An outsider looks at A-R … for a start, that fusion introduction makes me sound like Colin Wilson. So let’s state here and now that I’ve no intention of being horse-whipped. Still that Outsider tag is probably justified, since this article arose out of a lunch date I had with your editor. I was sounding off about A-R in the approved John Osborne AYM manner when he pulled me up.

‘Don’t waste it on an audience of one’, he said, ‘put it on paper and tell the whole company.’ Let’s get one point straight. When you’re an outsider looking in it always seems easy to do the other chap’s job. But let the theorizing end and the practical business begin and the snags queue up. We can all be Stanley Matthews until the ball’s at our feet.

My newspaper work brings me in touch regularly with four ITV companies – each of which is taking on a distinctive personality. To my mind A-R is the least easily identifiable of the Big Four.

Think of ATV and the picture is of show business, variety, gimmicks, professionalism, the big drum, visiting Americans and Val Parnell. Turn to Granada and you sec Sidney Bernstein ruling the roost and hatching out a lot of good ideas and programmes, with here and there a bad egg in the entertainment basket.

ABC conjures up fast-talking Howard Thomas, a mixture of good and indifferent shows, and a general air of slow but steady progress.

Which leaves A-R. How do you sum up the company? It gives no impression of onemanship. Who is the single individual who can be cornered and asked for a quick answer to the 64,000 dollar question? This is important to everybody writing about TV because when key questions are being asked we look for an answer today. Tomorrow or later on is useless. And by answer I don’t mean a diplomatically phrased ‘it could well be that…’ or ‘when the consideration arises A-R will take due notice’ piece of nonsense.

Of course there are times when A-R prefers to play it strong and silent. However, when facts are getting out and questions being asked then let us please have a quick and definite answer. That way A-R will get a better Press than by letting limited information and guesswork produce half a story.

TEAM SPIRIT?

Does the same team spirit and enthusiasm exist inside A-R that is found in your competitors?

This isn’t a matter of individual outlook. Some of the nicest people to be met in TV nestle under A-R’s wing. But collectively does the vitality and urgency which marked those invigorating early days of Channel Nine still exist?

Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that the spirit is there and kept for private consumption rather than the public gaze. I hope it is so.

For my money you’ve slowed down. Some of the fun seems to have gone from life – which is surprising to an outsider when TV is so obviously one of the most alive-o industries with thousands of lookers-on-and-in only too keen to break into it.

Ignoring the financial side of things A-R snatched the viewing plum when it landed the London Monday-to-Friday contract.

But what unique contribution has the Company made to the service? Whatever your answer, here is a further question – has that contribution been as important as you expected?

I’ve been disappointed. A-R as one of the pioneering companies had to pay the penalty for the many and expected mistakes. It seems you stockpiled too much and these ‘canned’ shows played too big a role in your programme schedules. If you’re loading schedules with film it doesn’t leave much space for the live products of your staff.

So the impression gained from the screen was that A-R was more interested in the ready made product than in do-it-yourself shows. This impression remains. I’d like to sec A-R come out with a lot more live shows devised and mounted by the staff.

They couldn’t all be winners but a fair proportion might ring the bell.

HOLBORN AT EIGHT?

It is in variety that I believe A-R needs a boost. Where is your Palladium show or ‘Chelsea At Eight’? Where are your Maria Callas’s or Bob Hope’s?

From time-to-time you get the celebrity names but usually it is left to ATV or Granada to scoop the pool.

Where’s your comedy rival to ‘The Army Game’? I’m not forgetting those Top Ten quizzes ‘Double Your Money’ and ‘Take Your Pick’. A-R screens them, yet can hardly claim credit for either.

I’d like to see better scripting in variety, better productions, less tclcrccording, more showmanship and, well – glitter.

You’ve had your successes with offbeat shows like ‘Fred’, ‘Son of Fred’, etc. – but they are no longer around. More’s the pity.

Drama has hit the heights. I remember Pete Murray in ‘The Last Enemy’ … some of the Ted Willis plays. Lately, the impact has seemed less strong.

I don’t put that forward as a necessarily correct view. However, it’s mine. I realize that A-R’s drama maintains a good standard and it’s not easy finding unusual stories popular with the mass.

In documentaries and features A-R has been seen at its best. Here you have had intelligent, first-class programmes which other companies must have envied and which assaulted the BBC where it thought itself unchallengeable.

You found an outstanding interviewer-reporter in Michael Ingrams, screened two talked about and enjoyed ‘Look Out’ and ‘Look In’ series and promptly forgot about him.

I’m not forgetting those major documentaries of Russia and America – both highly praised but using him once every six months or so seems a waste.

I’d also like to mention Caryl Doncaster, Dan Farson and Nick Barker. They’ve all added to A-R’s reputation.

Do you recall the documentary that the Company did on fan fever? I still remember it and I’d like to know why A-R hasn’t turned out many more like it.

Can I pay a well-earned tribute next to weatherman Laurie West? It’s not the easiest of jobs telling viewers why it was wet yesterday, was wet today and it’s going to be wet tomorrow.

I like Mr West’s friendly personality, his commonsense and understandable explanations about deep depressions and the like, and I’m sure the majority of viewers prefer his performance to that of the BBC’s weather team.

But let’s take a look at the programmes which follow him in a typical week this summer. On Mondays the London viewer gets two Granada shows and one from ATV.

A-R’s contribution? The ‘My Wife and I’ series, the American originated ‘Wagon Train’, ‘Murder Bag’ and ‘Undercurrent’ – I’m leaving out advertising magazines. That’s a reasonable bunch. Three live shows and one film.

Tuesdays it’s not so good a story. Two live shows from Granada and two more from ATV. A-R chips in with youth-club show ‘Who Knows?’, Bob Cummings and Late, very Late Extra.

Better on Wednesdays – two from Granada and three from A-R. A play, a quiz and musical variety.

Thursdays? Equally good. Two from Granada and the rest from A-R. These are ‘Cool for Cats’, ‘San Francisco Beat’, ‘This Week’, a ‘Jack Hylton Half-hour’ and ‘Palais Party’. Finally, Friday. Three from ATV, one from Granada, and ‘Gun Law’, ‘Turnabout’ and a Jack Hylton show out of the home stable.

Where is the highlight to the A-R week? Where are the shows that are adding something lasting to the development of TV?

Maybe I’m being too critical? A-R is pleasing millions of viewers with the existing schedules. I believe it could please many more and give fresh incentive to the staff by working on new shows and ideas.

However, until you strike your own path and present many more live programmes I don’t think A-R will increase its stature.

Jogging along in the middle of the road with a passable but not exceptional collection of shows makes for an easy life.

Personally, I’d like to see the resources of writers, designers, directors and the rest tapped much more frequently.

Does it matter that some ideas might fall by the wayside? Much more likely is that half-a-dozen shows will emerge which are worth staying home for.

Do I qualify for that horsewhipping?

The post They Say… James Green appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Friday, November 22. At 17 minutes, 32 seconds past seven o’clock the first news flash about the shooting of President Kennedy was transmitted. At 19.40.30 the President’s death was reported as a fact. Normal programmes were abandoned.

This is how four members of the staff recall that evening:

‘We were having a drink in the club when someone telephoned to say that Kennedy had been shot. Less than an hour later we had got the go-ahead for a special programme – and two hours, 40 minutes after that we were on the air…’

‘There were about six people up in features when I went off to the TV Ball at the Dorchester with the news. When I got back there must have been dozens – and every phone was in use…

‘Studio 9 was bare – but all sorts of people turned up and offered to help. We didn’t have a complete crew but someone phoned Wembley and every available person was diverted to Television House…

‘A switchboard operator returned of her own accord because she guessed how busy it was going to be. Pretty well everyone in features section either phoned in or came back to the office from pubs, clubs and homes…’

This is how the general manager saw it:

‘Associated-Rediffusion, as the “Nominated Contractor” of the Network, recast the whole evening’s programmes, dropped many advertisements, put on a special “This Week” and behaved with great responsibility. My thanks are due to all those members of the staff who, of their own volition, returned to the office or the studios so that this emergency could be met.’

This is how James Green, television correspondent of the Evening News saw it:

Now that the senseless tragedy of President Kennedy’s assassination is moving slowly into perspective, it is pertinent to consider how well or how badly British TV acquitted itself.

The moment of crisis could not have happened at a worse time for the two British networks. Almost to a man, the policy-making, programme-planning executives of both the BBC and the ITV companies were arriving at the Dorchester Hotel for the annual ball of the Guild of TV Producers and Directors.

Some 70 of the guests left at once for their respective offices and studios. Every telephone at the hotel was in demand and calls were even being made from the kitchens.

(Incidentally, what bad luck the organisers of this TV Awards ball do suffer: one year a clash with the Suez invasion, other times marred by the Lewisham train disaster, start of a newspaper strike, and the heaviest fog of the year.)

The Kennedy news presented British TV with the biggest surprise crisis it has handled in many years. Suez. Hungary. These involved major actions and quick thinking, but nothing compared with the impact of a bullet at Dallas.

The fact that so much of the ‘top brass’ was travelling to the ball accounts for the uncertain manner in which both networks handled the opening moments of the disaster. But within a few hours reasoned decisions were being taken.

The ‘breakthrough’, which must have struck all who looked to Associated-Rediffusion, ITN, and ATV for up-to-the-minute information and pictures, was in the way that published programmes were thrown out as situation demanded. Various ‘specials’ were hurriedly assembled and screened morning, afternoon, or evening as they became available.

Most of the pictures arrived through a pooling arrangement. The American networks providing material which was beamed on to London via the ‘Relay’ satellite. ‘Relay’ (and I’m told it will no longer be working by the end of the year) was able to pass pictures three times a day and ‘passes’ of around 30 minutes each were possible.

From Britain the American material was sent right across Europe, not only over Eurovision, but also the Iron Curtain’s equivalent, Intervision.

As a critic I viewed as many as possible of the emergency shows screened by ITV and BBC. I was left with a definite impression. First, beyond any doubt, Mr Geoffrey Cox and his team at ITN proved more than capable of meeting the challenge of the BBC’s news division. This is not to say that the BBC fell below their usual standards. Nor is it my intention to belittle their achievements.

The second is that, and I wish I could explain this better, somehow – before your very eyes ITV grew up, came of age, matured, found developing dignity. In the past, if you will accept a personal opinion, I think that the inclination has been to turn auto- matically to the BBC in times of emergency. It was as though the BBC spoke as the voice of the nation. Now that, I suggest, is what has been altered. As a result of ITV’s excellent public face during the four or five days of crisis, much has been done to remove that prejudice which favoured the BBC.

The British public, which likes to take its time, is correspondingly much closer to the day when it will accept ITV’s voice as nationally authoritative in days of trouble.

Not that the BBC were second-rate. What I believe is that the events in November have established as fact that they must now bear comparison with a challenger of powerful stature and increased responsibility.

It was also interesting to see the various ITV companies working together so smoothly and acting fast in disrupting normally inviolable programme schedules and advertising.

Summing up, Independent Television’s brand image has been considerably enhanced and a claim that the BBC are no longer monopolists of broadcasting in critical times can fairly be made.

The pity is that something similar in the way of emergency did not arise while the Pilkington Committee were in session. It would surely have had immense influence.

The post The assassination and TV appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

THAT was a decade that was. That was a decade that was…

Oh, put the emphasis where you like. The fact remains that all of us who were there on the night when Rediffusion and ITV first flickered on to the screen are now 10 – no, 11 – years older.

I’ve changed. How about you?

Rediffusion has certainly altered. For a start it is no longer ‘Associated’.

Incidentally, dear editor, it would be interesting to find out just how many people at present on the pay-roll were with the company on Night One (still known to some as the night they invented champagne).

The answer is 252 – Editor.

From my own memory book I recall Sally Sutherland, Red Lyle, Dennis Atherton, Richard Hawkins, and the late Hugh Finlay – all part of the Press Office over the years.

Where the nostalgia really hit me was at the ITA’s white-tie Guildhall banquet when 10 glorious years and all that were celebrated.

It might have been the wine and brandy but sitting there under the stony stare of Gog and Magog I suddenly realised that 10 years (and part of a hair line) had vanished since I was in almost the same seat for ITV’s curtain-up.

The instant reaction was to check for ‘old familiar faces’ along the tables around me. Of 40 or so TV ‘professionals’ within range only four, perhaps five, had been there back in ’55.

Now I know how Greybeard felt. If my memory is right was Lord Hill, now ITA chairman, at that September 22, 1955, dinner as Postmaster-General?

And at that time didn’t ABC TV consist of just Howard Thomas and a secretary?

Before quitting that particular celebration I wonder if the champagne would have flowed so freely had it been known that within one year Rediffusion would be over £3 million down?

By the way, hasn’t that been perhaps the most important change of all – turning those colossal losses of the early years into a profit?

As a privileged spectator seeing much of the game from close quarters it seems to me that Rediffusion’s development has been in three stages.

The first, naturally, was that somewhat daffy unreal period when the newly recruited army worked excitedly to get the company on the air and keep it there.

Forgive me if there is an overlap for so many shows have been crammed into the decade, but those were the days of Gordon Harker and ‘Sixpenny Corner’. Of Ralph Reader’s ‘Chance Of A Lifetime’.

The weekly sports magazine. The Granville Melodramas. And of Sgt ‘I Only Want The Facts, Mam’ Webb and ‘Dragnet’.

Wasn’t there a freakish series called ‘You’ve Never Seen This’? Book reviews in the morning. Sheila Matthews as Friday’s Girl. Wasn’t this, too, the Jack Hylton variety era… the names which occur being Arthur Askey, Tony Hancock (he once did a one-man show in an emergency), Rosalina Neri, Bryan Michie, Ivor Emmanuel, the Crazy Gang and the Water Rats?

Roland Gillett was the programme controller, Lloyd Williams was on the production staff, and the whole period was like the froth on top of a pint.

The second stage was marked by the appointment of Paul Adorian as managing director and John McMillan as programme controller.

Now the workaday face and output of the company was being established. On went the old originals in ‘Take Your Pick’ and ‘Double Your Money’.

But morning TV disappeared. Much of the early pioneering excitement went with it. And the staff settled down to a more orderly existence.

Schools programmes started – remember Enid Love? Was it in this spell or even earlier that we had those Michael Ingrams’ series? How about those Goonish shows like ‘A Show Called Fred’, ‘Son of Fred’, and ‘Idiots’ Weekly’? Not only Sellers, but Milligan, too.

The work of putting in the foundations went on continuously.

‘Cool For Cats’ caught popular fancy and brought Joan Kemp-Welch’s name to the forefront. ‘This Week’ was going strong. Somewhere around this point Cyril Bennett and Elkan Allan began contributing to the company’s fortunes.

Peter Cotes is one more name I associate with this sector of Rediffusion’s fortune. And was I alone in liking America’s ‘Johnny Staccato’ jazz-thriller series?

I went down the Thames on one Rediffusion birthday party – and across to Paris for another. That was the day that George Sanders, then working on a special programme called ‘Women In Love’, helped to play host. Although only a voyage down the Seine, Captain Tom Brownrigg was also on hand.

So we had ‘No Hiding Place’ and ‘Intertel’, ‘Wagon Train’ and ‘Rawhide’. But where was Tig Roe? Whither Alan Morris? Goodbye Kingsway Corner.

Out went advertising magazines. Out went ‘Jim’s Inn’ – after setting the standard for all shows of this type. But in came the many successful Pinter plays.

The most successful, of course, being ‘The Lover’, with Alan Badel and Vivien Merchant. It must have won almost every award possible… actor, actress, author and director. Surely Rediffusion’s most successful production in all those 11 years?

Just as the TV scene was growing contentedly sedate on came ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ to give half the nation convulsions and the other half blood pressure.

Visiting the ‘RSG’ studio at TV House brought back all the din of 1955 and that drilling year when Adastral House was being converted.

By now Rediffusion was part of life. Dan Farson, always prominent in company affairs on the screen (his ‘Time Gentlemen, Please’ show was not only entered at Montreux but must have been responsible for the introduction of ‘Stars and Garters’), was a notable departure.

But phase two was drawing to a close too. On went John McMillan to general manager and in came Cyril Bennett as the new programme controller.

This is now part of the latest story… come in David Frost, Stella Richman, Benny Green, ‘Three After Six’, ‘The Rat Catchers’, and David Jacobs.

Pausing only to nod a farewell to Buddy Bregman and a friendly greeting to Europe’s favourite TV ‘uncle’ Eric Maschwitz, it scarcely seems credible that Monica Rose was hardly walking when ‘Double Your Money’ was first televised.

Yes, you’ve changed all right. Some more memory jogs… Stuart Hood, that ‘Arabian Nights’ opening for Wembley Studios, ‘Hippodrome’ in colour, the American deal with David Susskind, ‘Dial M For Music’, ‘Alfred Marks Time’, Keith Fordyce, Groucho Marx, Dickie Henderson, and on, and on.

It’s been a long time. Perhaps after all it should be that was a decade that was? What’s more Gog and Magog are still waiting.

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