We have a fine group of world-wide businesses and in the specialised fields in which we work we are in the forefront of technological development. We have made a notable contribution to the improvement of living standards and a significant reduction in the cost of civilised amenities. We have benefited our own country by a sustained export effort and other countries by providing the capital investment and technical expertise to give them benefits they could not otherwise have. Given freedom and encouragement, we have further markets to explore, both at home and abroad.

But how can Britain attack new markets if saving and productive effort are penalised and tax-gathering becomes virtually a major industry? The Government’s use of taxation as an instrument of social policy cannot be counted a success if groups like ours suffer from a tax burden which penalises effort and stultifies initiative. The tax structure must be simplified, for its understanding engages far more of the time of the best brains in British industry than the country can afford.

Recognition that the distribution of broadcast programmes by wire is a social necessity and an economy is increasing.

The areas where reception of BBC 2 is poor or nil are much more extensive than had been expected. This could lead to hitherto unexpected limits on the number of future television programmes that can be broadcast over the air. The use of wire, instead of aerial transmitters, to bring programmes to towns would not only solve the technical problem, but could produce immense savings if Rediffusion’s highly economical techniques were used.

The Rediffusion community service which makes the benefits of wired reception available to whole communities, on a bulk basis and on bulk terms, has made great strides. We have contracts with the Development Corporations of seven of the new towns, and with numerous local authorities, and many more projects are under negotiation.

In the present service areas of the BBC 2 television programme, which uses the new 625-line standard, the proportion of Rediffusion wired television subscribers who can receive it is many times the national average. This is partly due to the more reliable reception we give, and also the fact that most Rediffusion single-standard receivers for reception by wire (unlike the majority of aerial sets) can be converted at small cost for dual standard reception.

Our wired networks are ready for the expected transmission of colour television programmes.

It is a pity that wired systems, with their inherent advantages, are not allowed to compete freely in the open market. The Government cannot prevent the private listener from illegally receiving the ‘pirate’ radio stations, but they can and do enforce the prohibition against relay companies. If we were not subject to this discrimination, our service would be even more popular than it is.

The previous Government decided that when our present licences became terminable at the end of 1967, we would be given new licences for a period of 12 years. We did not think 12 years for the new licence, or even the 15-year term of the present licence, was good enough. We have been ready for a long time to discuss with the Post Office the details of the renewed licence, but the Post Office are not yet ready to discuss them with us. Meanwhile, our entire relay business is theoretically liable to be closed down on two years’ notice – a highly unrealistic situation.

In television set rental and sales we continue to make excellent progress. The increase in the number of our hirers last year was most satisfactory, and considerably higher than the previous year. Considering the number of competitors and the difficulties some expanding rental firms have experienced, and considering too that our policy is to connect any make of set to our wired service, this progress speaks well for the quality of our product and our service.

The installation and maintenance of closed circuit television installations for local education and other purposes is a growing business in which Rediffusion’s experience is exceptionally useful, particularly where an extensive network is required. The development of this side of the business is undertaken by a central company, Rediffusion Industrial Services Limited, jointly with our regional operating companies throughout the country.

Reditune Limited, our background music service company, is improving its results and further progress has been made in operations overseas, which now cover 41 territories.

Redifon Limited has received the Queen’s Award to Industry for the export achievement of its Flight Simulator Division. Sixty-six per cent of the output of the division, and 54 per cent of Redifon’s total output, were exported.

Redifon’s share of the work on the first stage of the research simulator for the Anglo-French Concord [span class=”ed”>[sic] supersonic aircraft has been completed and the simulator is now installed at Sud Aviation at Toulouse. This simulator is being used for early prototype flight testing and for finalising the design of the cockpit layout.

The communications division of Redifon has supplied marine equipment, oil rig installations and land communication equipment to 60 overseas countries, as well as to United Kingdom customers. It has had a major success with its military transmitter-receiver pack-sets.

Redifon-Astrodata Limited, which is 70 per cent owned by Redifon Limited and 30 per cent by Astrodata Incorporated of California, has started to manufacture a new line of analogue-hybrid computers that are used in solving technical problems involving dynamic solution of differential equations, and for on-line process control functions in industry. Redifon-Astrodata now has a contract for a major computer installation for the Shell company at Amsterdam.

Redifon’s two subsidiaries in the plastics field, Rediweld Limited and Glass Fibre Developments Limited, have been operationally combined and have had a better year. Bigorders have been received for equipment for the Laney system of effluent treatment, which is made under licence.

Redifon (Canada) 1964 Limited has acquired the assets of a small Canadian manufacturing unit, Benco Television Associates, near Toronto and this should assist Redifon’s export activities to Canada and the United States.

Most of the television receivers sold and rented by the group are produced in our own factories. Demand has kept our factories fully employed and we have extended our productive capacity. Eight thousand receivers manufactured by us were exported to Hong Kong during the year, a considerable increase upon the previous year. Sets designed for use on Rediffusion wired networks are considerably simpler and much cheaper than comparable sets designed for aerial reception. This is the reason why the Rediffusion community service, already referred to, can provide the benefits of perfect reception of television and sound programmes by wire, where every house in the district is connected to the service, at less cost than direct reception of television only over the air. Our latest 19-inch ‘Dover’ television set was selected by the Council of Industrial Design for display in the Design Centres in London and Glasgow.

Rediffusion International Limited, the London-based company which has launched many of our now autonomous overseas enterprises, is contributing to the British export drive by representing overseas broadcasting stations, within and outside the group, to United Kingdom exporters. The company is the London agent for the sale of advertising air-time on those stations, which it provides with some of their technical services and programmes, and with marketing and sales promotion facilities which have been found very useful indeed by the newer stations. Once again, the most successful of our operations in the Far East has been our unique television service in Hong Kong. This provides two programmes, one in Chinese and one in English to the 57,000 subscribers (estimated audience over 400,000) to our vast wired network. All our wired network operations in Malaysia, except the small new network in Opoh, had a difficult year with the competition from state-owned commercial radio and television continuing, and with high operating costs.

Our company in Ceylon has added modestly to its number of subscribers and to its profitability, which in difficult circumstances is very satisfactory.

The Malta Television Service continues to attract attention as a model of what a small television service should be. It is in competition with the apparently unlimited resources of the Italian Television Service, whose transmissions are quite well received in the islands. Our wired sound broadcasting network in Malta and Gozo continues to hold its own, notwithstanding the competition from our own television service.

Our broadcasting companies in the West Indies and Guyana continue to prosper and to be well regarded, not merely for the good entertainment but also for the large amount of public service broadcasting they provide.

In Barbados, where we originate a sound programme which is broadcast by wire to approximately half the homes in the island, our service continues to hold its subscribers.

Our sound radio broadcasting company in Trinidad and Tobago (Trinidad Broadcasting Company Limited) does well in competition with the television service in which we are one of the two major partners. Our associated television company, the Trinidad and Tobago Television Company Limited with an impressive percentage of programmes produced or filmed locally, has competition from the Government-owned commercial radio and television services, yet it enjoys 75 per cent of the radio audience.

In newly independent Guyana, our broadcasting company, now named Guyana Broadcasting Company Limited, has recovered from the slump caused by the political uncertainty of the past. Guyana has immense potential wealth which is only now being developed, and has a great future.

The Leeward Islands Television Service in Antigua, in which we are partners with the Government, the Bermuda Broadcasting Company, Columbia Broadcasting System of America and local shareholders, is one of the smallest television operations in the world.

Radio Caribbean Limited, our sound radio broadcasting subsidiary in the Windward Islands, in which we are majority shareholders, at present broadcasts mainly in French to the French West Indies, but we are strengthening the station’s English programme.

We have a minority interest in the Bermuda Broadcasting Company Limited. In spite of competition from rival radio and television stations, that company continues to produce satisfactory results in a market limited to a resident population of 50,000 plus a large number of tourists and visitors.

The quality of the sound and television broadcasting services established by Rediffusion in Liberia, on behalf of the Liberian Government has been widely praised. It is recognised as the outstanding small-station broadcasting service in Africa.

Rediffusion Liberia Limited, which provides the management services for the Broadcasting Corporation and also operates a television set rental sale and maintenance service, is now making – in only its third year – a modest profit.

Our company in Nigeria, which relays the sound programmes of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in the Western Region and in the Federal District of Lagos, has suffered from the violent political disturbances affecting these areas. Between mid-October, 1965, and mid-January, 1966, when the Army seized power, there was a total breakdown of law and order. This resulted in widespread disconnections and loss of revenue. We are confident, however, that given a reasonable degree of political stability, future prospects in Nigeria are good.

The Government of South Africa, having completed its FM radio network which provides programmes in several dialects for the Bantu population, has decided not to renew the licence for our wired relay operation in Orlando, near Johannesburg, which expired on June 4 this year, but by arrangement, we are carrying on the operation for another eight months from that date.

In the United States and Canada community antenna television (‘CATV’) has grown immensely in popularity because it has been able to relay distant stations as well as those that are receivable locally. However, new legislation in the United States is likely to restrict the CATV operator’s earning power considerably and Rediffusion’s very economical system of wired distribution deserves attention by those Americans who are still eagerly entering the expanding CATV field.

In Canada we have profitable CATV networks, at Sherbrooke, Quebec and at Jamestown, Ontario, and a profitable music-by-wire franchise for the province of Quebec.

In many countries where we operate we rent and sell (for cash and on hire purchase) television sets, if there is a local television service. This side of our overseas business is increasingly adding to profits.

Our planning in Rediffusion is always for the long term, as I have already said in relation to our need for a long-term licence. We could materially improve our immediate financial results, at the expense of our future, by standing still. The more important role that wired distribution of broadcasting may have to play in the future, and the greater interest in television that may come with the advent of programmes in colour, encourage us to look to the future. Already, however, some of our ideas are ahead of our time. We aim to provide better service at lower cost, but the competition we face is immense. We therefore encourage our research teams to prepare for the future, and our managers and engineers to keep their feet on the ground, by confining expenditure to projects which should have relatively early commercial success. Even this is an act of faith, expensive in capital, and it is hard to bear the further discouragement of really grievous taxation.

So much for the problems and developments associated with Rediffusion Limited. Quite a different set are involved when John Spencer Wills puts on his other hat as chairman of the British Electric Traction Company Limited. Within the group there are transport undertakings, laundries, bowling centres and a plant hire subsidiary. The transport undertakings in this country include such bus companies as Southdown, Aidershot and District, Midland Red, East Kent, Devon General, South Wales, and East Trent. About them he said:

No less than 14 per cent has been added to operating costs recently to implement the recommendations on wages and conditions made by the Committee of Inquiry under the chairmanship of Sir Roy Wilson. Attempts to make more use of one-man buses and to effect other economics have met with union unwillingness. In addition, operating costs, and consequently fares, have been artificially inflated by the heavy duty on fuel oil. Further, the industry’s burden of taxation has been increased by the withdrawal of the 30 per cent investment allowance for new buses and coaches.

Manufacturing industries, including the producers of relatively inessential goods, and the extractive industries will in future receive cash investment grants. But no service industries, not even those providing services which are basic necessities, as, for example, transport, will receive these grants. Such blind discrimination which favours all manufacturers and penalises service industries, regardless of the value of their respective contributions to our economy, is astonishing.

We should doubtless be grateful that the bus industry has been spared from the full effect of the forthcoming selective employment tax. Operators will still have to pay the tax, but it will be refunded to them quarterly, so we shall be obliged to ‘lend’ money to the Government free of interest. That does not trouble me as much, however, as the dangers that the subsidy of 7s. 6d. a man to be handed to manufacturers out of the proceeds of this new tax, may prove a disincentive to some of them to install labour-saving plant and machinery and so to release manpower for essential service industries, such as the bus industry, which are suffering from an acute shortage of labour.

Turning to our overseas transport interests, Canadian Motorways has suffered from a prolonged strike of haulage workers in the Province of Ontario, following the union’s refusal to accept a labour arbitration award. The strike, which began in January this year, closed down all the major trucking companies in Ontario, including one of Canadian Motorways’ chief subsidiaries, and lasted for 15 weeks.

Last year was a good year for Jamaica Omnibus Services. The mileage run and the number of passengers carried by the fleet of more than 300 vehicles showed substantial increases.

The road transport undertaking in Africa managed by our partners, United Transport Company of Chepstow, continues to prosper. Through our subsidiary company, B.E.T. Omnibus Services, we have a 41 per cent equity interest in United Transport Overseas, the holding company for these passenger road transport and freight undertakings.

It will be in the interests of all concerned when present antagonisms between Rhodesia and Zambia are moderated, and certainly there are problems, both economic and political, calling for solution in other African countries. It would, however, be incorrect to assume from reports in the press of happenings in widely-spread territories that there exists a state of general turmoil throughout the countries in which we operate. The excellent progress made in recent years by the African companies could hardly have been achieved had this been so.

The arrangements under which the Malawi Government has a financial interest in our transport operations there, and the municipality of Dar-es-Salaam a stake in our Tanzanian operations, are working well. More recently, the municipality of Nairobi has taken a substantial minority interest in our operations in and around Nairobi.

A new development during the year has been an extension of the African group’s touring activities into Ethiopia by the formation of a company there in partnership with a world airline.

An entry has also been made into road transport in Australia, where the growing economy should offer prospects for the carriage of freight by road.

A further expansion of business has been achieved by our subsidiary, Advance Laundries. Practically the whole of the increase came from the commercial services – Towelmaster, linen and garment hire, office cleaning and hotel laundering, which together account for the major part of the Advance Group’s work. On the domestic laundry and dry cleaning side, a major reorganisation of service is in progress in the Greater London area, following the acquisition of the Tip-Top group of dry cleaning companies.

Advance Laundries invests large sums in new plant to increase efficiency. To give an example, research into automation by a research company in which the group has a half interest, will shortly result in the installation by Advance Laundries of one of the first production models of a continuous washing machine which will process cabinet towels at the rate of 1,200 feet a minute.

One of the principal aims of the new selective employment tax is to encourage a more effective distribution of the nation’s labour force. But to impose a heavy pay roll tax on an industry that relies largely on part-time female labour – which would not be likely to interest, or be available to, the ‘favoured’ manufacturing industries – is totally illogical. In addition to the Magnet Bowling centres at Barnsley, Cambridge and Bristol, three further centres have been opened this year at Peterborough, Poole and Darlington. Two more are under construction.

In common with the rest of the contractors’ plant hire industry, the subsidiary, Eddison Plant, was affected by the Government’s policy of reducing grants for road maintenance, and of deferring, as from July, 1965, major building and road construction.

The company now operates over 1,000 road rollers of different types as well as a wide range of other kinds of contractors’ plant. The materials handling division has a fleet of over 500 fork lift trucks with a wide range of lifting capacities. The scaffolding division successfully completed its first full year at Nottingham and these operations have been extended to a depot at Leicester.

The company now has 21 depots covering England, Scotland and Wales, and further depots are being considered to give even better local and national coverage.

All of which shows the wide range of activities covered by the Rediffusion and B.E.T. groups. Whether the individual companies are concerned with producing television programmes or providing the means to receive them, whether they are bus companies or laundries, there are two key words which sum up practically the entire operation – public service.

The post Public service round the world appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The cutting above is a reproduction of a personal advertisement on page one of The Times on October 10, 1921. The ambitious 17-year-old responsible had carefully picked his words to create the biggest impact from the 15s. [75p in decimal, £30 in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] investment in himself.

Today The Times prints – without charge – parts of the speeches made by the leader that youngster has grown into. The shrewd, successful, 55-year-old business and financial expert responsible for those speeches selects the ideas which his judgement tells him will succeed just as carefully as he picked the words for that advertisement. Today, however, the loss could be millions of pounds not 15s.

The advertiser in The Times in 1921 and the man quoted in that paper today is John Spencer Wills, president of the B.E.T. Federation Ltd, deputy chairman and managing director of the British Electric Traction Co. Ltd, chairman of Associated-Rediffusion Ltd, chairman and/or director of various omnibus companies in the B.E.T. group, past president of the Institute of Transport, deputy chairman of the Monotype Corporation Ltd, … an abbreviated list occupies three column inches in Who’s Who.

He did not waste his 15s. in 1921 nor has it been his habit to waste either words or money since then. He has used both to work for him better than most who were born in the early 1900’s.

During the First World War he attended first a preparatory school in Shropshire and then the Merchant Taylors’ School, London. John Spencer Wills played the usual games without distinguishing himself at any of them, although, significantly perhaps, he did like steeple-chasing more than other forms of exercise. He admits that he found rugger a little frightening. No doubt some of his contemporaries who played the game with gay abandon would today find his responsibilities positively petrifying.

The lanky youngster might have continued in this fashion had not fate intervened. He outgrew his heart and was ordered by the doctors to give up games. The academic side of his activities flourished. Mathematics and science were the subjects he enjoyed most and was, therefore, the best at. We shall see that later on in life he was to find another favourite subject – work.

Here at Merchant Taylors’ he came under the influence of the first of two outstanding men who were to make a great impact on his early years. This man was Dr J. A. Nairn, the headmaster at the time. The scholarly authority and penetrating judgement of this doctor of divinity, who had been appointed headmaster at 26, made a lasting impression on the schoolboy. Their friendship did not end when the youngster left school in 1921. Upon Dr Nairn’s retirement five years later the Lord Chancellor (an Old Merchant Taylor incidentally) appointed him to the living of Stubbings, near Maidenhead. There Dr Nairn christened the younger son of John Spencer Wills, 20 years after his pupil left the school.

The year 1921 was not a good one in which to start a career. Jobs were hard to find. People were beginning to talk about The Slump. The tall, slim youth decided to advertise in The Times and thereby established an important principle he has followed throughout his career. He believed that more satisfactory results could be achieved from people approaching him rather than the other wayround. He still does.

And his faith was justified for among the replies was one from a Mr Emile Garcke who wrote, in his own hand, saying he wanted ‘an educated young gentleman with a view to making him my private secretary’. It did not take John Spencer Wills long to find out that Mr Garcke was head of the executive of B.E.T. An interview resulted in the following letter from Mr Garcke:

Ditton House,
Near Maidenhead.
21st October 1921

Dear Sir,

Replying to your letter of 18th inst and call yesterday I write to say that you are appointed to the position of my personal confidential clerk at £50 p.a. [£2,100] payable monthly and in addition, you will have board and residence and washing hill at above address, free also a season ticket between Maidenhead and Paddington. The engagement will be terminable by one month’s notice on either side. When you are in London – about three days a week – you will provide your own luncheon.

I suggest you should commence your duties on November 1st and that if convenient you should go down to Maidenhead on Monday 31st, by train leaving Paddington at 6.33 p.m. I shall be on the same train and a motorcar will meet us at Maidenhead station. I enclose form of application for railway season ticket for you to fill in and return to me. I do not know whether you have a bicycle but you would find one useful as my house is 2 miles from the town.

Yours truly,

E. Garcke.

Fortunately John Spencer Wills did have a bicycle. He also had ambition and courage. Most youngsters would have accepted the offer without more thought than that it might be a useful entry to the B.E.T. But the 17-year-old boy who was about to take his first job was not satisfied with a possibility. He wanted a certainty, and so he made it a condition of his acceptance that he would be taken into the B.E.T. organisation proper after two years. Even before embarking upon his career he had laid down the first of many conditions to follow; already he had his eye on the main chance.

Mr Garcke was the second man to have a very big influence on the rapidly maturing youth. A tireless, painstaking worker, he had founded the B.E.T. empire and was responsible for building it up, company by company. Some of his qualities were undoubtedly passed on to his confidential clerk.

John Spencer Wills lived at Mr Garcke’s home in Maidenhead, travelling up to London most days. Much of his time was spent assisting Mr Garcke in his hobby – philosophy. For hour after hour he pored over books in the London Library, picking out extracts on philosophical subjects. More hard labour went into the compilation of a special file of triads needed for the book Mr Garcke was writing. Today this privately published book, Individual Understanding, is a treasured possession of John Spencer Wills.

But the young clerk acquired more than a knowledge of philosophy from Mr Garcke. He also learnt something about bee-keeping. The old man took it up as part of his philosophical study. And such was Mr Garcke’s ability to grasp a new subject that he was lecturing to the Beekeepers’ Association within a year.

John Spencer Wills learnt how to mount the tongues of bees on slides and how to file Mr Garcke’s investigations under a complicated system of classification of the sciences. He was shown the importance of attention to detail at an early stage in his career.

But possibly more important still was the fact that his position gave him a valuable insight into the work of a man at the peak of his power. This glimpse from the top right at the start must have acted as a considerable spur to his ambition.

Perhaps Mr. Garcke, too, realised that his clerk could not be held back for after one, not two, years, John Spencer Wills was transferred to the B.E.T.’s Secretaries office.

He worked at the headquarters in Kingsway as an assistant secretary to a number of bus companies and lived in the suburbs in a dingy, none-too-comfortable bed-sitting-room at Palmers Green. Such was the start for a man who now lives in a house in Kensington during the week and on his own Sussex farm at the weekends. He recalls those days with an amused shudder.

Already he was making sure that it would not be his lot for long. For two and a half years most of his spare time was occupied in study. He passed the Intermediate and then the Final examination of the Incorporated Secretaries Association (now merged with the Chartered Institute of Secretaries).

Soon he realised that acting as a company secretary was not going to result in quick promotion. So he decided to go into the field; to get a job working in the provinces with one of those bus companies.

At last a chance came; B.E.T. acquired a new company in Hull. John Spencer Wills applied to go there and was appointed its secretary and accountant at a salary of £260 a year [£12,500]. Now he had both a bedroom and a sitting-room in his digs.

But before he took up his new job he was sent to the Eastern Counties Road Car Co. Ltd, for a three-week course of intensive training.

And so he arrived in Hull armed with ambition, drive and a little book full of notes on how to run a bus company. And in Hull he had a big shock. There was no proper office, hardly any staff and not even a reliable ticket system. John Spencer Wills rolled up his sleeves.

The situation might have been designed for him to achieve the greatest possible impact. He created order from the chaos and within a very short time was appointed the company’s general manager. At 22 the young man from headquarters had made a very big mark.

It is difficult to estimate the importance of the effect the next four years had on him. His chairman left him to get on with running the company’s affairs. If he wanted to put up the fares or anything else he did it. For four years he laid a very solid foundation to the company which had become the East Yorkshire Motor Services Ltd. Today he chuckles as he recalls those years. It was great fun for a youngster to have such power.

But the slump had arrived and it was not so much fun to have married men with two or more children coming to him and begging to be taken on as a clerk at 35s. a week [£1.75 in decimal, £90].

Ask him why he stuck with buses and he will become slightly annoyed. In those days there was no chance to wander from pasture to pasture, finding the most tasteful grass. People were delighted to keep what they had got. As a man with the power to hire and fire their plight was brought home to him in no uncertain fashion. He interviewed a steady procession of working men, their elbows sticking out of their coats, their families lacking clothes and food. Despite this he liked bus work.

In Hull it resulted in his being involved in something else which must have had a big effect on the formation of his character. This was a running fight with Hull Corporation who operated a rival bus service.

The young general manager found himself far from the calm, well-mannered, orderliness of the Kingsway headquarters of B.E.T. He had wanted to go out into the field but he had not realised that it would be a battle-field.

He found himself in head-on conflict with the chairman of Hull’s watch committee which was then responsible for licensing bus services in the city. The educated, well-brought-up, man from the South was faced by a self-made stoker, a Socialist by conviction and a blunt, forthright Yorkshireman by birth. Any attempt at reasoned argument was met with a stoker’s sledgehammer vocabulary. John Spencer Wills did the only thing possible – he learnt to talk the same way back.

The only snag was that the watch committee’s chairman was deaf, relying on a hearing box with earphones to listen to the young man’s retorts. The stoker adopted the only effective counter he knew to his opponent’s cogent arguments – he switched the hearing box off.

The watch committee and its chairman soon made up their minds about their attitude to the rival company’s general manager. Without putting it too strongly, they hated his guts.

But already John Spencer Wills had attracted attention from those in London. At the age of 26 he was asked to return and become a director with B.E.T. Five days after he had accepted this invitation, the corporation, not knowing of the move, surrendered. They sent a deputation to ask him to take over the management of the corporation’s bus service. It is interesting to reflect what would have happened had that deputation arrived five days earlier.

Now, however, John Spencer Wills had his feet firmly on the B.E.T. ladder. He describes his progress up that ladder over the next 20-odd years as steady, progressive plodding. This plodding carried him through the chairmanship of more than half the bus companies in the group.

But it did not carry him either so high or so fast as another facet of his earlier life which has more than a little bearing on his character. For six years, from 1933 to 1939, he held a pilot’s licence.

He took up flying when he was 28 for two reasons. First, he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it. Secondly, he thought that B.E.T., with its vast public transport interests, would expand into aviation. Until 1942 he was in fact managing director of British and Foreign Aviation Ltd and chairman of a number of aviation companies. The war, however, knocked things sideways.

He might have been a good pilot but he was a very bad navigator. Once when flying back to London from the cast he became lost and landed in the middle of a housing estate to find out where he was. The only way out was to take off smack between two houses. Today he smiles when recalling the incident and admits that he might have been killed.

More of the dare-devil in his make-up is revealed when he recalls watching the Boat Race by flying round in circles a few hundred feet above it. He also remembers taking up a girl to show her the sights of London from the air. (There was no restriction on low-flying in those days.) She was sick into her handkerchief and tossed it overboard. The slipstream caught it and smacked it back across the pilot’s goggles. John Spencer Wills is probably the only man alive today to have flown blind a couple of hundred feet above London. The girl, grand-daughter of Mr Emile Garcke, is his wife.

That was a lighter incident in his career. A more important event, which demanded just as sure a grip on the controls, was the grim battle over the 1945 Labour Government’s bid to nationalise the bus companies. Already B.E.T. had lost its electricity and gas undertakings to nationalisation. Now it was threatened with the loss of its interest in public transport.

Two big companies – Tillings and the Scottish group – sold out to the Government. But B.E.T. stuck to its belief that nationalisation was against the interests of the public, its stockholders and its staff. The fight was strenuous. Perhaps it reminded John Spencer Wills of his earlier battle against Hull Corporation; perhaps he used some of the techniques he learnt then. Nobody will dispute that he played a very important role in the anti-nationalisation campaign.

It was around this time that he was approached by Mr Allan Miller, then the controller of Broadcast Relay Services (later to become Rediffusion), with offers for him to become the managing director of the company. Each offer was more attractive than its predecessor. Each was refused. Allan Miller was not the sort of man to take ‘no’ for an answer. Nor was John Spencer Wills the sort of man to shift from the position he had taken up. It looked like stalemate but eventually a solution was found. The B.E.T. group, faced with big losses from nationalisation, took over Rediffusion and John Spencer Wills became chairman of it as well as managing director. The belief of John Spencer Wills in people approaching him had again been borne out.

Meanwhile the threat to nationalise buses had been halted so B.E.T. was left with its bus companies and Rediffusion. A few years later it was only natural that Rediffusion, with its television systems in Bermuda and Montreal already operating, should be among those to apply for a contract when it was decided to set up Independent Television in this country.

Once more John Spencer Wills and his fellow directors were called upon to make a coolly calculated decision. After many hours of anxious thought and deliberation, in which he played no small part, the decision was taken. Associated-Rediffusion was formed.

The story of the company’s early days, with the losses growing and growing, is well known. Not so well known arc the talks, worries and decisions which bespattered those troublesome times. Associated Newspapers withdrew. B.E.T. and Rediffusion took over their interests.

Behind it all were men who had considered every factor and decided to stick it out. John Spencer Wills carried more than his share of the responsibility and worry.

Now Associated-Rediffusion is under attack for the amount of money it makes and some of the programmes it transmits. As chairman he has little time for these attacks. He is not ashamed of making a profit nor is he ashamed of the programmes transmitted. But he does get annoyed at what he describes as ‘high falutin’, carping criticism’.

He thinks that the desire for entertainment and escapism are not far separated and he is not afraid to admit that, in common with a great many other people, he likes Westerns. John Spencer Wills makes no bones about the fact that he is proud to be chairman of Associated-Rediffusion and has been heard to describe the staff at Television House and Wembley as ‘a damn good lot’.

He genuinely believes in alternative and not competitive programmes. While admitting that this would be in Associated-Rediffusion’s interest, he is convinced that it would also be in the interest of the public to have a real, alternative television service.

He is also adamant about the value of people talking things over round a table. John Spencer Wills does not aim to set himself up (or anybody else) as a dictator in Associated-Rediffusion or any other company. ‘We’ve not got any and we certainly are not going to have any either.’

His own policy is not to interfere unnecessarily. He describes his role at B.E.T. as that of ‘Cabinet maker’ – to appoint the chairman and directors of the many companies within the group.

Many characteristics have combined to help carry him up the B.E.T. ladder. You will have gained a good idea of some of them from the preceding pages.

Mr W. T. James, who has also climbed high in the B.E.T. organisation, has known and worked with him for 27 years. He sums these characteristics up as follows:

A tremendous capacity for work, backed by a keen, perceptive brain. A forceful, analytical mind, logical in argument and quick to find a weakness in a case or document. This makes him a tough man with whom to negotiate. A virile imagination takes him a jump ahead of most people. He has the ability to issue the right orders and to make sure they are carried out. While not tolerating fools gladly he is a fair-minded, not ruthless, man.

Today John Spencer Wills has a not inconsiderable private fortune. Like others in a similar position he would be much better off financially if he avoided our high taxation and went to live in Bermuda or the West Indies. Why doesn’t he? Ask him and you will get a simple answer which also accounts for a great deal of his success. ‘I enjoy my work.’

Much as he attributes his success simply to this enjoyment of his work, so his chief hobby is simple. It is complete idleness. Walking and shooting are other occupations. Most weekends will find him out walking around the 2,000 acres, largely woodland, he owns in Sussex. Each weekday he compromises by walking from his house, through Kensington Gardens, to his office at Stratton House.

Dairy farming interests him as well. He lives on one farm near Battle and lets another five farms to tenants. He enjoys novels, good or bad, and likes to go to the theatre to see a serious drama.

Happily married to a lady who is well-known in the B.E.T. organisation for her charm and frequent attendance at functions all over the country, he has two sons. Colin, aged 22, is articled to a chartered accountant. Nicholas, aged 18, is now in Australia acting as a jackaroo on a sheep station before going up to Cambridge in October.

John Spencer Wills has no need to use the advertisement columns of The Times today. If he did he would certainly require more than the 17 words in which he described his qualifications in 1921. Then he had ambitions but no influence. Today he has achieved many of his objectives and acquired a lot of influence in the process. But the impression remains that he has some ambitions still to fulfil.

Sir John Spencer Wills (10 August 1904–28 October 1991) was chairman of Associated-Rediffusion.

The post Profile of John Spencer Wills appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

On Wednesday, November 24, 1954 I walked into the offices (two rooms) of Associated-Rediffusion in Stratton House as the third member of the staff: the company secretary, Arthur Groocock, and his personal secretary, Fay Caddy, were already there. The company’s name was fixed – an accountant in Rediffusion was presented with a gold watch for having thought of it, especially the hyphen – and the Board of Directors had been chosen – the chairman from B.E.T., three directors from Rediffusion and four from Associated Newspapers. Nothing else was fixed.

I do not propose to trace the build-up of the company, nor to describe the intriguing excitement with which I entered, for me, the unknown worlds of entertainment and advertising. Suffice it to say that the company went on the air on Friday, September 22, 1955 with a crashing and most expensive programme, and will end its present Licence period on Wednesday, July 29, 1964 with, I hope, another outstanding programme: and that between these two dates, the company has been so successful financially as to become the envy of many people, and so successful programme-wise that it is the provider of the majority of live/taped hours to the network. Some call us doggedly decent; I say we are reliably good.

Most people think of a general manager as a man in command, even at times as a dictator, but in fact no one is a successful general manager unless he serves. In our case he has to serve the viewers, the staff and the shareholders. Also, of course, he has to manage.

If the viewers are not given the sort of programme they can admire and like, they will switch off or switch on to the BBC. First, therefore, the general manager must develop a programme policy which will serve the viewers. We have now evolved a programme policy over the years which, I think, meets the viewers’ needs. From 7.00 p.m. till about 10-10.45 p.m. we give programmes likely to appeal to all members of the family over the age of 17. Before 7.00 p.m. and after 10-10.45 p.m. we give programmes likely to appeal to substantial minorities. Sport in the afternoon; small children at 4.45 p.m.; older children at 5.00 p.m.; news at about 6.00 p.m.; the till 7.00 p.m. Similarly, in the late evening a more sophisticated audience is always served by at least one programme. Up till 7.00 p.m. programmes are suitable for children; between 7.00 p.m. and 9.00 p.m. they are not unsuitable for children; after 9.00 p.m. they are suitable for adults, but not always for children.

To arrive at this pattern of programming, and to make a success of individual programmes, a great deal of research is essential in order to find out the types and the sizes of minority audiences, and to find out if a particular minority audience likes the programme aimed at it. If, for instance, we transmit a programme on the lives of pop singers, and we know that a minority of three million homes in the country are interested in pop singers, then if 80 per cent of this minority of three million homes switch on and stay with the programme, we have got a successful programme; whereas, if only 40 per cent switch on or if the 80 per cent dwindles to 40 per cent, then we have a failure. The viewers must be served and, therefore, the programme must be altered or withdrawn.

We are sometimes accused of being too rigid in our programme schedules, especially by the television critics – poor chaps, they have to watch all the time – who long for a surprise. It is said that we are forced into a rigid pattern by the advertisers: this is not so. We do not lightly change a programme schedule because we feel that we should keep faith with our viewers. If the keen followers of “This Week’ switch on only to find we have substituted boxing, then they are maddened; if the followers of Hughie Green find a Cape Canaveral programme substituted, then they are saddened, whilst family men will know the result if ‘Small Time’ is pre-empted for tennis. My policy throughout has been to try and serve the viewers; the touchstone is whether or not the viewers will be satisfied by and grateful for the programmes. To make them grateful, however, it is necessary to advance a little beyond their present taste; always to improve the programme content.

Strange as it may seem to many of you, a general manager also has to serve the staff. Firstly, he must establish an organisation which is clear and workable, so that everybody knows who does what. Nothing is more frustrating than not knowing who deals with what and who can give a decision. Secondly, he has to create a staff relationship in which the staff feel that promotions or demotions are fairly done, that discipline is tempered with understanding. Nothing can engender bitterness more than a feeling that something has been decided unfairly or ruthlessly and, in this connection, the same ill feeling can be caused if the general manager allows one person to get away with something – bad time-keeping or excessive expenses – whilst his colleague has abided by the rules. Thirdly, the general manager must see that conditions under which the staff work, and the equipment that they operate are the best that can reasonably be provided. It may be the creative freedom given to the programme directors, or it may be the vision mixing panel in master control, but whatever it is, it should enable the creative staff to be creative and the servicing staff to be able to do their job efficiently.

The shareholders are certainly considered by the staff less than any other part of the company: I doubt if the majority of the staff ever give them a thought. Nevertheless, they are a most important part of the organisation. They provide the money and it was their faith which launched the company. The general manager must serve the shareholders. Therefore, he must set up and supervise an advertising sales department which will bring in the revenue; he must be attentive to the views of advertisers and their agents, since they are entitled to get good value for the money they spend with the company. The shareholders want revenue, not only to pay for the cost of our operations and to pay a dividend on their capital, but also to provide cash for improving the equipment and programmes. 625 lines standard and colour are on their way, and will need a lot of money to install. The shareholders through the board also look to the general manager to see that the money they provide is not wasted, either by bad organisation, excessive salaries or artists’ payments, or by the purchase of dud or unwanted equipment.

You will observe that there is a very fine dividing line between the object of satisfying the viewers with better programmes which might be achieved by extra expenditure, and the object of preventing the shareholders’ money being wasted. The general manager never has an easy life and very rarely does he have easy decisions to make. (‘Problems only reach the general manager when they are insoluble elsewhere’.) An example much talked about at the moment is the decision whether or not to edit tape. Editing tape might lead to improved programmes, though the improvement in my opinion will only be appreciated by a minority of professional viewers, and not by 90 per cent of our public. It would, however, be expensive and might lead, as in the U.S.A., to taped programmes being produced by film techniques which would be very expensive. This, in turn, might lead, as in the U.S.A., to 90 per cent of the programmes being made in film studios which, to my mind, would kill ITV as it now exists and substitute a home cinema. This general manager has not found it an easy decision, but he leaves the company firmly convinced that the editing of tape is not in the interests of the viewers, the staff or the shareholders.

As planned long ago, I am retiring from my job as general manager before the start of the new Licence period; firstly, because I think that after 45 years of full-time work I am entitled to take life a bit easier and, secondly, because I believe that television is a young man’s job: new ideas should be bubbling up and new techniques tried (always provided they are not to the detriment of the viewers). When you are over 60 there is a danger of thinking that old and tried ideas are necessarily the best. I shall, however, be on the board of some of our subsidiary companies, and will not, therefore, be completely out of touch.

I am delighted that John McMillan, who has so often stood in for me when I have been away, is now relieving me. The board of Associated-Rediffusion is remaining the same and they are, in my opinion, the best board in Independent Television. I am sure that Associated-Rediffusion’s second licence period will be one of continuing success. I hope to see most of the staff over the Christmas period in order to say a personal good-bye, but I would like now to thank you all for your loyal support through the years, and for never allowing your jobs to get you down. I hope, when the station clock is redesigned, it will contain the company’s motto ‘Never Baffled’.

The post The General Manager’s farewell appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The year 1966 started with political praise being heaped on the head of ‘This Week’ when the programme celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 6. A publication to mark the event carried messages of goodwill from the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberals. Later that night a programme title ventured into the realm of the astrologer with what at that time seemed an amazingly rash prediction… The World Cup – England to Win?’ Then on January 31 the first of a new series called ‘The Rat Catchers’ started to win predictably high ratings.

In between, however, had come the death of a member of the board of directors – Sir Bracewell Smith, a former Lord Mayor of London, chairman of Wembley Stadium and an honorary vice-president of the Football Association. February brought yet another award to the company when ‘Children of Revolution’, the Intertel production on young people growing up in Czechoslovakia, won a Silver Dove from the International Catholic Organisation for Radio and Television (UNDA) at the sixth Monte Carlo International Television Festival. Another award came the next month when Hughie Green and Michael Miles received a joint special award from the Variety Club of Great Britain at the Show Business lunch on March 8 for the continuing popularity of their programmes.

March 31 once again saw Studio 9 as the hub of the ITV network when everybody went into action to cover the General Election.

Mr Wilson was given ‘A View from the Bridge’ shortly after on April 4 with the transmission of Arthur Miller’s play. Meanwhile the ITA announced that its present three-year contracts with the programme companies would be extended until the end of July, 1968, as no decision had been taken on whether to extend the ITV service.

A flurry which was to extend for quite a few weeks hit the Wembley studios when the first of the colour ‘Hippodrome’ series went on the floor on April 19.

In the business world, company chairman John Spencer Wills became the chairman of The British Electric Traction Co. Ltd, on April 21, following the death of Harley Drayton.

On May 9 the first of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ series was transmitted. Pride, gluttony, sloth, avarice, lust, envy and wrath subsequently achieved the distinction of all getting into TAM’s Top Ten.

Three days later the first of the adult education series ‘Royalist and Roundhead’ was screened. While not hitting the Top Ten, it rose high in the opinion of educationalists.

May also saw the drama section of the club take over Studio 9 to stage ‘Ring Round the Moon’ and achieve high audience ratings. Meanwhile Fusion made its own dent in the award stakes by receiving a certificate of merit in the British Association of Industrial Editors’ contest, a top award of excellence in the International Council of Industrial Editors’ competition and the Block and Anderson Cup from the British Direct Mail and Advertising Association.

The International Television Federation – Intertel – reached the fifth anniversary of its foundation on June 14. Behind it were 34 programmes and a coveted 1965 Peabody Award for making ‘the first continuing contribution towards international understanding through television.’

Also in June came an award for ‘Stage One Contest – Caroline’. This children’s programme won the Munich Prix Jeunesse.

The Mountbatten series also made news in June when it was announced that this exclusive story of the life and times of Lord Mount-batten would be made in colour.

July started with the news that the first episode of the ‘Hippodrome’ series on July 5 had gone straight to the top of Neilsen coast-to-coast ratings when screened by CBS in colour.

This was the month of the World Cup which England won on July 30 and which stretched the joint resources of BBC and ITV in providing coverage for the world. Rediffusion contributed its share of equipment and executives.

The day after the final at Wembley historians gathered at Television House for a conference with ‘History on TV’ as its theme.

August 1 brought the first programme in ‘The Informer’ series which regularly knocked on the doors of the Top Ten during its run.

The month was shadowed by the death of Bernard Rickatson-Hatt on August 7. He had been on the board of the company since July, 1958. A former Guards officer, he had been editor-in-chief of Reuters, adviser to the governor of the Bank of England and to the Bank of London and South America on public relations.

In September came two club events. On the 10th there was the annual sunlit sports day for the children of club members at Shepperton and on the 17th the football team took part in the TV Cup knock-out competition. For the second year running the Rediffusion XI lost to Scottish, the eventual winners.

On September 21 it was announced that Sir Richard Thompson was joining the board. A former M.P., he has held various government appointments.

A conference for educationalists was held at Wembley on September 22 at which, for the first time, teachers were allowed to produce their own programmes in a television studio. September 26 saw the start of the new autumn schedules with 15 new programme presentations, the sequel being six out of TAM’s Top Ten for the week. As part of this schedule the first production of the new Rediffusion Films Ltd was transmitted on September 28 – ‘Dare I Weep, Dare I Mourn’ with James Mason and Jill Bennett. The Frost Programme’ series also started later that night.

Appointments in features came in October. First there was the announcement of the appointment of Barry Westwood as producer of the networked Thursday edition of ‘This Week’. Then, on October 27, it was announced that James Butler had been appointed head of features from November 1.

During October and November, three joint Rediffusion/Talent Association productions under David Susskind passed through Wembley to be recorded in black-and-white and colour for America.

On November 8, it was announced that the present series of ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ would end on December 23.

On November 11, the announcement came that managing director Paul Adorian had been appointed managing director of Rediffusion Ltd. John Spencer Wills, chairman of both companies, relinquished his managing directorship following his appointment as chairman of The British Electric Traction Co. Ltd upon the death of Harley Drayton.

The annual general meeting of the company was held at Wembley on November 28 and at it, the winners of the 1965-66 Golden Stars were presented with their awards. Independent Television presented ‘A Royal Gala’ before the Duke of Edinburgh at the Palladium on November 29 in aid of the CTBF and the Bowles Rocks Trust.

From December 7-16, an exhibition of the work of graphic designers was held at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries.

Finally – and still to come – is ‘The Royal Palaces of Britain’, the joint Independent Television and BBC production on December 25.

The post Tele marks of 1966 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Arthur Groocock, company secretary, is 58 years old, a native of Northampton, and was educated at Northampton Grammar School.

He became an associate member of The Chartered Institute of Secretaries in 1934 and was elected a fellow of the institute in 1935.

In 1943 he joined the staff of The B.E.T. Federation Ltd and acted as secretary of a number of associated companies. He was appointed assistant secretary of The British Electric Traction Company Ltd in 1949.

On the formation of Associated-Rediffusion Limited in 1954 he was appointed secretary and he has acted as secretary of the Television Programme Contractors’ Association from its formation until a full-time secretary was appointed in August 1955.

He was appointed secretary of Rediffusion Television Ltd on its formation in 1964 and is financial director of the recently-formed British Bureau of Television Advertising. Arthur Groocock, who is married with four children, lives in Tunbridge Wells.

The post Arthur Groocock appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

When broadcasting first began in earnest in the UK in 1922, BET soon realised that they had a complete wired network of cables that passed a significant number of homes in the larger industrial towns. Those home that they didn’t pass by were very close and easy to reach. And radio reception – thanks to very low-power broadcasts and crystal-based, home-made ‘cat’s whisker’ radio sets – was a touch and go business.

If a company were to pick up, off-air but with large, well-tuned and expertly directed aerials, the signals from the then British Broadcasting Company, and provide them directly to a loudspeaker in the front room of a well-off household, they could easily replace the headphones-and-drifting-tuning that bedevilled early radio.

If that company already had a complete electricity distribution system to hand, they could run additional ‘cable radio’ wires between the same poles in the street as the overhead wires for the trams used, and even, ultimately, carry the radio signals via AC (Alternating Current) through the same cables as the DC (Direct Current) power to the trams was supplied. They could access a ready-made market of potential listeners-in who wanted radio entertainment – if only it were affordable and non-technical. That company could then charge a few shillings a month (or less), and, with little capital expenditure, make a fortune from the public’s interest in the new medium.

BET was the company to do it, and while they initially called their offspring, formed in March 1928, Broadcast Relay Service Ltd, it soon became known as ‘Rediffusion’ – literally meaning ‘broadcasting again’.

Rediffusion was almost immediately profitable. The company soon branched out from simply ‘re-diffusing’ radio, into the manufacture of radio sets. From there, the sale and hire of sets in the High Street followed.

As broadcasting opened up in the Dominions, Rediffusion was hot on its heels, using the tram wires, or bespoke ‘pipe radio’ systems, to provide the new Dominion broadcasting stations to the cities, as well as the new BBC Empire Service (now BBC World Service Radio).

When the BBC began the first regularly scheduled high-definition television service in the world in the mid-1930s, Rediffusion was again well-placed to provide television sets for sale and rent, plus a ‘pipe-TV’ service to those not well-placed for broadcasts from Alexandra Palace, or reluctant to have such a gauche symbol as a VHF TV aerial on their roofs.

World War II interrupted television, the growth of wired distribution, and much of the peacetime activities of both BET and Rediffusion. For the duration, the whole of the Empire was put ‘on hold’ and all energy devoted to the war effort. For Rediffusion, this meant their expertise in reception and rebroadcasting suddenly became, not a diversion for the middle classes, but of essential national importance.

Rediffusion had a wealth of knowledge that the Allies – and especially the UK, ‘standing alone’ – needed. From broadcasting (for radar) to cathode ray tubes (for radar). From cables (for troop communications and radar) to reception sets (for monitoring communications of friend and foe, and radar). To this day, several elements of what Rediffusion did during the war are held under the Hundred Years Rule (that means it will be late 2045 before we know exactly what they were). So even today, we don’t know exactly what Rediffusion did in the war against Fascism – though we can probably guess.

Immediately post-War, the world changed dramatically. BET was included, with some justification, in the list of companies the new Labour government planned to nationalise. The tram systems started to disappear too, partially because the necessary nationalisation of the electricity companies meant that the old local generators became part of the new Central Electricity Board. The councils who ran the trams had to pay for the electricity, and coupled with war-delayed refurbishment of the systems, it was cheaper and easier to shut them down and replace them with bus services.

Within a decade of the end of the war, nearly all of the trams – and all of the services in the industrialised areas – had gone.

BET, however, survived without being nationalised, due largely to Labour losing power at the end of 1951, despite getting more votes than it achieved in 1945, because of the UK’s antiquated electoral system.

BET and Rediffusion, in an effort to avoid nationalisation, had started to diversify even further than before, especially overseas. With the Dominions gone, they repeated previous successes by starting Overseas Rediffusion, offering wired television and radio, and later over-the-air broadcasting stations in the remaining colonies. Soon, places as diverse as Barbados and Hong Kong had, respectively, Rediffusion Radio and Rediffusion TV in operation – one broadcast, the other wired. So when a commercial television service to rival the existing non-commercial BBC Television Service was first mooted by the incoming Conservative administration, BET and Rediffusion were immediately on the scene. They sought to run the entire operation – or, failing that, they would be happy with having the franchise for London.

When the first contracts were awarded in 1954, they were given London weekdays, sharing a frequency with a rival company who were given Saturday and Sunday. To a degree, a modified version of this system still exists in London to this day.

BET and Rediffusion were reluctant to take on the full risks of this venture – just in case – so they split 50% of the company equally between them and took on partners for the other half, in the form of Associated Newspapers, publishers of the British arch-right-wing Daily Mail newspaper to this day.

On Thursday 22 September 1955, Associated-Rediffusion (A-R) took to the air in London.

It was an immediate disaster. Both Associated-Rediffusion and weekend rivals ATV (though they started life calling themselves ABC until an injunction from the cinema chain and putative commercial television contractor of the same name put paid to the initials) lost money on Day One.

By the end of the first week of broadcasting, the loss of money had turned into a haemorrhage.

By the end of the first month, the loss of money was such that a man shovelling fifty-pound notes on to a fire could scarcely have kept up.

By the start of 1956, ATV was going under and Associated-Rediffusion, fearful that it would be asked to provide programmes on the weekend as well, started to prop themselves up in various ways.

By early 1956, ATV had spread to the Midlands and the next contractor, ABC (owners of the cinema chain of the same name) was providing the weekends from the Birmingham transmitter whilst the London weekend company provided the weekdays. New entrant ABC immediately began to lose money.

By mid-1956, Granada in the nominal north of England had arrived on weekdays, with ABC again on weekends. And whilst ABC’s parent company, the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), had pretty deep pockets, Granada did not. Granada had 35 cinemas in the south east and no film-making production base to rely on (ABPC also had a large investment from Warner Brothers to help). So Granada signed a deal with Associated-Rediffusion that was against both the wording and the spirit of the 1954 Television Act.

But the deal allowed Granada to feel secure and gave Associated-Rediffusion an important source of networked programming. The deal meant that A-R guaranteed that Granada wouldn’t make a loss – but that Granada’s profits were, effectively, to be Associated-Rediffusion’s property.

At this point, no one was making a profit. But BET had very deep pockets, and was more than willing to gamble them away on British commercial television.

By the end of 1956, Associated Newspapers were desperate to leave and paid BET and Rediffusion to buy the majority of the shares back, leaving only a 10% holding.

The corner was turned in 1957-58. From that point, A-R, ATV and ABC all began to make greater and greater profits every year – more money than they knew what to do with, in fact. Poor Granada was left breaking just over even until the 1960s, thanks to their justified timidity and Associated-Rediffusion’s unjustified boldness.

But Associated-Rediffusion’s success would be its ultimate downfall.

The licences to broadcast in the UK were not permanent. Every few years they were put up for review. In 1963, A-R swaggered into their interview and swaggered out again – justifiably feeling themselves to be the king of ITV.

But they offended the man in charge of the review, Lord (Charles) Hill of Luton, the man who, as Postmaster-General in 1955, had given birth to ITV in the first place and was now the head of the independent regulator, the Independent Television Authority. He was unable to act under a Conservative government (despite being a Tory himself). But by 1967, he was acting under the auspices of Labour, returned to power in 1964 for the first time since 1951. Labour wanted ITV controlled and disciplined; Hill wanted ITV to obey the Authority.

So when Rediffusion London – the name that Associated-Rediffusion had taken in 1964, finally recognising that Associated (Newspapers) were no longer significant shareholders – swaggered into the interview again and swaggered out again, Hill took action. In December 1967 he announced that, from July 1968, Rediffusion London would be merged with ABC in the north and midlands. Rediffusion London’s contract would be given to the new company, of which ABC would hold 51% – despite being far smaller, both on the network and in terms of profits and parent size, than Rediffusion.

In July 1968, Thames Television – essentially ABC plus the bits of Rediffusion that ABC wanted – was born.

On weekends, a new company calling itself London Weekend was born, with LWT being made up largely of former Rediffusion staff with a sprinkling of ex-ABC. In Yorkshire, former ABC staff helped create Yorkshire Television (YTV) with a sprinkling of ex-Rediffusion personnel.

Rediffusion Television Limited continued to exist as a separate entity (as did the Rediffusion rental chain, Rediffusion Cable systems and Overseas Rediffusion). Their last real production for British television was The Life and Times of Lord Louis Mountbatten, shown in the UK as a Thames presentation, and as a Rediffusion Television production.

Thames itself was removed from ITV at the end of 1992 on the orders of the then-government, though it retains its programme production capability and is now part of what was Radio Luxembourg (later RTL, then CLT, now Fremantle Media).

Having lost the creative side of their business, Rediffusion and BET were left with a 49% investment in the major ITV franchise, plus the other areas into which they had diversified.

These included air conditioning, office management, waste disposal (Biffa), background music (Reditune, the second largest company of its type in the world), telecommunications (Redifon), burglar alarms (Shorrock), aircraft flight simulators , bespoke CCTV systems, Rediffusion International Music, and of course the television rental arm, and local wired systems; and a whole host of things that – by a great stretch of the imagination – could be considered part of ‘broadcasting’ as an industry. Their 1975 slogan was “we know TV inside out”.

But the world was about to change – again.

Whilst companies with a lot of minority interests in many industries had been fashionable in the 1970s – walking Unit Trusts, really – by the 1980s, the financial markets wanted companies to specialise. Any company with a lot of fingers in a lot of pies was seen to be ripe for takeover by a venture capitalist who would sell off everything other than the ‘core business’, then sell off the asset-stripped remainder of the business for a profit.

Ironically, the pendulum has swung back now, and companies are encouraged to diversify into anything related – unless they are ‘underperforming’, in which case they should do the opposite. But in the 1980s, cash was king, and BET and Rediffusion owned a lot of cash, but controlled comparatively little.

The venture capitalists – like vultures – started to circle.

BET began immediately to sell off the ‘non-core activities’. Rediffusion Hong Kong and Rediffusion Singapore were sold to the local governments or their agents. Rediffusion Rentals disappeared from all but the High Streets of the Channel Islands (and soon not even there), and Rediffusion Television’s stake in Thames Television was floated. Soon, everything had gone except for what BET perceived as their new core market: Facilities Management. They were poised to ride the boom of commerce that transformed the UK in the late 1980s.

And then the Tories managed to burst their own false boom, bringing rapid recession to the entire economy. The new market that BET had hoped to tap burst at the same time as companies retrenched and the trend for ‘outsourcing’ rapidly disintegrated (it would return a decade later with renewed force). BET was left cash rich from the sell-offs, but without a market to appeal to – it was ripe for a takeover.

The company tried mergers and takeovers of its own, coupled with rebrands and refocusing. But the share price remained in the doldrums – the company, put simply, was unfashionable. It wound up as nothing really more than a contract facilities company – cleaners for offices, in other words – under the name ‘Initial’.

Under that name, the smaller but more fashionable Rentokil, best known for the extermination of rats and insects in homes and offices, made a bid – and Initial succumbed. The new company was called InitialRentokil and continued to use the Rediffusion Adastral. Eventually, it became Rentokil Initial with a new logo, and is set to become simply Rentokil shortly.

And there, perhaps, would end the story… but not quite.

Because the tram, the maker of BET’s fortune and so long unfashionable in the UK, is now on its way back. Already south London, Manchester and Sheffield have well-developed tram systems. Birmingham’s is now open. Newcastle/Gateshead is growing along disused and ceded British Railways lines. Leeds is next to put trams back on the old BET routes. Birkenhead and then Liverpool will follow, with European Union money already allocated.

Rediffusion Television, so long forgotten – or at least dismissed because of the hour a day of (remembered) popular shows they transmitted to fund more, now forgotten, hours of quality programming – is now the darling of the British Film Institute, with the BFI actively seeking lost Rediffusion and Associated-Rediffusion programming. The name of the 40-year-old organisation behind this web site “Transdiffusion” is at least in part a tribute to that television company. And most recently, television producer and critic Victor Lewis-Smith has secured the use of the name Associated-Rediffusion Television Productions for his production company, along with the signature adastral, so the familiar A-R endcaps are visible once again at the close of fine and varied television programming, as they were almost fifty years ago.

British Electric Traction, Rediffusion and their associated companies over a century deserved to be remembered and the facts known. Rediffusion and its employees were part of an organisation that helped make domestic transport easy for working people; helped pioneer popular mass entertainment; helped win World War II; helped bring information, entertainment and enlightenment to the UK, the Dominions, the Colonies and the Commonwealth for over 50 years; and produced some of the best television programmes and popularised some of the best music the world has ever known.

For that, former employees can be proud of Rediffusion and its familiar star.

The post A short history appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The first to go was Wales (West and North) Television, falling into bankruptcy and being taken over by its neighbour TWW. They were next to go, famously losing their contract in 1967 and flouncing out of ITV in March 1968. They had many investments – from theatres to opticians – and were offered a 40% slice of their successor, but declined both the Harlech investment and continuing in business, selling themselves off and ceasing to exist before the decade was out.

Next out were Westward and Southern. The Independent Broadcasting Authority saw to it that they exited quickly and quietly by requiring their successors, Television South West and Television South respectively, to buy the remains of the companies.

Television South West was next to go, and it committed corporate suicide via a reverse takeover – a company in an unrelated business lent TSW the money to buy them, then took over their stock market listing and renamed TSW to their own name. Even this didn’t last, the company falling into administration some years later.

Television South had famously over-extended itself by buying the American MTM Enterprises and was bought for a song by televangelist Pat Robertson; from there the company was sold to Fox and later Disney.

Thames Television’s afterlife is well known. Its “Plan B” for the almost certain loss of its franchise was to convert to being an independent production company. After much shifting ownership, the name still survives as producer of The X-Factor, although the constituent parts of the original Thames, the studios at Teddington and Euston Road and so forth, have long been sold off separately.

For ABC and Rediffusion, things are slightly different. While they were notionally “merged” to form Thames in 1968, in reality both companies did have something of an afterlife. ABC’s main afterlife was Thames itself – the company was clearly ABC under a new name. ABC’s parent, the Associated British Picture Corporation, would later be bought by EMI and turned into EMI Films.

Rediffusion was a joint venture between British Electric Traction (BET) and BET’s subsidiary Broadcast Relay Services. The BET conglomerate was huge, with interests in laundries, construction companies, plant hire, printing, flight simulators, record publishing, waste disposal and washroom facilities. They saw no need to get out of the television business. With interests in wired broadcasting relay (early cable) and international broadcasting from Barbados to Hong Kong, they could continue to operate even without their UK outlet.

One of the assets they held was a giant collection of film and early video programming. There was, at the time of this advert in 1976, thought to be no market for such black-and-white repeats. Nevertheless, Rediffusion Television Limited held on, ready and waiting for the chance to become a UK broadcaster again.

It never happened.

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