Perhaps the greatest attraction of television outside broadcasts is the excitement of being caught in the atmosphere of a particular occasion, and, although the facilities available in studios are, by comparison, the last word in technical luxury, there is a certain extra challenge when you are starting from scratch.

Since we have been on the air we have covered most kinds of outside broadcast, among the most memorable being the Opening Ceremony from the Guildhall, the Hallé Orchestra series, Princess Margaret’s Wedding, Summersong, Wimbledon, and The Derby.

On the average O.B. there is a complement of staff similar to that for a studio production – six riggers, three racks, three sound, four radio links engineers, five cameramen, a senior engineer, a director, and a P.A.

But these numbers can grow quite considerably. For one of our “spectaculars’, The Derby, we had 12 cameras, three ‘scanners’ (mobile control vans), 70 technicians, six commentators, 17 horses and a cast of approximately 500,000.

Once a site has been suggested for an O.B. the director and various senior technicians carry out an initial survey. This involves siting the cameras and microphones to the best advantage, arranging power supplies and measuring out cable runs.

The maximum distance a camera can be placed from the scanner by a cable run is 1,000 feet. This is not very far when you remember the size of most racecourses.

At Epsom for the Derby last year five of the 12 cameras had to be situated up to a mile away from the scanner. When this happens a radio link has to be used to transmit the picture back to the main scanner. From there the programme is sent by radio link or Post Office line to the transmitter via Television House.

One of the more difficult types of O.B. to produce is an advertising magazine from an exhibition hall. The advertising department has to sell time to clients months ahead of the exhibition date – before the clients have balloted for floor space.

Consequently, when the programme arrives on the director’s desk, he is committed to televising stands from all corners of the exhibition hall, probably covering a few thousand square yards. The amount of energy and thought expanded by a television crew in these circumstances is tremendous.

Many O.B.’s can only be rehearsed in a basic fashion. After deciding the best format much must be left to the moment. Rain can, for example, play havoc with the equipment. You can find yourself going on the air with only one working camera.

Fog does not help either. It was so foggy at Sandown once that it was impossible to distinguish the horses. The cameramen were trying hard and Tony Cooke was doing a brilliant commentary in the appalling conditions. Finally, he said, ‘Kings Troop is passing the post now’. But the horse we had in shot jumped a hurdle. We had been faithfully following the last horse for most of the race.

The Radio Show last year had its moments too. We had rehearsed at Earls Court for two days and managed to get in two dress rehearsals. The programme entailed a quick piece of work in moving the cameras to the stand of a television maker. All went like clockwork, but when the cameras arrived the whole stand was in darkness. Everyone had gone home. There were mad scenes (unknown to me at the time, thank heavens) as all the available staff tore-down the boards in front with seconds to spare.

About 20 of us went to Lisbon two years ago for the three-week-long Trade Fair operation, which involved about an hour’s transmission delay in Portuguese. After a fortnight one of the P.A.’s thought she had mastered the language. One morning she ordered breakfast for about six of us. It sounded most professional, but the waiter went a sickly colour and said in broken English: ‘Would you mind waiting please as we will have to re-arrange the kitchen.’ Apparently she had ordered 120 cups of coffee.

Another time I was doing my first Greyhound racing programme from Harringay Stadium. We had results from five other race meetings to transmit as well as our betting in between races, and it was all becoming fast and furious. In the midst of this an inquisitive voice from within the scanner piped up: ‘Excuse me, is the hare alive?’

All of which shows that outside broadcasts are an endless source of interest. New locations and different circumstances ensure we never get in a groove.

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One of the cynical legends from the Hollywood stables concerns a script-writer whose midnight oil burned for a serious drama about the Air Force: when his film was finished he missed the premiere because it was now a musical called ‘Up Periscope’. Recalling this I was not surprised when Robert Everett revealed to us that an elaborate outside broadcast, planned around an aircraft-carrier would now be re-cast as an Army show, a battle to be fought on the hills of Wiltshire. To all of us who worked on it the programme was simply ‘Robert’s War’. For transmission it became ‘Battle at Chalkdown’.

It was to be a highly complex technical operation, both for us and for the Army which was to provide two forces, ‘attackers’ and ‘enemy’, to deploy tanks, artillery and infantry in such ways that a ‘battle’ could be started and finished over the entire ground, and to a given time. In short, a military operation had to be conducted to specifications laid down by a television company. That it was done is a remarkable tribute to the liaison which developed during weeks of planning between soldiers and television technicians. The ‘built’ OB is always a headache because all its component parts must be precisely planned. You cannot plan a Cup Final because 22 footballers were never intended to play on cues.

The problem for Chalkdown was to plan a battle in such a way that its essential components could be covered by eight television camera positions. This seemed straightforward enough, in theory, until we saw what had to be covered.

Robert Everett, Grahame Turner, who directed, and I went down to Warminster to watch a 40-minute all arms tactics wing demonstration set up by the School of Infantry. The cast involved an armoured squadron of Centurion tanks, a company of infantry in armoured personnel carriers, artillery, antitank guns, blank and live ammunition. There was a lot of noise and smoke.

Grahame and I agreed that the terrain presented camera problems. Could the Army shift the whole operation about a mile down the way and handle a similar demonstration in roughly 264 minutes? It is interesting to observe the face of a man who is trying not to say ** ****.

The Army agreed to shift the terrain and we started measuring ground. It is interesting to walk over muddy, tank-chewed ground and measure estimated timings.

On the basis of the sequence of events we had seen happen in a demonstration I put up a timed-in-the-mind draft script with pictures attached. The idea was to give us all an impression of what we would see and for approximately how long over any given part of the battle. At this stage the School of Infantry, in the person of Colonel Wallace, noted our requests, had a think, and agreed. This called for a second batch of pictures and a lot of consultation with Grahame Turner. And there was a snag. In order to get the kind of close-up effect of tanks and turrets and guns and machine-gunners and explosions and artillery and more tanks and turrets and so on … we had run out of cameras.

Somewhere along the line Robert Everett suggested that a central area, covered by two cameras, could be created, in which the necessary inserts could be achieved. The idea was this: to take main action on the battle itself, but to take close-up action on what came to be known as an ‘FX Circus’. The ‘Circus’ was to contain all those closeups which could not be adequately handled in long shot or medium shot.

This involved special problems for the Army. They meant, for instance, that a certain tank under radio instruction would have to start moving from position X towards position Y at pre-fixed times which would coincide with the action required by the script. All this had to be rehearsed over ground which became increasingly choppy.

On first try-out the Major commanding the squadron of tanks reported that the operation would run 40 minutes. Colonel Wallace suggested that it would run about 264 minutes. This caused a situation.

Unbeknown to the Army, who were now working things out in language we could never transmit, our situation in London was rendered delicate by a re-timing determined by network considerations. Rumour had it that we were going to run about 35 minutes and not 264.

On this basis I drove a mean average between what we might want and what the Army said it could do, and settled, temporarily, for the 264-minute version which tank major said would run to 40. It looked as if we might average out.

Unbeknown to us tank major had been doing some dawn-work on the Wiltshire hills and was soon able to report that his original estimate of 40 minutes would now, and he could prove it, because he did, work out well at an overall timing of 21 minutes.

At this stage Grahame and I began to have misgivings about the programme’s timing. Here, both Army and Associated-Rediffusion Ltd now engaged in a para-military device known as compromise. Every sequence was re-examined; many were re-timed and rehearsed again.

Came the dawn. We were all ready. The last of many conferences was over. In perfect light Grahame tried a ‘take’.

The tanks moved, the explosions began, the smoke drifted. It was an adequate rehearsal, and no one was satisfied. All agreed to go again next day and hope for weather. When we woke it was raining. A sea of mud, cables embedded in mud, men dressed in mud, teacups full of mud.

On the basis of the last under-run we repaired for lunch to Imber Court, a derelict mansion dripping with echoes of ‘Journey’s End’, where beer was served with strange pies. Colonel Wallace passed a weary hand across a weary sandwich. Orders were recast – for the ‘FX circus’, for the voices off, for the artillery, for the tanks.

Just before the final ‘take’ the sun came out and condensation started on some lenses. I heard Grahame say something in the scanner but decided to forget exactly what it was.

The tanks moved, the explosions began (some special ‘bangs’ had been reserved for the final take). Grahame gave his instructions to cameras. Working just ahead of him our army controller gave his instructions. Bren gunners fired on cue. Explosions went off on cue. Enemy soldiers ‘died’ on cue. (One soldier rushed up to a camera position and asked, ‘what shot are we on next?’) Chalkdown was finally taken, with the assistance of some 60 soaked technicians and seven punctures.

Someone asked me why we had made a programme which actually suggested that the Army is pretty good. I have to admit that as I was wet through at the time and in no state to justify the existence of the Armed Services, I rushed to a Wombat, took careful aim, and fired.

The post The day TV ran the army appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Between June 19-23 [1967] five programmes were made at Expo ’67 in Canada. The people responsible were Grahame Turner (producer). Jim Pople (director), Ken Stapleton (manager), Frank Keating (editor, OB’s), Maggi Ricketts and Ruth Tester (PA’s) and the commentator was Barry Westwood. Here FRANK KEATING writes about his personal impressions of the trip.

‘Your first trip to Canada?’

‘My first trip to Canada.’

The 40-year-old had joined me, I suppose, because she was the only woman and I was the most likely of our little First Class group of four. The other two were businessmen who read nothing but the ‘Times’ Business Section in their waistcoats and do-it-twice-a-week bigtimery; I read Terry Coleman and Stan Reynolds and SOMERSET FOILED ON WET WICKET (Spinners Turn Slowly But Surely) and looked a First Class tourist – the only way to look if you’re a born Economy Class.

The crux of the thing was that she had joined me: I thus felt superior and didn’t grin and Smalltalk as I would have had I joined her. So I stared out of the window and felt superior and aloof. And, of course, she kept trying.

‘You’re going to the Expo?’ she drawled.

‘I’m going to Expo.’

‘I sure hope you like it. They say it’s wonderful, wonderful.’

‘Yes, They do, don’t they.’

‘I hope you’ll like we Canadians’ – she had underlined the ‘we’ so I knew I was in for the full colonial-family-tree bit. And I was:

‘Y’know, I’m a real Canadian, my family name is van Rensburg (or something) and we came over with the League of Empire Loyalists (or something) in seventeen (something) and landed at Lake Eyrie (or somewhere) and marched up to Quebec and left settlements on the way at (Godknowswhere) and the only people in the land were the Red Indians who we taught and civilised and…’ and on and on it droned, like the dear old VC10 itself, unfaltering and unspluttering and most boring, and I half-listened and thought of Frankie’s prettiness and neuroses and Turner’s cheerful narcissism and Minchin’s dapper smartness and Pople’s colourful wallcharts and Maggi’s efficiency and Gloucestershire’s need for two class batsmen and the Commander’s wit and our windowless office and Suzanne’s 21st and how we’re going to get five hours Expo programmes out of five days shooting with a hired crew and we must be mad. And then she said ‘Where are you staying?’ and I told her and she said it was the best – and then she gave up and said she was going to sleep now and ‘Enjoy your stay in Canada. It was nice talking to you’ and she turned her back on me in her super pink suit and pale blue chiffon neckscarf and I felt discarded especially as she went to sleep so soon and she wasn’t really at all bad and that bit of skin on the nape of her neck between the bottom of her expensive Boston-type hairdo and the top of the pale-blue chiffon was dark and slightly greasy which told of some encounter between a Dutch Empire Loyalist and a little Red Indian one night between seventeen something and a generation or two ago before the van Rensburgs came good through real estate or contract-hire (or something). Why hadn’t I shown more interest in her and in fact she was really damned attractive and should I ask her to share my taxi to the hotel when we get in and should I ask her straight up to my room for a drink? And then I forgot her except for the inelegant, annoying breathing by my side and got out Barry Westwood’s Expo report and had another drink and thought that the best thing to do, especially as we couldn’t move the scanners on the site, must be to highlight just five national pavilions, but which five, and had another drink and I must ring Pip Wedge when I get in…

Pip Wedge was the first man I saw next morning. In the Expo Press Lounge – all black leather and red carpets, appropriately the last word in Press Loungery – Rediffusion’s one time Manager of Music, Light Entertainment and Quiz Shows was holding a breakfast conference to put Geoffrey Hughes to shame. Except nobody ever smiled. The same type girls were there with their long hair and clipboards, the same programme editors with their whiz-kid glasses and the same type frontmen with sloppy shoes and crumpled trousers but immaculate head-and-shoulders. Nobody smiled, nobody threw croissants and the weekly slog (‘O.K. chaps, this week, the Monaco Pavilion’) was getting them down. Pip, as executive producer of CBC’s weekly Expo programme was so evidently the Boss. Canada was doing Pip Wedge the power of good: vice versa too I shouldn’t be surprised. Soon he’s off to an even classier job in Toronto; his lovely Liz, once the ‘Take Your Pick’ hostess, thrives too, as, in other necks of these very large woods, does Harry Sloan, Jack Nixon-Browne, June Byrne and Allan Erlich.

And so to Expo proper.

One of the features of the Fair as far as broadcasters are concerned is the International Broadcasting Centre. Built and manned by the CBC, it is available to broadcasters from all over the world who wish to send people to report.

There are two main TV studios, one of 7,500 square feet and one of 2,500 square feet, both equipped for colour or black-and-white; there are two fully-equipped, three-camera colour mobile units, two black-and-white units and a one-camera colour VTR cruiser. There are also six radio studios. Cost? To bona fide broadcasters, not a cent. Below-line, that is. You bring in and pay for your own talent, sets, graphics: if you want a couple of chairs, a table, and a potted plant, these they can provide. Plus a full crew – including a director and script assistant if you don’t want to send your own. Facilities are on a first come first served basis, provided that, in the opinion of the International Broadcasting Centre people, what you want to do will in some way tell the world about Expo ’67.

All the Fun of the Fair doesn’t get within an Atlantic width of Montreal; Expo ’67 is a serious business. Very serious. Seventy nations are represented by various architectural extravagances -from America’s geosidic sky-bubble gimmick to Haiti’s snack bar, Russia’s glassy railway-terminus to Germany’s superb curvaceous tent.

Oil refinery after oil refinery, hydroelectric plant after hydro-electric plant … Progress … thrusting technological advance after thrusting technological advance – then throw in a couple of Old Masters or a few twee ‘This is how it all began’ back projections, and there, folks, is our great country; we’ve got more industry, more consumer goods, better welfare facilities than anyone, although everyone else is doing pretty good too and we’re pleased about that, and here we are at this lovely international jamboree to celebrate the North American Way of Life. And the funny thing is the Russians are celebrating just that better than anyone.

Yes. Everyone’s a Good Guy at Expo – except nobody laughs at anything but a business-lunch laugh.

But there are one or two Bad Guys, and they gloriously save the day.

The Cuban pavilion is wonderful. It is a confusingly laid out, naively designed structure showing two hand-held verité films at either end of a room (!) and then a slogan walkaround (guided by the two most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen) of captions saying, as good as, ‘YANKS GO HOME – And by the way, once you’re there, GET STUFFED’. It’s a gorgeous honest sort of Latin ‘Yaroo, you rotters, we licked you hollow’. Great stuff.

The Red Indian pavilion, too, was super. Give the suited-settlers their due, they allowed the stand to remain – but it must still be hurting them. What the Red Indians say inside their corny, wigwam structure is ‘YOU TOOK OUR LAND FROM US’. ‘LET US HAVE OUR OWN SCHOOLS AND LANGUAGE.’ ‘WE CELEBRATED NATURE BY NOT WASTING ANY OF IT – BUT LOOK AT YOU…’ It was a peaceful but strongly-felt theme, laid out by a gentle, intelligent man who felt he was on the right side but that the battle was already lost. Meanwhile, back at the petrochemicala-go-go, there is Britain’s tattered 3D Union Jack on top of Sir Basil Spence’s ugly white concrete slabs: nightly it seems to go down in the St. Lawrence’s real red colonial sunset in as bizarre a piece of unintended symbolism as ever happened.

Inside, the British pavilion has been the most popular – and, fair’s fair (as you might say) they have tried to spotlight the idea that people, not hydro-electricity makes up a nation. It starts well with an exciting Sean Kenny effort at back-projecting our history through to the Middle Ages, then flops into the ‘Our Great Heritage’ but which is no more than large hanging captions of Drake and Newton and Shakespeare and Fred Hoyle (!) and John Osborne (!) Then comes the showpiece – a large central room which attempts to show us as we really are, but doesn’t (unless you’re possibly a commuter from Surrey who only takes the ‘Evening News’ and ‘Sunday Express’ and who did his bit in the ARP). It’s the sort of thing a COI director joined the COI for; it’s a sort of ’British Is Best – But Just Look at the Competition, old boy.’ It endeavours to show our fancies and our fads, how we’re Great because of the mixture of Gilbert and Sullivan, Eton and Wood Green Primary, Elgar and the Kinks, tea and whisky, Rachman and Peabody. Dimbleby saying ‘And now Her Majesty moves up the great steps…’ and Arlott saying ‘Thompson to Broadbent and Worcester now need 62 more runs with the new ball due after tea…’

It all depressed me, until Grahame Turner came out a couple of days later and he loved it all (and even made the Canadians smile) and I thought O.K.. it wasn’t too bad really and looked forward to some really hard work and Grahame gave me a precious palmful of ‘Brute’ [sic] (the best after-shave in the world’) and I met the 40-year-old again.

So Grahame had his after-shave and I got the girl in the end.

In Canada, Rediffusion Incorporated and its subsidiaries operate a community antenna TV service in several townships in Quebec and Ontario, and background music services throughout the Province of Quebec.

The post Expo Canada appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

June 11

Lord Hill announced the details of the new contracts offered by the ITA. The announcement included the proposed merger of Rediffusion Television and ABC Television. ‘Mergers’, he said, ‘are always difficult to arrange…’

September 28

It was announced: ‘Agreement has today been reached, subject to contract, to lease Wembley Studios to London Weekend Television Ltd. for at least three years from May 6, 1968.

‘London Weekend Television has indicated that it expects to use three studios and that its union-graded staff will be recruited in the main from Rediffusion staff.

‘The arrangements made in respect of the studios will materially assist and accelerate the conclusion of the negotiations relating to the formation of the new ABC/Rediffusion company.’

October 19

Following talks with the unions, two statements were made. The first, which concerned A.C.T.T. members, said :

‘The following agreement was reached between the Independent Television Companies and the A.C.T.T. as a result of recent meetings:

1. The companies fully accept that every A.C.T.T. member in Independent Television subject to re-deployment will be employed in the network under the new contract allocation.
2. The companies guarantee to employ in London, with the minimum of disturbance, all A.C.T.T. staff presently employed by Rediffusion Television, and A.B.C. Television, in London in at least their present grades.
3. Yorkshire Television, will employ all A.C.T.T. staff presently employed at A.B.C. Television’s Didsbury Studios.
4. There will be early discussions to deal with problems arising particularly in relation to 2nd and 3rd schedules grades.
5. While this situation maintains, there will be no recruitment from outside the Independent Television Companies and no one employed by one company shall undertake work in television for other organisations.

‘It was also agreed that discussions should take place between the union and each of the new companies, London Weekend Television, A.B.C./Rediffusion joint company and Yorkshire Television, as soon as possible on the question of their general terms and conditions of employment and staffing.’

The second statement was agreed between the Independent Television companies and the E.T.U. and N.A.T.K.E. It said: ‘In connection with the re-allocation of I.T.V. contracts the companies recognize that they must use their best endeavours to re-employ E.T.U. and N.A.T.K.E. members affected by the re-allocation.

‘With this in mind they undertake that in the first instance recruitment will be made from within the industry, with first preference being given to staff directly affected by the reallocation and with the minimum of disturbance.

‘The new companies are sympathetic to the problems involved in the re-deployment of staff and undertake to commence discussions individually with the unions as soon as possible on the general terms and conditions of employment to be applied within their respective companies.’

Also on October 19 a company advertisement stated: ‘Rediffusion Television’s contract ends on July 29, 1968. Until that time it is the company’s policy and firm intent to continue to improve its programme content and to give its advertisers still better service during the next nine months.

‘Already it has been stated that our programme budget has been increased by over 10 per cent. Both the programme and sales departments have been reorganised to adapt to the changing situation.

‘The sales department is geared to give the maximum service to our clients, both directly and through their advertising agencies.

‘Between now and July 29, 1968, the demand for time on Rediffusion Television exceeds anything we have previously known. With the aid of our computer our sales service has been further improved and the whole operation speeded up. We shall continue to be very much in the forefront of the television advertising scene until the completion of our operation.’

October 27

Notice boards were put up at Television House and Wembley for staff to read. They said:

‘ABC Television Limited and Rediffusion Television Limited have reached agreement with the Independent Television Authority on the formation of a new company to operate the London Weekday contract from July 30, 1968.

‘The company will be called Thames Television Limited, and will be based at ABC’s Studios at Teddington-on-Thames with central London studios and offices at Rediffusion’s Television House. The capital of Thames Television Limited will be approximately £6,000,000 divided equally between ABC Television Limited and Rediffusion Television Limited.

‘The board of the new company will be as follows:

• Sir Phillip Warter, chairman (chairman of the Associated British Picture Corporation, and of ABC Television.)
• Robert Clark, M.A., LL.B., deputy chairman (deputy chairman and chief executive of the Associated British Picture Corporation, and deputy chairman of ABC Television.)
• Howard Thomas, C.B.E., managing director (managing director of ABC Television and director of the Associated British Picture Corporation.)
• Brian Tesler, M.A., programme controller (director of ABC Television.)
• A. W. Groocock, F.C.LS., director (director and secretary of Rediffusion Television.)
• George A. Cooper, sales director (director of ABC Television.)
• B. R. Greenhead, controller of studios and engineering (director of ABC Television.)
• J. T. Davey, F.C.A., director (chief accountant of Rediffusion Television.)
• D. R. W. Dicks, director (controller of production of Rediffusion Television.)
• Group Capt. H. S. L. Dundas, D.S.O., D.F.C., director (director of Rediffusion.)

The following senior staff appointments were announced: Jeremy Isaacs, current affairs and children’s programmes (Rediffusion); Lloyd Shirley, drama (ABC); Guthrie Moir, education and religion (Rediffusion); Phillip Jones, light entertainment (ABC); Grahame Turner, outside broadcasts (Rediffusion); Stuart Sansom, engineering department (ABC); James F. Shaw, advertisement department (ABC); M. Lawson, accounts department (ABC).

The message continued: ‘Recruitment of staff from ABC Television and from Rediffusion Television will commence shortly. ‘The redeployment of unionised staff now engaged by Rediffusion will be conducted in exact accordance with the letter and the spirit of the agreements reached at the following National Labour Relations meetings:

a. Meeting with the A.C.T.T. – October 18

b. Meeting with ETU/NATKE – October 19

‘The company will use it’s best endeavours to find satisfying and equally remunerative work for all non-unionised members of the staff.

November 8

A company press statement said:

‘The Rediffusion ACTT shop concluded a meeting with the management at 5.30 p.m. today by registering failure to agree with the company on the amount of ex-gratia payments which the company has offered in addition to the payments required in accordance with the Redundancy Payments Act of 1965.

‘These ex-gratia payments were offered as a result of the termination of the company’s ITA contract on July 29 next year.

‘All the ACTT staff concerned have already been guaranteed further employment in ITV in London after Rediffusion’s contract ends.

‘The commercial break before the ITN News at 5.55 p.m. was blacked out by the ACTT staff.

‘The company had no warning of the action from the ACTT shop. It is considering the position.’

Later there was this joint press announcement:

‘Meetings between Rediffusion and ACTT began again tonight at 9 p.m. They will continue tomorrow in the hope, shared by both parties, that a satisfactory conclusion will be quickly reached. In the meantime normal transmission will continue.’

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