Keeping one eye on the sky, another underground and both feet planted on the floor is a good trick if you can do it. And that is exactly how Thames Television International is exploiting the rich income promised by new television technology.

The sky eye is on the lookout for broadcast satellites, the underground eye for cable connections, and the firmly-planted feet are vital for anyone who wants to understand and explore the coming revolution in the way viewers use their television sets.

There are three potential rivals to the TV companies who at present dominate the airwaves. The first, video, is with us right now. Nearly a million British homes already possess a videotape recorder which gives them access not only to off-air programmes but a large and growing catalogue of pre-recorded films, music shows, look-and-learn cassettes and golden oldie television material.

The second threat comes from Direct Broadcast Satellites (hereafter called DBS). In America, satellites are already beaming programmes to local cable operators who pipe pictures to subscribers. And if the cash and the political consensus can be found, there could be a DBS perched above every country in Europe by 1990.

Cable itself is the third strand. Once again America leads the way, mainly because the cable was needed to improve signal quality. But now, many entrepreneurs provide viewers with an alternative service to the major networks, and American subscribers can buy anything from month-old movies to ‘live’ sex-shows from companies offering up to 50 different channels at the touch of a button.

Britain, of course, is a long way off that stage, and the initial demand for cable might be rather limited. But if the forthcoming experiments in a number of areas already cabled up are successful, fibre optic ‘narrow-casters’ could soon be spreading their tentacles under every street in the land.

If that happens, the search for programming to fill the new hours will be on, and indeed in America, the hue and cry is already at fever pitch.

So instead of fighting the alternative invaders, TTI has concluded that it is healthier to join them, and Thames material is already finding its way into the new markets.

Mike Phillips, who is TTI’s Controller of Commercial Development explains. ‘We’re already deeply involved in video, partly through the High Street outlets of our parent companies, Thorn-EMI and Rediffusion. There are now nine Thames titles in the EMI Video list, and they include Botanic Man, Swan Lake, The World At War and Kenny Everett. There’s a Benny Hill compilation, the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Shows from 1978 and 1980, some marvellous gymnastics, and the first of Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests plays trilogy, which Thames screened a while back. There’s obviously a great deal more in the pipeline, now that ITV has reached agreement over royalty payments with the talent unions.’

Much of this material will also find itself spinning profits at the rate of 700 revs per minute, when the video disc joins the battle next autumn.

Discs can be stamped in bulk much more cheaply than tape (which has to be run off in ‘real time’). They can provide stereo sound, and their 54,000 picture frames per disc can store vast amounts of information. On the other hand, they can’t record, and two, (possibly three) incompatible systems are already vying for market share.

Two systems – Philips’ Laser Vision and the VHD disc made by JVC and adopted by Thorn-EMI – use a hard-wearing groove less disc while RCA have developed a cheaper, less-sophisticated disc not unlike a conventional audio LP in appearance. All three are about the size of an ordinary record, played on machines no bigger than a music centre. The players will sell for between £350 and £5(M), and the discs for around £15.

The Thorn-EMI/Rediffusion connections will ensure Thames a prominent place in the market. When launch day comes next year, Everett, Bellamy & Co will be on show in up to 7,000 rental and retail outlets in the chain of wholly-owned or contracted Thorn-EMI and Rediffusion shops featuring the new VHD disc system. But, says Phillips, Thames material is also available to distributors using the other disc formats, so TTI hope for massive penetration of the new markets as soon as the discs hit the High Street.

As for satellites, Muir Sutherland (TTI’s Managing Director) is still fairly sceptical. ‘The DBS is still a long way off in Britain and Europe and it will take a lot of political will to persuade governments that foreign-owned satellites should be allowed to invade their broadcasting airspace.’

‘And I’m not sure how many viewers will want to spend the money for the big dish aerials; there are still many technical problems in providing a reliable service. Satellites are going to be far more valuable as a means of distributing material to cable operators, as in America.’ Joe McCann (TTI’s Controller of Television Sales) and Don Taffner (their US Representative), have created a lot of interest in these new outlets for Thames programming. They’re finalising sales of Benny Hill to Home Box Office, Napoleon and Love and Swan Lake to CBS, Warner Amex are buying The Tomorrow People for their children’s channel, and other very large deals are close to completion.

‘We think Thames has a huge stockpile of material to offer the new cable operations,’ says Joe, ‘and they are also keen to bring their projects to us as well.’

All sorts of joint-production possibilities are opened to Thames International. But says Mike Phillips, ‘We musn’t get it out of perspective. Co-financing never covers the actual cost of making a programme, but it does help offset the cost and it might help us to go ahead with projects we couldn’t afford on our own.’

In the meantime, TTI is looking at all the new American cable operations and selling appropriate programmes where it can. Thames was offered an exclusive deal with one organisation, much like the deal the BBC has just made with RCTV. one of the cable newcomers, but as TTI already earns more from the USA than the recorded BBC annual guarantee, it prefers to play the field and exploit different markets in different ways.

As Muir Sutherland says, ‘We’re delighted that the BBC have agreed to enter into an exclusive deal in the USA, if only because it means that the other channels can’t get their hands on BBC programmes, and puts us in a stronger position.’

The post The sky’s the limit appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

D Day help for Staff

For some people the first sign that decimalisation was with us came with the arrival of the Jictar Report for the week ending 10 January. The cost per thousands, previously expressed in shillings, were in new pence.

Sales Department and their clients are already getting used to the new type of information. Example: a 30 second commercial slotted at the end of This Is Your Life on 6 January reached 1,920,000 homes in the London ITV area at a cost per thousand of 83 new pence (previous cost per ’000 would actually have been 16/7d but rounded up in the ‘old’ reports to 17/-).

For most of us Decimalisation is still something to be grappled with.

D Day, Monday 15 February, is however only a fortnight away, and Chief Accountant Max Lawson and his department are making their final preparations in a process of changeover and indoctrination that has been going on for almost two years.

Change Stations

One move will affect us all. From Monday 15 February, our restaurants, bars and trolleys will only accept the new decimal coins. This will avoid confusion and cut down delays in service. But to make purchases easier for the staff, Accounts Department is establishing a number of ‘change stations’ at crucial points. Old pence and threepenny pieces may be changed in multiples of 6d or 1/- for the new 2½p or 5p coins.

The change stations will be located at the following places:

Teddington

Chief Cashier’s office during normal working hours. Reception desk in the main hall during normal working hours. The ground floor of the Restaurant from 12 noon to 2 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

Euston

The Petty Cashier’s office (3rd Floor) during normal working hours. The Reception desk in the main hall during normal working hours. The cafeteria from 12 noon to 2 p.m. daily from Monday to Friday.

Hanworth

Mrs. Luccarini will change old pence for new during normal working hours.

Thames to screen next moon walk

Apollo 14 is due to land on the moon on the morning of Friday 5 February, and the astronauts will attempt a moon walk that afternoon. The team at ITN Moonbase will be Alastair Burnet, Peter Fairley, Paul Haney, Dr. Robert Jastrow, Head of the U.S. Institute of Space Studies, and Sqdn./Ldr. Gordon Sharp, of the Institute of Aviation Medicine at RAF Farnborough. Robert Hargreaves will be at Houston Space Centre in America.

Thames will be screening the moonlanding at 8.00 am and the moon walk at 2.30 pm and 6.30 pm. During these transmissions viewers will be able to telephone the ITN Moonbase on a special hot-line to the studio to have their questions answered on-air by experts.

Look-In off to good start

The first two issues of Look-in, the new Junior TV Times which went on sale earlier this month, were a virtual sellout. Alan Fennell, the new paper’s editor, reports preliminary figures of 470,000 and 435,000 for numbers one and two respectively. Both issues were supported with strong Magpie give-aways (cardboard models of the studio and production team). Each issue will feature Magpie, and Wreckers at Deadeye is being serialised during the first six weeks.

Thames on SFTA short-list

Magpie, The Benny Hill Show, Writer’s Workshop and producer Reg Collin have all reached the short-list of nominations for the 1970 Society of Film and Television Arts Awards.

Benny Hill has been short-listed for the Light Entertainment award; Magpie and Writer’s Workshop as two of four official ITV entries for the Rediffusion Star Award for children’s programmes, and Callan producer Reg Collin for the Producer/Director Production Award. This is the second year running that both Magpie and Reg Collin have reached the finals in their respective categories. The awards will remain a secret until 4 March when the winners will be announced at an Awards Ball at the Royal Albert Hall.

Top Ten and Twenty

The JICTAR figures for the first two weeks of the new year (ending 17 January) show that Granada jumped ahead of Thames into second place – a position which we occupied throughout the last 9 weeks of 1970. Top Twenty positions to date are: BBC with 11 programmes, Granada 9, Thames 7, ITN 6, Yorkshire 5 and LWT 3.

In London we maintained our lead in the list of the Top Ten programmes screened in the area (Thames 13, LWT and BBC 7 each), but lost our lead to the BBC in the table of the top ten originated programmes. Figures for this chart were: BBC with 7 places, LWT 6 and Thames 5.

In the Top Twenty chart for week ending 17 January, This Is Your Life was the highest Thames entry (equal third with 7-85 million network homes). Man At The Top leapt up 9 places from the previous week to 9 with 7.35 million homes and Shadows Of Fear entered the chart for the first time at 12 with 7.10 million homes.

Emergency measures for GPO strike

Special arrangements during the postal strike have been made by Teddington and Hanworth Manager Ken Pike. They include special delivery to all ITA premises and stations, all ITV companies and the Independent Television Companies Association, all advertising agencies, Post Office Telecommunications HQ and the Post Office Tower, Rediffusion Television and EMI. Urgent mail for overseas is also being accepted.

The company’s despatch riders are continuing to carry out their normal duties and in addition are also delivering important letters which would normally go by post.

All other post is being held by the secretaries in each department, to avoid a pile-up in the Post Room.

Postal Supervisor Bert Short and Travel Officer Don Heaven report “no panic and no problems to date.”

Previews at NFT2

After almost two years of research and filming, Till I End My Song will be seen on the network at 9.00 pm on Tuesday 16 February. It will be previewed at the National Film Theatre’s No. 2 cinema on 11 February. Written and produced by Jeremy Isaacs and directed by David Gill, this documentary records the sights and sounds of the Thames. It looks at the varied activities of the people whose lives centre around the river – from swan-upping to garbage disposal. It is the first Thames programme to be shown in the new peak time documentary slot of 9.00 pm.

Early in March the exciting Thames documentary exclusive on the ascent of Annapurna’s south face will also be previewed at NFT2. The programme, The Hardest Way Up, will be seen on the network on 16 March at 9.00 pm.

New officers sought for Club Committee

The Annual General Meeting and Elections of the Club will be held on Monday 1 February at 6.30 pm in the Teddington restaurant. Neither Club Chairman Ron Walsby nor Secretary Bernard Burke are standing for re-election. Urgent nominations are required for these posts and the rest of the committee.

The Club Committee is responsible for the Club bars (opening hours, service, prices, catering, etc.) and various social activities during the year. It is important therefore that as many as possible vote at Monday’s AGM.

The post Newsletter – 29 January 1971 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

The post Thames – Adverts & Continuity – 1980 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

The Prix Italia Presented by RAI, Italy’s public broadcasting organization, the Prix Italia has been described by The Times as ‘the most honoured prize a programme can receive. Awarded in three categories, drama, documentary and music, the Prix Italia generates fierce competition among the world’s programme producers. Thames is the only ITV company to have won the Prix Italia in all three categories.

• 1972 We Was All One Best Documentary
• 1976 The Naked Civil Servant Best Drama
• 1976 Beauty, Bonnie, Daisy, Violet, Grace and Geoffrey Morton Best Documentary
• 1977 St. Nicolas Cantata Best Music Programme
• 1980 Creggan Best Documentary

The Prix Jeunesse Equal in stature to the Prix Italia, the Prix Jeunesse is awarded solely to children’s programmes.

• 1972 Magpie – My Brother David UNICEF Prize
• 1974 Magpie – Like Ordinary Children
• 1982 The Pied Piper of Hamelin

The Emmy Award The Emmy is America’s top television award. It is given in two categories: the national Emmy (for programmes transmitted in that year on American television); and the international Emmy, awarded to programmes made outside the United States of America.

• 1974 The World at War National Emmy for ‘outstanding documentary achievements in programmes dealing with artistic, historic or cultural subjects.’
• 1976 Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill National Emmy for ‘outstanding achievement in costume design for a drama series.’
• 1976 The Naked Civil Servant International Emmy for ‘outstanding achievement in entertainment programming.’
• 1979 Palestine National Emmy for ‘outstanding programme achievement.’
• 1980 Edward and Mrs. Simpson National Emmy for ‘outstanding limited series’

BAFTA Awards The British Association of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) are Britain’s answer to the American Oscars for outstanding achievements in film and television production.

• 1972 The Benny Hill Show Best light entertainment programme
• 1975 Beauty, Bonnie, Daisy, Violet, Grace and Geoffrey Morton Best factual programme
• 1977 Rock Follies Best drama series/serial
• 1979 Edward & Mrs. Simpson Best drama series/serial
• 1979 The Kenny Everett Video Show Best light entertainment programme
• 1982 The Pied Piper of Hamelin Best children’s programme

The post Programmes that win awards appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Thames Television International, the company’s subsidiary for overseas distribution, maintains a network of agents across the globe. It participates in all the important international television festivals, and even runs one of its own, The London Screenings, which regularly draws nearly two hundred delegates to London from countries as far apart as Rumania and Hong Kong.

Thames International is also a major distributor of programmes from other producers, and has achieved further successes with versions of British programmes for the American market. For example, Thames International re-edited Benny Hill’s shows into half hours specifically for the American market with the result that he has become a cult for viewers from coast to coast. Similarly the situation comedies Man About The House and Keep It In The Family have been developed in new US versions achieving top ratings such as ‘Three’s Company’ and ‘Too Close For Comfort.’

Technological advance, bringing new media like cable TV, video discs and cassettes, means that there is always a new market for programmes from Thames, and nowhere more than in Britain’s growing home video market. Since March 1981, when Thames Video began operations, videocassettes including The Royal Wedding, The Benny Hill Show, Kenny Everett, The World at War and The Naked Civil Servant have made a considerable impact. And worldwide, Thames videocassettes are securing the high reputation for quality that is already associated with Thames programmes.

Thames also has a considerable interest in publishing, largely but not entirely as a follow-up and reinforcement of Thames on-air output. Books like The World at War and The Troubles make the information presented in the series available to the interested viewer in more detail; in the same way, Thames published Rainbow stories and Theatre Box plays for children.

The post Selling the 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.

In 1977 Thames Television International, already established among the world’s top ten sellers of TV programmes, achieved two major landmarks. For the first time, more than one hundred countries now see Thames programmes. And with gross sales of over £3 million, the resulting profit from overseas sales has now topped £1 million.

In other innovatory areas too, 1977 was a year of firsts for Thames International:

AMERICA. The most successful new series on the American Networks during 1977 was Three’s Company, derived from Thames’ Man About the House. ABC purchased the programme format, which was adapted for American viewers by the top writing team of Nicholl, Ross and West. The first series in March was quickly established in the Nielson Top Ten, playing opposite ‘Hawaii Five-O’, and with the second autumn series regularly placed in the nation’s top three programmes, Three’s Company promises to repeat the success of its Thames predecessor. International distribution for the American series was retained by Thames, and with sales from Canada to Australia (and Britain) already achieved, Three’s Company will be one of Thames’ biggest international properties during 1978. And in South America Thames comedy made its debut when Man About The House was sold to Brazil.

EUROPE. Thames programmes are now familiar to European televiewers (16 countries in Europe have seen The Naked Civil Servant). During 1977 sales more than doubled, to top £¾ million. Most important sale was The World at War to France, the highest-earning single sale of Thames’ most successful overseas seller. Comedy, formerly considered ‘unexportable’ made large inroads: Father Dear Father made its debut in Spain, Italy where it topped the ratings, and Germany, where with Man About The House it was dubbed into German. And Jamie and the Magic Torch proved popular in Hungary, home of the world’s experts in animation.

AUSTRALIA. 1977 saw Thames become the biggest British programme exporter (including the BBC) to the crucial Australian market. All kinds of programmes are purchased by Australia from Thames: George & Mildred (ABC), Love Thy Neighbour (7 Network), The World at War (9 Network) and Benny Hill (0/10 Network) have all been the highest-rated programmes on the respective networks, and Benny Hill achieved the year’s single highest audience with a one-hour special which he travelled to Australia to make. Other countries where Thames is the largest UK exporter range from Greece to the newly-inaugurated Swaziland television service.

BRITAIN. Since Thames acquired distribution rights of New Zealand-made programmes, Thames International has entered the business of selling programmes to British companies. Most successful is Hunter’s Gold, now sold to sixteen countries – including the BBC.

IRAN. The National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) studios played host to Rainbow creator Pamela Lonsdale in June.

She was in Tehran to advise on a unique project, adapting the content of over a hundred Rainbow programmes for the young Iranian audience and their culture. Original actuality film sequences, drawings and music were combined with NIRT-originated material, Farsi-language voice-overs were dubbed on, and the end product was a series of Iranian Rainbows, which still retained the aims and techniques of the Thames programmes made for the British child. This served as forerunner to a similar operation in Jordan, where producer Charles Warren is helping in the making of an Arabic version to be screened throughout the Arab world.

THAMES TELEVISION INTERNATIONAL – SELLING TO THE WORLD

During 1977 Thames Television International executives travelled nearly 150,000 air miles, visiting 37 countries and selling a record total of 5,327 hours of programming.

The post Selling to the world appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Brian Tesler, Thames Television’s Director of Programmes, began his television career as a trainee BBC producer immediately after leaving Oxford. He remained with the BBC for four years and then joined ITV in London, continuing to produce a wide variety of programmes and series until he became Director of Programmes for ABC Television in 1965. He joined the Board of Thames Television on the company’s foundation in 1968.

Recently a leading television critic wrote an article which set out, more fully than before, one of the many current proposals for the re-organisation of British broadcasting. (So many, now, that the question of why such drastic change should be necessary is hardly ever asked.) This particular proposal suggested amalgamating ITV and BBC into a vast State-run broadcasting monopoly with four channels, separate from each other but centrally controlled. I happen to believe that this idea is neither practical nor in the public interest. But what amazed and, frankly, angered me and many of my colleagues was the author’s offhand assumption that ITV’s role in such a partnership was simply ‘to be entertaining and popular’ and to be ‘freed from the obligation to produce programmes against their commercial instincts’.

I can speak only as the Programme Director of one ITV company, Thames Television, which produces about a quarter of ITV’s programmes. But we do not see Thames as a provider of circuses to accompany the BBC’s bread.

In recent weeks our Programme Controllers have been writing about their work in a series of advertisements, of which this is the last. Anyone who has read their varied contributions must surely have recognised three things. First, that here is a group of professional programme makers who are deeply concerned about the service they give to the public. Secondly that, far from being obliged by ‘commercial instincts’ to produce programmes they would not otherwise make, they plan their output on merit alone. And, thirdly, that the range of that output is so wide as to deny in itself that to be ‘entertaining and popular’ is the dominant aim of an ITV company.

Six programme controllers wrote about their work for Thames and of those only Philip Jones – whose Light Entertainment Department is undoubtedly the most successful in Britain – can be said to have dealt largely with popular entertainment. Lloyd Shirley told how his Drama Department has among its forthcoming productions a £1 million series of television films, a cycle of Restoration drama, a life of Napoleon and a de Quincey serialisation. Jeremy Isaacs’ Features Department, producers of This Week, Today, Good Afternoon and Something To Say, are now making ITV’s biggest-ever documentary series, on The Second World War. The Children’s Department under Lewis Rudd, who already produce the leading children’s magazine programme Magpie, are developing a new education and entertainment programme for under-fives.

Guthrie Moir’s team, apart from making award-winning schools programmes, are working on a 13-part series on National Trust houses to follow their British Museum programmes. And Grahame Turner’s Outside Broadcast Department, who could so easily remain recorders of sport, are planning how to bring more of London’s arts and events to Londoners, now that afternoon broadcasting is with us.

Those are only a few of the programmes they mentioned. But implicit in everything they wrote, and indeed in the existence within Thames of six such varied departments of equal importance, is one simple fact: that ITV in general and Thames in particular are achieving the difficult reconciliation between single-channel commercial operation and public service broadcasting.

No-one should doubt that it is difficult. Our challenge is to obtain, with no licence fee or government support, sufficient financial stability to invest in studios and equipment, capitalise new productions, and give security of employment – all without compromising programme quality. We have to do it with only one channel, so we can never give our viewers a simultaneous choice between the product of one programme department and another. We have to share our transmission hours with the other ITV companies, so that less than half the hours are filled by our own productions. And in any case, we have only 4½ days a week in which to broadcast. So the programmes are there, but not always the airtime to transmit them.

My job as Director of Programmes, therefore, is to carry out in those limited hours the policy laid down with my colleagues on the Board: to produce and schedule programmes which range across information, education and entertainment as widely as possible. Our programme controllers have already written about these programmes and their variety. But a range of excellent programmes is not sufficient cause for satisfaction if it is weighted too heavily, as our critic would have it, towards popular entertainment. So I think it worth mentioning that even excluding schools programmes and children’s educational series, four out of every ten Thames productions are in the areas of information, education and current affairs. I might mention too that Thames was the only station to mark this month’s UN Conference on the Human Environment with a special week of programmes on pollution and conservation. They included our own productions and other films from around the world, and they were neither ‘popular’ nor ‘entertaining’. But we felt it important to show them.

By ‘we’ I mean the people behind Thames programmes: people who make This Week and Magpie and The Benny Hill Show and today and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Callan and Sooty and Writer’s Workshop and Father, Dear Father and Treasures of the British Museum and Six Days of Justice and hundreds more programmes of distinctive quality and variety. It is those people who would all be consigned, in that nightmare of a State-controlled television service, to be producers of an endless and mindless flow of mass merry-making. But happily it is only a nightmare. Instead they will go on producing and directing programmes for Thames in an atmosphere where their varied talents and ideas can flourish. Not with enough transmission time, although a second channel would help give them that. Not with enough money, for no producer (and I include myself) was ever satisfied with his budget.

But with enough scope and resources and backing to make, in the words of one of our Controllers earlier in this series, ‘the programmes we want to make and which we think viewers will want to watch’. We hope and expect to be judged by those programmes, now and in the future.

The post People behind programmes: Brian Tesler appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Philip Jones, Controller of Light Entertainment
Alcock and Gander, And Mother Makes Three, The Benny Hill Show, Big Bad Mouse, Bless This House, The Bob Monkhouse Comedy Hour, Cribbins, The David Nixon Show, The Edward Woodward Hour, Father, Dear Father, For the Love of Ada, The Frankie Howerd Show, Love Thy Neighbour, Max at the Royalty, Mike & Bernie, Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width, Opportunity Knocks, Patrick, Dear Patrick, This is Your Life, Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town.

Philip Jones, Thames Television’s Controller of Light Entertainment, began his broadcasting career in radio in 1948 and joined ITV in the North of England soon after it began. Always specialising in light entertainment and musical shows, in the last ten years he has been responsible for directing or producing many of Britain’s most popular programmes and for a string of export successes. Among his department’s latest productions are Love Thy Neighbour, Bless This House and – not yet transmitted – Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town.

It has always struck me, talking to our audience after a show, that however much they may admire and praise a comedian they seldom appreciate how tough his job is. In the whole entertainment business laughter is the hardest thing to achieve, and television has made it even harder. The British television viewer, if he wanted to watch it all, could see 20 hours of light entertainment every week. We use more jokes in a week than George Robey used in a lifetime. (Yes, we still use some of his material: people don’t know it all yet!) But there’s nothing so dead as a gag you’ve heard before. And with at least a quarter of the population watching every programme we make, novelty isn’t easy. So I have the greatest admiration and respect for our comedians and comedy actors and equally for the writers and producers. The last twelve months have been very successful for my department, only because all these people work so hard and so professionally at the serious business of making people laugh – and at giving them something new to laugh at.

The problem is that with such a tremendous output we exhaust ideas, and people, very quickly. There is only a handful of entertainers who can consistently win a big audience, and even they have to limit their appearances. With the benny hill show, which is one of the very top comedy programmes in Britain at the moment, we make only 4 or 5 a year. Our Max Bygraves and Frankie Howerd shows are limited too. And although the clubs have partly replaced the music halls, there isn’t the constant replenishment of talent that there once was. We’re always looking for it. Our Opportunity Knocks with Hughie Green is still the only regular showcase on television for new professional talent, and several well-known names have been launched that way. But public demand is greater than supply.

There is more scope for innovation in ‘situation comedy’. In this field, the dramatised comic situations like Bless this House or and Mother Makes Three, it’s always tempting to take a successful programme and keep it running for ever. But there are very few series which stand exposure year after year. We have just stopped Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width, for example, although it was highly popular and I get lots of letters asking for more. But we want to offer something new, and so do our writers – even though we know that at first the audience is likely to be smaller, For the Love of Ada, which we have also just finished after quite a short life, was a case in point. Vince Powell and Harry Driver’s idea of a romance between two old-age pensioners was unusual, and the series took a while to establish itself. But it soon justified the experiment by becoming extremely popular both with viewers and critics.

I make no apology, incidentally, for separating them in that way, because critics don’t always reflect the feelings of our audience. We’ve just produced a programme called Love thy Neighbour, another innovation because it was the first comedy series about the problems of a black and a white couple living next door to each other. It’s simple straightforward comedy, always with this underlying serious theme, and it began by being poorly reviewed. I remember that one critic, whom I respect highly, attacked it from all angles. By coincidence someone else on his paper had talked to ordinary black and white families about the programme, and in the very same issue they gave their verdicts. They said not only that it was very funny but that they thought it was of positive value for good race relations. On their evidence the programme was successful at precisely the level we intended.

Now that doesn’t make the critics wrong. But there are times when their criteria don’t relate to what ordinary people want from their entertainment, which is what we try to provide. Through the people who write to us, and through talking to our studio audiences after every show, I think we have a very good knowledge of what they want (and what they object to) and of how we can best make a more seriously based comedy understood. So we are producing a second series of Love Thy Neighbour, not just because it is now one of the country’s favourite programmes – it topped the JICTAR Top Twenty last week – but because we think its message is getting across to our viewers.

We’ve also just begun a new comedy with Beryl Reid; we’re in production with new series for Max Bygraves, Patrick Cargill, Wendy Craig, Sid James and Harry Worth; and we are trying out four more new comedy programmes in the next quarter. We hope to turn the best of them into series, but that will take nine months or a year. We simply haven’t the airtime now to screen all the new things we would like to make, and of course we do want to carry on our existing successes for a certain period. Even our longest-running series, Father Dear Father, is comparatively new. Thames has only been making programmes for four years, and all our other comedy series have been introduced in the last eighteen months. We do have two series which are more than four years old: Opportunity Knocks and This is Your Life. But they are both what I would describe as self-rejuvenating programmes. This is Your Life in particular has never been more popular.

Once again, there will be people who criticise me for continuing with it and not ‘doing something new’. As it happens I believe that This is Your Life is one of the classic formulæ of television light entertainment, the equivalent of first class popular journalism. But even if that were not so, the real point is that you can’t replace an idea with an ideal. A brilliant new comedian or a marvellous new script can’t be wished into existence. I think it’s fair to say that Thames has produced more successful new comedy series in the last four years than any other company, including the BBC. But none of these series was introduced just because it was different. They all had to promise to entertain as wide a range of people as the shows they replaced.

Of course, it’s fashionable to despise such a simple yardstick as popularity. But in my area of television programmes I regard it as an important measurement. If, with only one channel, we can experiment as we did with Cribbins, then we do so. If we can introduce more serious themes in comedy, as we did with Never Mind the Quality and Love Thy Neighbour, then we do so. If we think a new series is worth the risk of a smaller audience at first, then we make it.

But popularity must always be part of my definition of programme quality. George Robey’s best jokes were the ones that made most people laugh.

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