Independent Television in the UK - the 1950s

### July 30, 1954: The Television Act 1954

Until the early 1950s, the only television service in Britain was operated as a monopoly by the British Broadcasting Corporation, and financed by the annual television licence fee payable by each household which contained one or more television sets. The new Conservative government elected in 1951 wanted to create a commercial television channel, but this was a controversial subject—the only other examples of commercial television were to be found in the United States, and it was widely considered that the commercial television found there was "vulgar".

The ***Television Act 1954*** permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom, ITV, The Act created the ***Independent Television Authority*** which would closely regulate the new commercial channel in the interests of good taste, and award franchises to commercial companies for fixed terms.

### The Independent Television Authority

The now defunct ***Independent Television Authority (ITA)***, created by the Television Act 1954, supervised the creation of "Independent Television" (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ITA was responsible for determining the location, constructing, building, and operating the transmission stations used by the ITV network, as well as determining the franchise areas and awarding the franchises for each regional commercial broadcaster.

#### August 4, 1954: The ITA begins work

The Authority began its operations a mere four days after the Television Act received Royal Assent, under the Chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Clark.

#### September 14, 1954: ITA's first Director General

Sir Robert Fraser was appointed ***ITA***'s first Director General by Clark.

### Franchises

The physics of VHF broadcasting meant that a comparatively small number of transmitters could cover the majority of the population of Britain, if not the bulk of the area of the country. The ***ITA*** determined that the first three franchise areas would cover the London area, the English Midlands, and the North of England (basically the Lancashire/Yorkshire belt of industrial cities from Liverpool to Hull, with the surrounding countryside). All three franchise areas would be awarded on a divided weekday/weekend basis, and it was planned that the franchise holders for these areas would produce the great bulk of network programmes, while the companies given the smaller franchises would produce mainly local programmes for their area only.

The ITA awarded franchises to applicant companies, selecting between applicants on the basis of the financial soundness of the company, the proposals for the service to be offered, and often on connections between the applicant company and the area to be served.

Franchises were awarded initially between 1954 and 1961, with the new television stations usually beginning their broadcasting 1-2 years later. During September 1963 the ITA invited new applications for franchises to operate from July 1964 for three years or until the arrival of ITV2, whichever came first (in the event, "ITV2", the second commercial channel, did not begin until 1982, under the guise of Channel 4), but in fact no changes were made to any franchise holders at that time, except for confirming the merger of the South Wales and the West franchise held by TWW and the Wales West and North franchise held by WWN following the financial collapse of WWN.

#### The first independent television franchise: Associated-Rediffusion

***Associated-Rediffusion***, later **Rediffusion, London**, is credited with being the first Independent Television company to launch and became the British ITV contractor for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 1954 and 1968.

It did introduce popular game shows, but also provided quality programming across all genres gained large audiences both in its own London area and, as the ITV network grew, for its programmes shown across the country. During the 1960s the studios were home to some of the most popular programmes on the ITV network, including The Rat Catchers, Blackmail, At Last, The 1948 Show and The Frost Report.

#### January, 1955: ITN is founded

***Independent Television News*** (ITN) was founded by the Independent Television Authority, as part of the new British commercial television network referred to as "Independent Television" (later ITV). Between 1955 and 1999, ITN was more commonly known as the general brand name of ITV's news programmes. Since 1999, ITV has used ITV News as the brand name for their news programmes, though ITN continues as the network's news provider.

The first bulletin was broadcast at 10pm on ITV's launch night and presented by former champion athlete Christopher Chataway. From the start, ITN broke new ground by introducing in-vision and named 'newscasters' (rather than the BBC's nameless and sound-only 'newsreaders'), and reporter packages. The unique, probing reporting style of Robin Day caused shock among politicians, finding themselves questioned continually for information – this had never been the case with the BBC. There was also some early tensions with the ITV companies. ***ABC Television***, the ITV contractor for the north and Midlands on weekends, immediately called for shorter ITN bulletins. While the ITA ruled on a minimum of a 20-minute bulletin, disagreements with the ITV companies over ITN's budget triggered the resignation of its news editor after just one year

#### September 21, 1955: Associated British Corporation steps in

The ***Associated British Corporation*** (otherwise known as ABC Television) was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences. Stepping into the breach at the request of the ITA when one of the consortia awarded an independent television franchise collapsed, ABC agreed to assume the franchise for the Midlands at weekends and the North of England on weekdays.

#### September 22, 1955: Associated-Rediffusion begins broadcasting airing the first ITN bulletin and TV commercial plus TV Times is first published

Independent television broadcasting began at 19:15 GMT, with actress Marjie Lawrence uttering the first words for ***Associated-Rediffusion***. That night the BBC, which had held the monopoly on broadcasting in United Kingdom, aired a melodramatic episode of their popular radio soap opera The Archers on the BBC Home Service in which core character Grace Archer was fatally injured in a fire. This was seen as a ploy to keep viewers and listeners away from the new station.

ITN delivered its first news bulletin at 10pm read by former champion athlete Christopher Chataway.

The first commercial on British television was for "Gibbs SR" toothpaste, broadcast as 20:12.

#### September 23, 1955: Barbara Mandell

Britain's first female newsreader Barbara Mandell appeared during the first full day of transmissions.

#### September 24, 1955: Associated Broadcasting Company begins broadcasting

Associated Broadcasting Company (ABC) was awarded the franchise by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide the Independent Television service at weekends for the London region. They would be forced to change their name by a rival service shortly after beginning broadcasts. The service ran until 1968. The re-named ***Associated Television (ATV)*** was also later awarded the franchise to provide the weekdays Independent Television service for the Midlands region.

#### October 8, 1955: Associated Broadcasting Company becomes Associated Television

ABC were successfully sued by the ABC (***Associated British Corporation***) Cinema chain (and its film studios, later renamed Elstree Studios) that also had the weekend Midlands/North franchise called ABC Weekend Television so Associated Broadcasting Company was renamed ***Associated Television Ltd*** (ATV) to avoid confusion with ABC Weekend TV which started broadcasting in 1956.

#### February 17, 1956: ATV comes to the Midlands

***ATV*** began weekday broadcasting in the Midlands until 1968. This was extended to seven days in 1968.

#### February 18, 1956: ABC Television begins broadcasting

***ABC Television*** begins broadcasting in the Midlands at weekends.

#### May 3, 1956: Granada Television

Broadcasting under the North of England weekday franchise, ***Granada Television*** was marked by a distinctive northern identity, and from 1968 used the famous stylised letter "G" logo forming an arrow pointing north, often with the tagline "Granada: from the north".

#### May 5, 1956: ABC Television comes to the North

***ABC Television*** begins broadcasting in the North of England at weekends.

#### January 14, 1958: Television Wales and West begins broadcasting

At 4:45 pm broadcasting began with a live, 15-minute opening ceremony by station chairman Lord Derby, Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards and Alfred Francis. The master of ceremonies was chief continuity announcer, Bruce Lewis.

At 5:00 pm, Youth Wants to Know, a children's interview programme produced by Granada Television, became the first programme to be broadcast by TWW. In the programme, Lady Megan Lloyd George and Raymond Gower fielded questions from Welsh school children.

At 5:40 pm ITN's early evening news was read by Huw Thomas from TWW's studios at Pontcanna.

The main opening programme came at 7:00 pm with The Stars Rise in the West, a filmed special introduced by It's That Man Again regular Jack Train. The programme, produced in association with ITN, featured appearances from Sir Ralph Richardson, Stanley Baker (later a founder of TWW's successors, Harlech Television), Naunton Wayne, Donald Sinden, Tessie O'Shea, Donald Houston, Petula Clark, Tommy Cooper and Ralph Reader. Harry Secombe also appeared in a short film clip, performing Nessun Dorma.