situation comedy by ‘Budgie’ creator Willis Hall.

Six months in the making on location in Amsterdam, Euston Films’ new production of Van der Valk went straight into the Network Top Ten, and quickly found a permanent place there with up to 14¼ million viewers. Barry Foster returned as the Dutch detective, joined by a new wife, Joanna Dunham and Nigel Stock as his police boss. Multiple car chases, dramatic effects and stunts injected Euston Films’ trademark of high action into the already familiar character and format. ‘Mike Vardy’s direction is quite exceptional’ the Daily Express reported on the first episode; ‘the series serves a very unusual place in the area of the TV sleuth. It is unorthodox and full of extremely good performances, with Barry Foster filling the bill completely’

Half a million sales of Rainbows, packs designed to reflect the Rainbow series, were topped during 1977. Sold in 23 countries, these have proved Thames’ most successful programme-related publishing venture, and in August a similar series of activity packs relating to Magpie were also launched. Other merchandise in the year ranged from jigsaws based on Cosgrove Hall’s cartoon series, to a silver disc for the Rock Follies of ’77 record.

The post Summer programmes appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

‘In the first “This Sporting Land” Wynford Vaughan Thomas gives a witty, learned and thoroughly enjoyable account of the history and current idiosyncrasies of cricket. It’s a gem of a programme and will beguile even the most fervent disliker of the game’

Sunday Times

‘The narration, by Wynford Vaughan Thomas, is a mixture of acid, irony, mockery and straight reportage. Each programme will certainly hold the attention. They are entertaining, informative and humorous!’

Times Educational Supplement

ON 12 SEPTEMBER THAMES LAUNCHED TWO MAJOR NEW DAILY PROGRAMMES,
THAMES AT 6 AND AFTER NOON

Former ITN newscaster Andrew Gardner introduced Thames at 6, a 6.00pm report on London and its day. The production was structured to bring more hard, regional news coverage, and more deeply probing investigations, to the traditional Today function. Within the first month these aims began to be realised, with interviews with Jim Slater and the Minister for Health, special investigations into the Luton murder and the drug Primados, and on the lighter side, Kenny Everett’s zany music reviews hinted at what is to come when Kenny;s own series starts on Thames during 1978.

‘The word has clearly gone out that no-one is going to be allowed to get away with anything. The brief bursts of questioning are ultra-tough. (The first week has) managed already by turns to illuminate, to irritate and to celebrate’

Times

After Noon was a recasting of its successful predecessor Good Afternoon, broadening the outlook from traditional women’s subjects’ to greater coverage of the arts, politics, education, medicine and social questions, alongside the personality interviews and magazine features.

In its first weeks, After Noon went on location with reports on the Tate Gallery’s ‘Save the Stubbs’ campaign (with an interview with Arts Minister Lord Donaldson), and on life in high rise blocks. Personality interviews included Mary Parkinson with Pierre Cardin, Judith Chalmers with James Herriot, Elaine Grand meeting Lord Shinwell, Mavis Nicholson holding the first-ever TV interview with current pop sensation Elvis Costello, followed shortly by Morecambe and Wise.

Straight into the national ratings in second place, John Alderton’s first situation comedy series for Thames, The Upchat Line, revolved around Mike Upchat, a freewheeling man about town. ‘We don’t know what he does for a living,’ Alderton explained. ‘Sometimes he says he’s a writer but at other times he claims to be anything from a psychologist to a piano tuner.’

‘The Upchat Line, written by Keith Waterhouse and featuring John Alderton, marks something of a welcome and enterprising departure from the old routine. For this is comedy refined down to a quieter, more relaxed level with some nicely polished lines doing the work of the usual mad antics, and a real star performance from one of the best light comedy actors around today. It is all done with great panache and style, with Mr Alderton giving a deceptively easy performance, casually putting together all the little bits of business, and underplaying and drawling his lines but timing everything with split second precision.

Mr Waterhouse has put together a script tailored to suit him to perfection, and also to provide Thames with a fresh and obviously rewarding range of comedy.’

Daily Telegraph

‘Hilarious new comedy series in which John Alderton proves his comic talent as a would-be writer who spends most of his life trying to find somewhere to lay his head – and his birds. Looks very promising (though not for the husbands!).’

Sunday Mirror

After a summer trip to Spain filming inserts for future programmes, Magpie returned with a new presenter to join the team of Jenny Hanley and Mick Robertson: 24-year-old ex-LBC news director Tommy Boyd, selected from 2,000 applicants. Here’s how the London Evening News welcomed the programme back:

‘The most entertaining and informative children’s programme on television is Magpie, on Thames. Jenny Hanley is extremely attractive and has a presence and authority that enthralls the children. The producers go to remarkable lengths and not a little expense in bringing strange and unusual items to the programme, and whether the kiddies realise ft or not, they are being educated as well as entertained. Magpie is an intelligent show, and also has a fine record in obtaining money for children’s charities.’

Evening News

Originally made as a schools programme, Superman and the Bride’s outspoken survey of how we are conditioned by the media (especially television and film) reached the adult audience in October. Its blend of documentary and revue was described as ‘a refreshing TV breakthrough’ by the Daily Mail.

‘Eight years of the average viewer’s life is spent in front of the box. In that time each one should be forced to spend forty-five minutes watching Superman and the Bride for it is the most intelligent and important appraisal yet produced of the images fed to us by the mass media.’

TimeOut

‘As one of the vox pop interviewees said, you’ve got to overstate a case to make it effectively, and this was the jolliest, zippiest overstatement of a case that badly needs making – energetically, and again and again. It could well prompt further pieces of televisual self-scrutiny. It was itself replete with delicious ironies, notably its unabashed use of advertising techniques as a way of attacking advertising techniques, and also its mere presence on our screens – which is living proof that the “system” can be penetrated.’

The Times

A television appearance by Tommy Steele is a rare event, and to celebrate his twenty-first year in showbusiness (Tommy’s first hit, ‘Rock With the Caveman’, coincided with the first year of ITV) he came to Thames for Tommy Steele and a Show. It was a mammoth production, with producer/director Keith Beckett pulling every trick from videotape technology, to interpret the ‘Show’ as devised by Tommy and written by Eric Merriman. For an hour of music, dance and magic effects, Tommy Steele held the spotlight, and more than 14 million people watched the programme.

‘This in one of the very best light entertainment shows I’ve seen on television. Apart from its star – the eternally appealing Tommy who celebrates his 21st year in show business – the programme uses the latest electronic devices for some stunning visual effects, has all the slick glamour and razmatazz of a Hollywood musical, and imaginative, precision, ballet routines worthy of a Busby Berkeley film’

Daily Express

‘Give ’em the old razzle-dazzle’ sang the star on ITV’s Tommy Steele and a Show, and he certainly did. During his all-singing, all-dancing special it was hard to realise that Tommy was celebrating his 21st year in show business.

With his boyish exuberance and appealing charisma, Tommy delivered a delightful hour of sheer escapism, a welcome opportunity for us to sit back and enjoy his wide-ranging talents’

Evening News

Drama Controller Verity Lambert personally produced The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn’s West End stage sensation which, according to the Daily Mail, ‘transferred superbly from stage to television’. 11 million viewers shared the disastrous weekend of family argument, which was directed by Herbert Wise as three two-hour plays.

‘The Norman Conquests was a triumph and a treat, Alan Ayckbourn’s tragi-comic trilogy being not only funny but graced by universally accomplished performances. Tom Conti was allowed to let off the fireworks, so to speak, as Norman. But he was matched by Richard Briers’ Reg, often speaking volumes with a soundless double-take; or Penelope Keith, Fiona Walker and Penelope Wilton as the women. Not forgetting David Troughton, in making a gormless bore into a believable, even fascinating person. Just as the action moved from room to room, so the focus shifted, play by play, to different characters, none of whom gave short measure.

A Rolls-Royce of a project, coachbuilt and splendidly engineered.’

Daily Mail

‘The Norman Conquests must be one of the best and funniest things on screen. It justified ITV’s bold decision to give it a total of six hours peak viewing. The plays explore the same weekend in the life of a bickering family from three different viewpoints in witty dialogue as well-honed as a surgeon’s scalpel.’

The Daily Mirror

1976 had marked a unique achievement by Thames when both the drama and documentary Prix Italia awards were won by, respectively, The Naked Civil Servant and Beauty, Bonny, Daisy, Violet, Grace and Geoffrey Morton. In 1977, a clean sweep of this international event was completed, when the third category, music, came to Thames for the St Nicolas Cantata. Benjamin Britten’s musical setting of the Father Christmas story was recorded on location at St Albans’ Cathedral and first transmitted at Christmas 1976.

Meanwhile, the Royal Television Society voted Nick Downie News Feature Cameraman of the year for his This Week programme, ‘War in the Sahara’ – the fourth consecutive year that This Week had won an RTS award.

In October Outside Broadcasts covered the Britannia Awards, the first British awards for popular music, featuring several major acts headed by the reunited Simon and Garfunkel. OBs followed a different kind of entertainment award hunt in the series of Pub Entertainer of the Year, hosted by Frank Carson, which ended in December with 14 million viewers watching the grand final. The England v Italy World Cup soccer match at Wembley was screened to 16 million viewers. Preceding Thames’ match coverage, Sportscene flew Italy’s Giorgio Chinaglia from America to preview the game prospects with Bobby Moore, Terry Venables and other experts.

Vince Powell’s situation comedy Odd Man Out introduced John Inman as fish-and-chip shop owner Neville Sutcliffe, who inherits half of a stick-rock factory in Sussex. Josephine Tewson played his step-sister and factory co-owner, Dorothy, who shared the problems, arguments and laughs of running the business.

To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the USSR, Thames transmitted Hammer and Sickle, an intensively researched history from the 1917 Revolution through the stormy decades of Lenin, Stalin and Krushchev to the present. Producer Martin Smith traced many unique pieces of film of Stalin’s terror chief Beria, of life inside a gulag, of the Czech invasion as filmed by the Russian troops. The two-hour production was written by Neal Ascherson and narrated by Paul Scofield.

Denis Norden returned for the seventh series of Looks Familiar in October. One of daytime television’s most popular programmes, guests for the new series included Tony Curtis, Charlie Drake, Annie Ross, John Junkin, Elaine Stritch and Michael Parkinson.

As ITV’s schools programming entered its third decade, Thames, the single biggest contributor to the network, launched two major new strands to the curriculum. French Studies, for 13- to 16-year-olds, began with five documentaries on aspects of French life, and a series of actuality film sequences shot in France. The English Programme presented new two-part productions of outstanding, published TV plays – Julia Jones’ ‘The Piano’, and Barry Hines’ ‘Speech Day’, followed by a film documentary on the work of Barry Hines. Both programmes were designed to run through a full year’s course, unlike the normal single-term compass of television school’s programming.

‘Ask a friend whether he watched the first Time for Business and before you can add “Pretty much like the other business programmes” he forestalls you with wildly enthusiastic praise of – say – the section on franchising, pointing out how highly original it was,’ wrote Chris Dunkley in the Financial Times. Not to be like the other comparable programmes was important in formulating Time for Business. Eamonn Andrews was a presenter for the layman, not the expert. He explained: ‘people are becoming more sophisticated about the uses of their own money and want to understand what makes the world of business tick. My job, with expert back-up, is to understand that myself, because if I do, so will the ordinary viewer.’

Broadcast live, the programmes gave an hour of film report and studio presentation of business, manufacturing, and the city. Alongside news, information and advice for the big and small investor alike, a more important, broader aim was access to the world of business – ’Allow us into your boardrooms and factories,’ producer James Butler said in a launch speech to high-ranking businessmen. ‘I would like to see us become as familiar a sight around the businesses of Britain as television is at football matches.’ Among those present was Sir Charles Forte who responded, ‘I think Eamonn Andrews will make people watch. There’s an aura of the unknown about business which I think he can break down. If the programme can show how good relationships in business generally are, that will be a great achievement.’

Time for Business was launched with a ‘development capital competition’, designed to illustrate the investment problems of small businesses. The programme offered to make available up to £250,000 for the best investment proposal submitted. The range of responses has already been enormous, from a new glass-lining process for furnaces, to a design for a racing cycle, to a methodist minister who wants to build a new church. So far, audiences have averaged ¾ million – more than the combined daily circulation of the Guardian and Times.

‘Proof positive that money programmes need not be above the heads of the ordinary viewer.’

The Times

There was a stir in the sixteenth, final series of Opportunity Knocks! when Hughie Green introduced a contestant with his face masked by a paper bag. It was explained that this was a one-time teenage idol who now preferred anonymity. He turned out to be P J Proby who was voted into second place by the viewers.

Prince Charles donned a Magpie badge when he was filmed with Mick Robertson at Dunraven Castle in Wales. He joined in the work of a group of Cardiff children, who are clearing waste land for a country park under the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Fund. The 1977 Magpie Christmas appeal for children with brittle bones ran through December and topped the record figure of £250,000.

Thames at 6‘s investigation unit discovered two identical pairs of boots in neighbouring West End shops – also they found a threefold difference in price. For three days the programme pursued the investigation. On the third day, a public apology admitted the expensive boots had been overpriced. They were finally on sale at a fifth of their original price.

Wednesday at Eight‘s winter run jumped into the charts in fifth position. With guest stars like Frankie Vaughan and Max Bygraves, the ratings steadily increased, to settle in December to a regular Network audeince of 18 million.

West German terrorism, secret film of Chile under Pinochet, and reports from Spain and Portugal were covered by This Week towards the year’s end. ‘A Miserable and Lonely Death,’ This Week’s scoop reconstruction of the Steve Biko inquest, was widely praised and has since been adapted for stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company with Ian McKellen in the main role.

Thames made a large contribution to ITV’s post-Christmas holiday entertainment. Max’s Holiday Hour brought Max Bygraves, Lena Zavaroni and Charlie Cairoli to an audience of nearly 15 millions, and there were two innovative musical pairings when Vera Lynn joined George Shearing, and Peggy Lee shared the spotlight with Charles Aznavour. The Queen’s Racehorses, on Boxing Day, was a totally informal film portrait of H.M. the Queen, talking about and seen with the horses she so loves.

Repeats of Man About the House had regularly topped the ratings during the summer, and the programme’s first offshoot George and Mildred jumped back into the Top Five with a new series, again starring Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce. With audiences as high as 19.7 million, it was the most popular comedy series on British television in 1977.

‘The funniest and best socially observed comedy of the year’

‘As long as the stars retain their enthusiasm and the writers keep up the mixture of crisp one-liners. cross-purposes encounters and an undercurrent of mild sauciness … it could run for years.’

Daily Mail

‘With a splendidly direct approach, the series has a commendable lack of coyness,’ the Daily Mirror commented on the late-night Problems. Jenny Conway and Tony Bastable were the reporters, on adult sexual problems.

The green, furry, multi-legged Wotsit from Whizzbang made his TV debut in Rainbow, where his zany, fantastic adventures proved so popular that in November he began his own children’s series. Joe Lynch narrated Samantha Lee’s stories.

Michael Whyte, a new director to Thames’ documentary department, spent eighteen months investigating the nationwide problem of Britain’s violent and severely disordered children. The result was a disturbing, at times shocking trilogy of films. 17-year-old Billy was on trial for grievous bodily harm when the first film was made; Jimmy has been in care since the age of twelve, when he attacked his mother with a bread knife; and the third film, Aycliffe, visited a treatment centre for extremely disordered children.

‘Do you like hitting people Jimmy?’
‘If they deserve it, yeah.’
‘Do you ever hit your friends?’
‘If they shout “Chelsea!” or things like that.’
‘But why?’
‘Because there’s nothing else to do these days, is there?’

15-year-old ‘Jimmy,’ the subject of the second of three films on violent children.

John Thaw and Dennis Waterman’s first Sweeney film earned them both awards, as best actor and most promising male newcomer respectively, in the Evening News Film Awards, covered for ITV by Thames. 1978 will see the fourth, final TV series of The Sweeney, and also the second Sweeney feature film.

The post Autumn programmes appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

• Today
• This Week
• People & Politics
• Time For Business
• Thames at 6
• London Looks Forward
  • The Living City
  • The Future City
• Documentaries
  • Hazlitt in Love
  • The Gospel According To St Michael
  • Walt Disney (2 programmes)
  • Marriage Guidance
  • Lonely Hearts
  • The Ruth Ellis Story
  • The Hunting of Force Z
  • Hammer & Sickle
  • Billy
  • Jimmy
  • Aycliffe

OUTSIDE BROADCASTS

• Series
  • Drive In
  • A Town Called
  • Kitchen Garden
  • Wish You Were Here…?
  • Pub Entertainer of the Year
• Sport
  • Darts
  • Horse Racing from Sandown, Newmarket, Epsom, Lingfield
  • Football (7 matches, including 4 internationals)
  • Sportscene
  • Wrestling
• Events
  • Jubilee Flower Show
  • Miss Thames
  • Astrology
  • Model Railway Exhibition
  • Nurse of the Year
  • Variety Club Lunch
  • Evening Standard Drama Awards
  • Evening News Film Awards
  • Royal Film Performance
  • Great British Achievements
  • Chipperfield’s Circus (Easter and Christmas)
  • The Motor Show
  • Britannia Awards
  • The Loyal Address

LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

• Specials
  • The Benny Hill Show
  • TV Times Top Ten Awards
  • The Eric Sykes Show
  • Bruce and More Girls
  • The Peggy Lee Show
  • Max Bygraves’ Christmas Show
  • Vera Lynn Sings
• Series
  • David Nixon Show
  • Looks Familiar
  • Opportunity Knocks
  • This is Your Life
  • Whose Baby?
  • Whodunnit?
  • Wednesday at Eight
  • The Tom O’Connor Show
  • The Little and Large Tellyshow
  • Night Out at The London Casino
• Comedy Series
  • Odd Man Out
  • Get Some In
  • George and Mildred
  • What’s On Next?
  • Paradise Island
  • Miss Jones & Son
  • The Fuzz
  • The Upchat Line

CHILDREN’S

• Pre-School Learning
  • Rainbow
  • Rainbow Has A Baby
• General Interest
  • Magpie
  • Fanfare
  • Somersault to Moscow (Magpie Special)
  • …And I Write Music (Magpie Special)
• Drama
  • The Tomorrow People
  • Horse in The House
• Animation Series
  • Jamie and The Magic Torch
  • Chorlton and The Wheelies
• Entertainment
  • Michael Bentine’s Potty Time
  • Sooty
• Pre-School Entertainment
  • And Maisy Too
  • Mice and Mendelson
  • The Wotsit From Whizz-Bang

FEATURES, EDUCATION AND RELIGION

• Features
  • After Noon
  • Mavis
  • Money-Go-Round
  • London Scene
  • Superman & The Bride
  • The Story of Job
  • Problems
  • Help!
  • Our School and Hard Times
• Education
  • Seeing and Doing
  • Finding Out
  • The World Around Us
  • Writer’s Workshop
  • The English Programme
  • French Studies
  • It’s Life
  • It’s More Life
  • London: The Making of a City
• Adult Education
  • Could Do Better?
  • This Sporting Land
• Religion
  • Get Out and Push
  • Close
  • Christmas Pie
  • Drawing to an End
  • Faith In Place: Matt’s Place
  • Christmas Special
  • A Matter of Morals
  • St Nicolas Cantata

DRAMA

• Serial
  • Rooms – 61 episodes
• Series
  • Romance – 5 episodes
  • Rock Follies of ’77 – 7 episodes
  • London Belongs To Me – 7 episodes
  • The Norman Conquests
    • Table Manners
    • Living Together
    • Round & Round The Garden
• Film Series
  • The Sweeney
  • Van Der Valk
• Plays For Britain
  • Cork & Bottle
  • Last Summer
  • It’s Only Rock ’n Roll
  • The Proofing Session
  • Not Quite Cricket

The post The programme year 1977 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.