BROADCASTING licences are reviewed every six years by the Independent Television Authority. The major shake-up, which comes into effect today, 13 years after the start of ITV, is a severe warning to the various independent companies that there is no room for complacency.

The very fact that the oldest independent company of them all, Rediffusion, has not retained complete control of London’s weekday programmes is an indication that licences will not automatically be renewed.

Today, it has merged with ABC TV, and as from now your programmes from Monday to Thursday [sic] inclusive are coming to you by courtesy of Thames Television

At a Mansion House luncheon, the service was launched in the presence of figures prominent in London’s Government and business, in London’s music, art and sport, and in the nation’s Press and Parliament which reflect the life and power of the capital.

Speakers included the Lord Mayor, Lord Aylestone, chairman of the ITA, Sir Philip Waster [sic – Warter], chairman, and Howard Thomas, managing director of Thames Television.

Eamonn Andrews introduces recorded highlights of the luncheon at 11.30 tonight. Andrew Gardner describes the scene and talks to some of the distinguished guests present at the Mansion House.

At the weekend – Friday [sic] through to Sunday – programmes will be controlled by the London Television Consortium (London Weekend). This is the company that attracted Michael Peacock away from the BBC and has David Frost as one of its star men.

Then, as in the past programmes made by regional companies will be fed into the schedule for the London area.

Coronation Street, for instance, will continue from Granada, as will University Challenge, What the Papers Say and other well established programmes.

But there will be additional material from the north – from Yorkshire Television. For the territory up there has been divided down the Pennines: Granada hold the rights for the county of the red rose, Yorkshire Television – the company that attracted Alan Whicker away from the BBC – for the county of the white.

It was 18 months ago that Lord Hill, then chairman of the ITA, announced plans to change the face of ITV.

The richest and most sought after prize was London. The contract winners were announced first over a year ago.

Lord Hill said of the London weekday contract “With our principle of programme quality in mind, we felt that Independent Television would gain benefit if the abilities of ABC and Rediffusion were to combine in providing the weekday service. The combination of these two companies seemed to ihe Authority to offer the possibility of a company of real excellence.”

Unlike Thames Television, there will be no opening ceremony for London Weekend Television. And unlike other companies there will be no station symbol – just the name.

London Weekend Television is backed by an impressive line-up of television professionals: men such as Aldan Crawley, Michael Peacock and David Frost.

Of this company Lord Hill said: “Of the applicants for the weekend, the London Consortium impressed us most, particularly because of its creative talent.”

At a recent luncheon in London, managing director, Michael Peacock promised: “There will be a lot of charges in your weekend viewing. New shows, new faces and new times to remember”

Well, what is in store for the viewer?

Thames Television

DRAMA

Frontier: New adventure series set in the North West Frontier when the British Army kept the peace in the Asian equivalent of the Wild West.

90-Minute Dramas: Three plays adapted by William Marchant from short stories by Noel Coward. Already in production, Star Quality, starring Glynis Johns and Robert Hardy, to be followed by Bon Voyage and The Kindness of Mrs Radcliffe. A new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s famous Frankenstein by Robert Muller and an adaptation of Uncle Silas the ghost story by Sheridan Le Fanuare planned.

Premiere: Live, one hour television dramas will be presented through October with top directors, distinguished casts and writers.

The Sex Game: Romantic 60-minute plays. Trials and tribulations of lovers who ultimately merge to live happily ever after.

The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder. Adaptations of Edgar Wallace stones starring Hugh Burden and Willoughby Goddard.

CHILDREN

The Tyrant King: A London adventure for children. The first modern colour film TV serial made in Britain for children.

The Queen Street Gang: A new children’s adventure series in which a professor is captured by criminals and rescued by the Queen Street Boys, a highly organised gang, led by his own son.

Once Upon A Time: A series of 15-minute programmes in which celebrities will tell classic or original stories to a children’s audience.

The Sooty Show: Harry Corbett, Sooty, Sweep and the rest of the gang in a children’s entertainment series recorded at The May Fair Theatre.

Pinky & Perky: A series of 15-minute shows featuring the famous puppets Pinky and Perky and their colleagues.

COMEDY

Best of Enemies: Situation comedy written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver about two members of Parliament: a young Labour newcomer to the House of Commons and a wily old Tory. Tim Barrett and Robert Coote star.

Father, Dear Father: Patrick Cargill stars as the divorced father of two very highly nubile mini-skirted teenage daughters with Sally Bazely as his literary agent and good friend.

Comedy Tonight: A season of six new comedy plays written by top authors including Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, Vince Powell and Harry Driver and Dave Freeman.

Sid James: A new series, as yet untitled, written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, starring Sid James.

Horne-a-Plenty: Comedy-Revue starring Kenneth Horne assisted by Sheila Steafel and Kenneth’s friends, which might well bear an amazing resemblance to the radio series Round the Horne.

SPECIALS

Already announced are two one hour specials starring Tommy Cooper; The Max Bygraves Show; Liberace in London; An Evening with Jack Benny, in which comedian Jack Benny conducts and stars with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall; a comedy concert with Victor Borge; The Frankie Howerd Show and, of course, The Goons, a half-hour radio show for television starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe.

Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks! returns for a new season and The Eamonn Andrews Show takes a completely new look when it comes from the May Fair Theatre in the heart of the West End.

FEATURES

Today: A live, dally topical entertainment and information show about people and places in and around London with Eamonn Andrews.

Robert Kee Reports: A series of monthly 45-minute documentaries on important issues of the day.

Applause! Applause! A series of six documentary programmes on great stars of variety and the music hall including Grade Fields, Max Miller, George Robey, Sid Fields, George Formby and Lucan McShane.

Magpie: A weekly magazine programme for children, Forty minutes of information and entertainment plus the serial story of Captain Fantastic.

ADULT EDUCATION

Ballet For All: A series of six half-hour programmes to help bring appreciation of this unique art to a wider audience.

So You’re Going on Holiday: An in-depth appreciation of the countries of Europe – the historical and cultural background behind the holiday facade.

The Tools of Cookery: A new series in which top TV cook Philip Harben demonstrates the importance of using the right tools for the job in the kitchen, from knives and saucepans to ovens and mixers.

World of Crime: Eight new programmes which examine specific cases of the victims of crime in Britain and North America.

RELIGION

A new ten-minute series entitled Last Programme – this will be shown seven nights a week, London Weekend Television will show the series on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

THE AVENGERS

A new series starring Patrick Macnee and introducing Linda Thomson [sic – Thorson] as John Steed’s new partner, Tara King.

Among the successful programmes which will carry on in the new schedules are This Week, Armchair Theatre, Hullaballoo, Callan, The Eamonn Andrews Show, Sexton Blake, Opportunity Knocks!, and Public Eye.

So far as London Weekend Television is concerned plays return to Sunday night; David Frost has three shows; and there is an abundance of comedy to suit all the family. Concerts by Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Benny Goodman are planned. So are productions of the Beggar’s Opera and Benjamin Britten’s The Golden Vanity.

Saturday specials are planned to broaden the range of cultural programmes. And sports fans are catered for with Sports Arena on Fridays and World of Sport on Saturdays.

All we have to do is wait and see.

The post The new look appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

So how do the people who actually make children’s television programmes set about it? How do they deal with their awesome responsibility, not only to please all the adults (or at least not offend them too much) but also entertain, inform, interest and stretch the vast number of children for whom their programmes are intended?

The Children’s Department of Thames Television is the largest in ITV, supplying an average of 142½ hours of networked programmes each year. It caters for children ranging from the very young (Rainbow for the under fives) through to the 5-6 year olds (Paperplay, Issi Noho, King Wilbur III, …And Maisy Too), the 7-8 year olds (The Sooty Show, Michael Bentine’s Potty Time), the 9-12 year olds (Magpie, All Together Now), teenagers (You Must Be Joking!), and it hopes that its drama appeals to children of all ages (The Tomorrow People, The Molly Wopsies, The Feathered Serpent, Shadows, Horse In The House).

Not only is this output geared across a wide age range, but the types of programme are also immensely varied. Sue Turner, Thames’ Controller of Children’s Programmes comments: ‘Children are, after all, simply people who have not been alive very long. They have as much (maybe more) intelligence, imagination, enthusiasm and eagerness as adults. All they lack is experience (and the prejudices that often come with it). They are also a demanding audience – unrestrained by the social politeness of adults, they write and tell us precisely what they think of us and our programmes!’

Magpie, twice a week every week (except for a short summer break), is probably the best known of Thames’ children’s programmes. Transmitted live, Magpie aims to be an all round magazine programme, with items of topical interest for children of approximately 6-12 years. It began in 1968 with the start of Thames Television itself. Its award-winning documentaries have given it an international as well as a national reputation.

The pre-school programme Rainbow (winner of the British Academy Award for the best children’s programme in February 1975) aims to help children below school age to expand their experience of the world and the people around them. Rainbow is believed to be unique in the world, in that it began in 1974 making full length documentaries specially for the under fives. Dealing with potentially traumatic experiences for the very young child, so far ‘Rainbow goes to Hospital’ and ‘Rainbow Starts School’ have been presented and work is beginning on a ’Special’ which will deal with the arrival of a new baby.

A department of this size has plenty of opportunity to experiment. You Must Be Joking! (of which two series have now been made) was entirely written and performed by a cast of East End children, ranging in age from 11-17. It has been both hailed as a new departure in ‘access’ programming and condemned as giving children false ideas of their own importance. Following this programme, work is in hand on Pauline’s Quirkes, starring 16-year-old Pauline Quirke (known to adult audiences for her outstanding performance in Jenny Can’t Work Any Faster). This time Pauline and her friends take a swing at the remaining male chauvinist bastions in the name of girls’ lib!

Last year Thames launched a series of seven plays with a linking theme of ghostliness, under the title of Shadows. They included a play specially written by J B Priestley. The second series of Shadows, with an over-all theme of fantasy and including specially commissioned plays by such outstanding writers as Joan Aiken, Susan Cooper and Ewart Alexander, was transmitted this summer. The Molly Wopsies (transmitted in Spring 1976) was entirely shot with Thames’ small mobile outside broadcast unit on location in Henley; and this same unit is being used to shoot Horse in the House (adapted by Rosemary Anne Sisson from the book by William Corbin).

Sue Turner says her team had a great deal of fun and raised a lot of eyebrows by demonstrating that an all-action adventure series, set in ancient Mexico, could be shot entirely in Studio 2 at Teddington. The end result was The Feathered Serpent, transmitted this summer – with music specially written by David Fanshawe, sword fights and a great deal of ritual and splendour. She also hopes it helped to make viewers aware of the rich and fascinating history of pre-Columbian America.

This is a brief outline of just one Children’s Department – using film, studio and outside broadcast to make documentaries, current affairs, drama, light entertainment and comedy programmes. Did you know that children have such a wide choice of programmes available to them?

The post Making children’s programmes appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Indeed, the ITA had prepared plans to void their contract with the new entity and hand complete control to ABC – Rediffusion being thought of as the “bad guy” whenever things dragged.

This accusation is unfair, but not entirely untrue. Rediffusion was, in effect, a family business. The people in charge of the parent were the children of the previous management. The Wills family, hereditary Managing Directors, would continue the tradition on the death of Rediffusion’s John Spencer Wills – his son Colin S Wills taking his father’s place on the Thames board.

This meant that Rediffusion management were hurt by their company being “handed” to ABC. That they occasionally showed this hurt was unsurprising. Many of the complaints and tough choices they forced on the new company were simply sound business sense. Others looked like petulance.

The new ITV contracts began on Tuesday 30 July 1968. In its own act of petulance, TWW had stalked out of the system back in March, so Harlech was already on air by this date.

ATV in Birmingham was simply taking the two days from the week previously denied to it (although losing those two days in London, of course). They would have been on air on Monday 29 July anyway; nevertheless, they celebrated their new contract on the last day of the old – the Monday.

Granada wanted a fresh start with its new 7-day, north-west only contract. A single day in the old Yorkshire region wouldn’t get things off to a nice enough start, so they sold that odd Monday to YTV for a peppercorn amount.

YTV therefore had a decent launch on the Monday, heralded by a mention at ABC’s final closedown the night before, plus got to establish its identity free of Granada’s northern dominance.

LWT’s contract began on the first Friday in August, so their fate need not detain us here.

That left Thames. They were taking over from Rediffusion, one of their parent companies, so following the pattern of the rest of ITV and celebrating “the new era” on the Monday seemed likely.

Rediffusion had other ideas. They simply refused to sell their final day, coming on air as normal on the Monday and doing all their farewells whilst the rest of ITV was welcoming newcomers. (This leads to the interesting anomaly where the new Yorkshire Television can boast having had a programme networked out to Rediffusion – the only such overlap between new and old.)

This meant that Rediffusion staff who should have left their old jobs on Friday and started their new ones on Monday missed the first day at their new stations.

Chief announcer Redvers Kyle closed Rediffusion down for the last time, then reappeared in the same job at YTV – but not on their first day.

Thames therefore had to come on air on Tuesday. Worse than that, their opening would not be the grand afternoon affair they had hoped for. Instead, they would come on early in the morning for an OB of the cricket.

Resigned to that fate, they opened quietly for the cricket from YTV at 11:30am on Tuesday 30 July 1968, went off air just as quietly at 1.30pm.

The big splash was made at 1.55pm, with a televised Inaugural Luncheon at the Mansion House.

From that it was into the racing coverage at 2.45 from Tyne Tees – although an hour later the technicians downed tools at TTT and ITV, with nothing to show, went off-air until 4.10pm.

The first Thames production to air was The Sooty Show at 4.40, run off from Television House. The second followed immediately after – Magpie at 5.10, run off from Teddington.

After the ITN News, the new “London programme for London” (a deliberate dig at Rediffusion’s ‘local’ news output being national in character) called Today went on air; it was followed by the first showing in London of Carry On Nurse.

This was followed at 8.15pm by Thames Television’s big hitter of the night, Tommy Cooper’s Cooper King-size! with a cast of comic and variety turns designed to make people look in.

Those who did look in were to be disappointed. The screens went black at the end of part one and Thames went off the air as a strike broke out amongst technicians. The service resumed at 10.30pm, but by that time the Thames opening night was in tatters.

Whichever way you look at it, Thames’s first day on air was never going to be perfect. But this they could live without.

The post Lights, camera, inaction appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

• 1:30 Closedown till 1:55

Looking back from today’s perspective it seems hardly worth closing down for only 25 minutes.

Surely a caption and music would suffice? But no, we must look at it from the point of view of the perceived corporate needs of Thames.

An interlude would have no dramatic or iconic import. Things would merely carry on where they left off. A closedown however, required a start up to resume the programmes.

This was an opportunity to promote the corporate identity of the (new) station, to show off the newly composed Salute to Thames march, and oddly to remind the cognoscenti of the ABC heritage of the company, with continuing use of the ABC startup theme Perpetuum Mobile – selected by Thames for a further ‘life after ABC’.

In this instance the next programme was the Grand Opening Luncheon of Thames Television – live from the Mansion House – something that would be at its most resonant after playing of the new Salute to Thames march just beforehand.

So the trivial “1.30 Close down until 1.55” was no minor coincidence. It was very much part of the plan…

• 4:40 Children’s Television – The Sooty Show

The legacy of Rediffusion can be easily discerned within the Thames output – for the early years at least. In this particular even the TV Times entry is pure Rediffusion thinking.

It was only in the London area that kids programmes had been traditionally grouped separately in the TV Times under the general heading “Children’s Television” and it seems that this was the first of many Rediffusion traditions that Thames carried forward.

Indeed it may even have been unthinking continuation by a sub editor of a habit long established. It may not have been Thames policy at all.

The Sooty Show, perhaps only a footnote in television history now, was at the time a legendary and wildly popular part of the junior culture. Sooty had appeared on BBC television since the fifties.

When it transferred to ITV it was a national newspaper story of supposed cultural significance. It was treated by the press as something of a coup for Rediffusion to have brought the glove puppet star across from the BBC and as of this date it appeared that Thames would continue to exploit the property.

The show is here produced by Daphne Shadwell, a long standing Rediffusion producer (and daughter of the ITMA radio band leader Charles Shadwell), and came from Television House.

• 5:10 Magpie

Magpie had been trailed in the press, well before the launch of Thames, as the ‘new look’ ITV’s response to the long standing Blue Peter on BBC Television.

With Blue Peter owning Mondays and Thursdays, Thames chose Tuesdays (and later Fridays as well from 1969) for their new show. From the outset the programme was conceived as a more hip, adolescent and indeed “laid back” event than the earnest middle England tone of Blue Peter could ever allow.

The tabloids liked to imply a class rivalry between the viewers of the two shows but many children watched both shows. Some adults later claimed to have been “Blue Peter children” or “Magpie kids” but the tribalism was undoubtedly exaggerated.

The engagement of more youthful figureheads than the BBC was using in children’s programmes was a revolutionary start. The new faces were hardly teenage but opposite the ‘mumsy’ tones of Valerie Singleton and Christopher Trace on Blue Peter, they probably seemed very young.

To bring real novelty to the programme, one of the presenters was ex-pirate DJ and Canadian (wow!) Pete Brady – though he had already earned some respectability with his new Radio One and Two afternoon show which had followed on after his career on the offshore Radio London had ended, along with the station.

One regular item within Magpie was the spin off feature “Captain Fantastic”. This was a character from the former Rediffusion show Do Not Adjust Your Set, a surreal forerunner of Monty Python.

• 5:50 News

The long standing eleven minute news bulletin at 5.55pm on weekdays was brought forward to 5.50 and extended to fourteen minutes as part of the ITA-led commitment to expanding ITN’s bulletins.

This followed on from the successful development of News at Ten, which had started during Rediffusion’s final year, with the transfer of the main evening news from seventeen minutes at 8.55 to half an hour at 10pm.

On this day, the lead story of the 5.50pm bulletin was the launch of Thames Television. Yorkshire TV had premiered the previous day and Harlech Television earlier in the year – London Weekend was to come later in the week – so Thames remained a solo launch story.

Local viewers had seen the Lord Mayor’s welcoming luncheon from the Mansion House that afternoon and would also be treated to recorded repeats of the speeches at 11.30pm in a round up called “London’s New Television Service”.

This was perhaps misleading as it was a new contractor on an existing service – but the TVTimes was playing the ‘Outside Broadcast’ (still then an exciting phrase) for all it was worth.

Viewers in the regions had not seen the Outside Broadcast from the Mansion House and so the ITN bulletin included clips from the speeches and a commentary for the innocent provincial viewer outlining the media excitement of the London event. And this was reasonable enough.

In our modern multi-channel society, these matters would be assumed of little interest to the viewer – but in an age with just three television services being available to the majority of viewers, the launch of a new ITV contractor for London, even ‘just’ two former contractors with a new name, was considered worthy of being the lead story on the national bulletin. Even the BBC covered it.

How times change.

• 6:04 Today with Eammon Andrews

Under Rediffusion, the space between the news and the programme that followed was filled by Commander Laurie West presenting a full, informative weather forecast with maps and charts and statistics. Thames replaced this with the duty announcer reading a headline forecast over a caption, and the weather bulletin disappeared as an item in its own right from the pages of the TVTimes.

Thames Television’s new Today programme was conceived as the jewel in the crown of their local programming – it was one of the items specified in advance in the original ABC franchise application for the weekend contract.

It had originally been imagined as a Saturday roundup of past and future London events and was modelled on the erstwhile ABC Weekend magazine programme previously seen on Saturday nights in the Midlands and North.

The formula was to be the same – a roundup of cultural and personality-led events from the area, with an avoidance of the sort of mundane “warehouse fire in Salford” stories that had dominated regional news in the past.

When ABC found itself rather unexpectedly in bed with Rediffusion to provide the weekday service in London, the local news commitment was “buffed up” into a planned daily show – on weekdays at least – and the advance publicity stressed the “news for London about London” approach.

Exactly what this amounted to was not made clear. The point was made that the show was intended to avoid the trap that Rediffusion had fallen into with their long lived Three After Six local programme – packaging national stories into a local show on the excuse that the capital city was not the equivalent to a provincial region.

Rediffusion had always claimed in their defence that the then VHF signals covered the whole South East and so London local news would be of little interest in Bedford, Guildford or Oxford.

The option of doing a show for the whole south-east region did not seem to have occurred to them. It was only some years later with the slow transfer of viewers to the smaller region UHF coverage that the London ITV area became a true service for London alone.

Thames’s early period in black and white is often overlooked by media historians – but coverage differences between traditional VHF and the new UHF were as much of an issue at the time as the introduction of colour after 1969.

Sales of colour sets were initially slow and the majority continued to watch on VHF for several more years – it was 1975-6 before the number of colour TV licences issued was greater than the number of monochrome ones.

Thames seem to have painted themselves into a corner with Today in their desire to achieve more for London than Rediffusion had done with Three After Six. From the word go, the new show interviewed stars, musicians and actors, previewed West End hits and reviewed the culture of the capital.

This was probably more to do with the presenter being Eamonn Andrews, a stalwart of ABC ‘sports and celebs’ shows for many years past, who created a more personality-oriented atmosphere than Thames had planned for its main news magazine. The show became a modern version of BBC radio’s famous In Town Tonight of the forties, at least until Eamonn Andrews moved on, tempered only by news of the odd warehouse fire in Wapping….

The post Day in the life appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Lewis Rudd, Controller of Children’s Programmes
Ace of Wands, Children’s Documentaries – My Brother David and Breaking the Silence, Cliff’s Kids, Do Not Adjust Your Set, Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree, Full House, Happy House, The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, Larry the Lamb, Magpie (twice weekly). Once Upon a Time, The Paper Bag Players, Pardon My Genie, Rainbow, Sexton Blake, The Sooty Show, Smith, The Tomorrow People, Tottering Towers, Wreckers at Deadeye, Zingalong.

Lewis Rudd, Thames Television’s Controller of Children’s Programmes, came into Independent Television straight from Oxford, where he edited Isis. He began to specialise in children’s programmes in 1966, and in 1968 his production ‘Do Not Adjust Your Set’ was awarded the Prix Jeunesse. Father of two boys and a girl, he is Chairman of the ITV Network Children’s Sub-Committee. (After this was written, ‘My Brother David’ won this year’s Prix Jeunesse UNICEF award.)

Why have a separate children’s department at all? Is it because we treat children as a different race, to be talked to in a special language? After all, our programmes for children include drama, information, comedy: so why not have the programmes produced by Thames’ drama, features and light entertainment departments? One good reason for having a separate department is the sheer volume of children’s programmes we produce. Something like half the children’s programmes made by ITV come from Thames. But it is not the volume of production that is most important.

Making television programmes for children can be pretty awe-inspiring. They are a very perceptive and very enthusiastic audience. And just because of this, television can have an enormous influence on them. Yet although a great deal of research has been done on this influence, nobody quite knows what the effect of any one programme or sequence will be on different individual children. So we feel it helps if there are people responsible for all Thames’ children’s productions, working together on a range of programmes, gaining experience of their effect all the time, and putting this experience to good use.

It isn’t easy to lay down rules about what will be beneficial and what will be harmful to a child, and with a separate department we have less need to do so. All the people in my department are concerned about the effect of the programmes they make, and are constantly aware of the caution with which they have to work. There is sometimes violence, for example, in our drama programmes. But it is not portrayed as the right way to solve problems, and we aim to make it neither terrifying on the one hand nor glamorised on the other. But, without being irresponsible about it, I find that children decide what programmes are suitable for them rather better than their parents. For example my four-year-old son finds our Ace of Wands series, which is exciting and sometimes a little bit scary, far too complicated to follow. So he doesn’t bother to watch, whereas by seven a child can both understand the story and is also old enough to take pleasure in the excitement and scariness.

One important thing we have learned about making programmes appeal to a wide audience of children is that they demand that television is used as a pictorial medium. As most of our programmes are designed for school children who have spent the day studying, it is right that one of our aims is entertainment: through drama series like Wreckers at Deadeye and Ace of Wands, through programmes for younger children like The Sooty Show and Larry the Lamb (which we are transmitting in the Autumn), through quizzes and musical shows and comedy series. In all of these, visual inventiveness is most important. Our current series Pardon My Genie, a sort of modern version of Aladdin, has had its enormous visual comic possibilities realised in full, thanks to the enthusiastic co-operation of our technical staff. It isn’t surprising that more children are watching this programme than any other production on either channel.

Magpie, our informative magazine programme, also calls for a predominantly visual approach. Here, too, we are using pictures to entertain, but also to interest and inform at the same time. Even in something as straightforward as Magpie’s annual Christmas appeal, we try to encourage imaginative activity in the raising of the money and to use the opportunity to create knowledge – not just sympathy. Last Christmas we raised £30,000 for deaf children, not by a heart-rending emotional appeal but by showing children in a simple way what it was really like to be deaf. And it was out of the previous appeal that we evolved the idea of doing a half-hour documentary especially for children, about the difficult subject of mental handicap. The film, My Brother David, which showed a day in the life of a mentally handicapped boy, has been chosen to represent ITV at this year’s Prix Jeunesse in Munich.

Productions like these can be expensive, and I hope they give the lie to a criticism I sometimes hear that companies are unwilling to spend money on children’s programmes. The fact is that to tell your stories in pictures rather than words costs more. You can make a satisfying adult drama with one set, two good actors and a good script. But for children you are going to need more actors, more sets, location film to add action and pace. I was in the Ace of Wands studio the other day, and the sets compared in every way with the finest sets for adult drama which have been used in our Thames studios – and that is saying a great deal. Backing long-running successes with the right sort of money is one aspect of finance, but the Thames Board have also been willing to back our new ideas and experiments. Since the company began in 1968 we have introduced new children’s series every year; some of them, like Magpie and Ace of Wands, earning themselves a regular place in ITV’s national schedules. Others have been conceived as single series. In 1969, for instance, we produced an adaptation of Leon Garfield’s award-winning children’s book smith; in 1970 we filmed another period subject, Wreckers at Deadeye; in 1971 we introduced children to a world of comic writing ranging from Edward Lear to Spike Milligan in Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree. This year, in addition to Pardon My Genie, we are planning Thames’ first science fiction programme for children, The Tomorrow People.

But I have to admit that the most important development in children’s programmes in the last couple of years did not take place at Thames. It happened at the Children’s Television Workshop in New York with the production of ‘Sesame Street’. I don’t want to enter here into the argument about the programme’s educational standards. But Sesame Street did show how entertaining a programme whose objectives are primarily informative can be, given the right amounts of money and talent.

Any future programme in this field of entertainment-cum-education for pre-school children is certain to be compared with Sesame Street. The production team of our own new programme rainbow, which will be transmitted in the Autumn, have learned a lot from it – both from its successes and its failings. I think we will stand up to the inevitable comparisons pretty well.

Rainbow will be seen regularly all over Britain, and Magpie is already shown nationally twice a week. So our responsibility as providers of ITV information programmes for children is greater than ever. Our most important priority at the moment is to make these two programmes as effective as we possibly can. Because, as I said at the beginning, everyone is aware that television can have an enormous influence on children. And Magpie has proved – as we believe Rainbow will also – that in the right hands it can be an enormous influence for good.

The post People behind programmes: Lewis Rudd appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

It’s 10 months since Thames Television came to London.

What difference has it made?

To the London ITV audience?

It’s grown. Grown, for Thames’ evening programmes, by an average of 200,000 homes. That’s more than 14% up on last year.

The facts: Thames transmits to the London ITV area from Monday to 7.00 pm on Friday. In Spring last year before Thames began, audiences between 6.30 and 10.30 on those days averaged 1,309,280 homes*. This year, Thames has boosted the average to 1,497,600 homes.

Outside those peak viewing hours, the average audience for the same period in 1968 was 818,300 homes. This year the average Thames audience was 873,600 homes: and increase of over 6%.

So after less than a year, and despite a difficult start, Thames is consistently attracting more viewers than the Spring 1968 average:

*Comparisons over eight weeks ending 3 May 1968/2 May 1969

To London ITV programmes?

They’ve changed. To help win these bigger audiences, Thames has introduced new programmes to London in all three major fields: drama, light entertainment and features.

The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten has been the most successful documentary series ever to appear on the screen. Three new light entertainment programmes – Max, Two in Clover and Father, Dear Father – have regularly appeared in the London Top Ten list of most popular shows. (Max, starring Max Bygraves, topped the list three times.) Of the dramatic series, Callan has been exceptionally successful; Frontier was described by a leading critic as “the most promising of all efforts by the new ITV companies”; and The Mind of Mr J.G. Reeder has already become one of London’s favourite programmes. Among the new plays produced by Thames to date have been the Premiere series of live “first nights” and the widely-praised productions of Noël Coward’s “Star Quality” and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Uncle Silas”.

Report, the new one-hour current affairs series, has already had three programmes chosen for the National Film Archive. And Today, first ever local programme for the London ITV area, is watched in more than a million homes five nights a week.

To children?

They’re beginning to like us. Last year they mostly watched the BBC, but not any more. For example Magpie, Thames’ magazine programme for London children, quickly became so popular that it went national, twice weekly. After only ten months on the air it’s watched by more families than the BBC’s excellent Blue Peter.

Mothers like us too (ask them) because we make a really wide range of children’s entertainment, from Sooty and Once Upon a Time to Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Tingaree Affair. That’s why all Thames’ programmes for children are more popular than last year’s counterparts.

To viewers all over Britain?

There’s a new name for good television. Since Thames began, its productions have won more places in the National Top Twenty than any other company. These nationally popular Thames programmes have included This Week, Opportunity Knocks, Callan, Max, Life With Cooper, The Avengers, Mike and Bernie’s Show, Two in Clover, Armchair Theatre and many others. More than a quarter of Thames’ places in the list have been filled by entirely new programmes.

To the BBC?

It comes second. From Monday to 7.00 on Friday, London viewers can choose between Thames, BBC1 and BBC2. The programmes they like best come from Thames. Each week we make a private check on the ten most popular programmes in London during our transmission time. The latest figures, for eight weeks ended 2 May, show that Thames had 78% of London’s ten weekday favourites against the BBC’s 22%.

We don’t usually publish our weekday top ten. But that’s how it looks.

To advertisers?

They’re getting more for their money. In terms of cost per thousand homes viewing, the latest available figures for eight weeks ending 2 May show that Thames’ peaktime rate gave an average cost of 19/1d [rounds to just under 95½p in decimal, £15.75 in 2018 allowing for inflation] per thousand homes – compared to 21/10d [rounds to about £1.09, £18 in 2018 allowing for inflation] in peaktime for the same period last year. The difference: 12½% cheaper on Thames.

(Because Thames’ peaktime rate covers an hour more than last year’s, the chart shows how the Thames cost compares with 1968’s 7.00 to 10.00 and 6.30 to 10.30. Thames is cheaper either way.)

To London’s skyline?

It’s altering. Thames’ new headquarter and colour studios are nearing completion close to the Post Office tower at Euston, ready for the start of colour broadcasting in November. From this new central complex, and from the riverside studios at Teddington, Thames will continue to produce outstanding programmes for London, for Britain and for the world.

That’s the promise we made ten months ago, and it’s one thing we haven’t changed.

THAMES

Television House, Kingsway, London WC2.

The post It’s 10 months since Thames Television came to London appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

11.30 Cricket
and at 3.5
The Fourth Test Match
from Headingley
England v. Australia
commentary by
Ian Woodbridge ∙ Michael Parkinson
with summary by
Sir Leonard Hutton
and Bobby Simpson
television direction by
GEOFF HALL
Yorkshire Television Outside Broadcast

1.30 Close-down till 1.55

1.55 Thames Television
See panel

A New Service for London
Inaugural Luncheon at
The Mansion House

The distinguished guests celebrating the beginning of the new Service are eminent in London’s Government and business, in London’s music, art and sport, and in the Nation’s Press and Parliament which reflect the life and power of the Capital City

Speakers include the Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor, Lord Aylestone, Chairman of the ITA, Sir Philip Warter, Chairman, and Howard Thomas, Managing Director of Thames Television

commentator
ANDREW GARDNER

television direction by
JIM POPLE

Thames Television Outside Broadcast

2.45 Racing from Redcar
and at 3.20
Outside Broadcast cameras visit Redcar racecourse, where the racing team gives you a complete service, with starting prices, Tote returns and results from other courses
3.0 South Gare Sweepstakes (6f.)
3.30 North Sea H’cap (1½m.)
4.0 Sand Dune Stakes (1½m.)
commentators
in the grandstand Tony Cooke
in the paddock Ken Butler
on the rails Peter Moor
interviewers
John Rickman of the Daily Sketch and George Dobbie discuss form and crash helmets old and new
television direction by
ROY LOMAS
Tyne Tees Television Network
Outside Broadcast

4.10 Driveway
Episode 1: Meet the Major
cast in order of appearance

Major Alan Brock	Anthony Newlands
Miss Fisher	Judy Liebert
Shirley Pickering	Marjie Lawrence
Harry Weeks	John Trigger
Company Sergeant Major	Edwin Brown
Pamela Brock	Margaret Ashcroft
Julie Brock	Sandra Bryant
Mrs. Armstrong	Moyra Fraser
Mr. Brough-Morton	Maurice Hedley
Mrs. Brough-Morton	Dorothy Black
The maid	Anne Woodward

series devised by peter dacre
script by basil dawson
designer michael bailey
produced by CECIL PETTY
ATV Network Production

4.40 CHILDREN’S TELEVISION
The Sooty Show
– it’s that bear again and of course, Sweep and Soo
presented by
HARRY CORBETT
today’s special guest
GERRY MARSDEN
musical director alan braden
designed by alex macintyre
produced by
DAPHNE SHADWELL
Thames Television
Network Production

5.10 Magpie
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
with
TONY BASTABLE
PETE BRADY
SUSAN STRANKS
and including the return of The man from Do Not Adjust Your Set
Captain Fantastic
(produced by daphne shadwell)
directors
DAVID HODGSON
ROBERT REED
producer SUE TURNER
Thames Television
Network Production

5.50 News

6.4 Today
with
EAMONN ANDREWS
casting a quizzical eye on London, and everything else
directed by TERRY YARWOOD
produced by
ELIZABETH COWLEY
ALEX VALENTINE
Thames Television Production

6.30 The Laughter Makers
Carry On Nurse
For the first time on London’s television screens, one of the hilarious Carry On films
starring
KENNETH CONNOR
KENNETH WILLIAMS
CHARLES HAWTREY
WILFRED HYDE WHITE
BILL OWEN
LESLIE PHILLIPS
cast

Bernie Bishop	Kenneth Connor
Oliver Reckitt	Kenneth Williams
Hinton	Charles Hawtrey
Ted York	Terence Longdon
Percy Hickson	Bill Owen
Jack Bell	Leslie Phillips
Bert Able	Cyril Chamberlain
Henry Bray	Brian Oulton
Colonel	Wilfred Hyde White
Alec Lawrence	Ed Devereaux
Matron	Hattie Jacques
Sister	Joan Hickson
Ginger	Michael Medwin
Nurse Dorothy Denton	Shirley Eaton
Nurse Georgie Axwell	Susan Stephen
Nurse Stella Dawson	Joan Sims
Nurse F. James	Susan Beaumont
Nurse Helen Lloyd	Ann Firbank
Nurse Nightingale	Rosalind Knight
Nurse Rose Harper	Marita Stanton
Mick	Harry Locke
Jill Thompson	Jill Ireland
Mrs. Janie Bishop	Susan Shaw
Mrs. Marge Hickson	Irene Handl
Meg	June Whitfield
Norm	Norman Rossington

written by norman hudis
produced by PETER ROGERS
directed by GERALD THOMAS
Matron’s nurses have a hard time keeping amorous patients under control at Haven Hospital

8.15 Cooper King-size!
starring
TOMMY COOPER
An hour of Tommy’s classic comedy routines
with
special guest star
FRANKIE VAUGHAN
and
Deryck Guyler
Julie Rogers
Richard Caldicot
Felix Felton
Hugh Morton
Totti Truman Taylor
Len Lowe
Tony Fayne
Jay Denyer
Gladys Whitred
Max Howard
Louise Canine Review
and
Surprise guest stars
We know who they are but we’re not telling Tommy
special material eric merriman
bob sharples and his music
designed by robert macgowan
produced by MARK STUART
Thames Television
Network Production

9.15 What Shall We Tell the Children?
ROBERT KEE
introduces a
Report
by sally vincent
Sex Education in Britain Today
What should you tell your children about sex? How frank should you be? What words should you use? Tonight’s programme reports on how haphazardly too many children still learn the facts about sex. It shows that schools can help with sex education. Most importantly, for those who still find the subject a difficult one, it shows how some parents have answered the questions their children ask
produced and directed by
FRANCIS MEGAHY
Thames Television
Network Production

10.0 News at Ten
with
Andrew Gardner
Reginald Bosanquet
Leonard Parkin
Half and hour of up-to-the-minute news from ITN
The Weather Forecast

10.30 The System
ANTHONY BATE
JAN HOLDEN
in
The Flea Pit
by anthony skene
cast

Bull Atherton	Anthony Bate
Leo Atherton	Jan Holden
Dr. Gillie	Norman Scace
Peter Tolchard	Simon Lack
Jeremy	Norman Eshley
James	Tim Wylton
Carol	Fay Sparks
Rosa	Judi Bloom
Superintendent Baldwin	Hugh Cross
Paul Pevney	Robert Powell

designer peter caldwell
executive producer
H. V. KERSHAW
producer JOHN FINCH
directed by MICHAEL COX
‘Soldiers have to be strong. Do things we won’t do. Things we can’t approve of. You don’t have a guard-dog and blame it for biting’
Granada Television
Network Production

11.30 London’s New Television Service
EAMONN ANDREWS
introduces recorded highlights of today’s luncheon to mark the opening of Thames Television
ANDREW GARDNER
describes the scene and talks to some of the distinguished guests present at the Mansion House
directed by JIM POPLE
Thames Television
Outside Broadcast

11.50 Carry On Curate
KENNETH ROBINSON introduces the first of a series of six programmes about the image of the clergy as depicted by the mass media
arranged by SIMON BUXTON
Thames Television Production

and

Close-down

The post Tuesday 30 July 1968 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.