How interesting to see Prince Phillip’s sense of humor, but also to see similarities of mannerisms to King Charles and his father. Excellent documentary about ITN, the theme song is quite catchy, too!!!
Before opening of Channel 4, it was difficult to make news longer than 30 minutes (48m). The video was made before that launch, and then there arrived an opportunity for a 1 hour ITN bulletin
It was all about the fact that the ITV companies didn't want anything longer. News was not profitable. In 1967 there was a fight to launch a 30 minute news. Many ITV managers felt it would block their evening schedules and lose ad revenue. Channel 4 was able to launch a one hour news because their system of funding was not all concentrating on making a profit. Channel 4 annual budget was provided by the ITV companies, who in turn sold advertising on Channel 4 and took the revenue.
5:21 - Christopher Chataway was the man who abolished all of the stupid and draconian limits and restrictions on television and radio broadcasting hours in January 1972 when he was a minister in Edward Heath's government as Minister for Posts and Telecommunications.
Vaguely amusing to see a section called "the modern newsroom" full of shots without a computer in sight, people smoking, rotary dial phones, typewriters everywhere, editing on film etc. which is this day and age is about as far from modern as you can get!
That 2 minute commercial break in News at Ten originally was one of the most expensive breaks on the network. The regions decided they would make more money by using 15 or 20 second adverts, meaning six commercials, instead of four 30 second ones. Charging nearly £1,000 per 20 second commercial.
Yes, Andrew Gardner had already read his last bulletin by the time this documentary was shown, but his resignation had yet to be announced. Reggie himself had been away for about 3 weeks, but returned the week this film went out, on the Thursday evening that week; instead of saying goodnight, he invited people to join the viewing, which was quite late, about 11:15pm. I missed it at the time, interesting to see it now. Andrew Gardner began presenting Thames at Six (later Thames News) later on that year (September 1977), Reggie carried on as a newscaster for ITN until 1979, he died a couple of years later.
In 1955 when ITN launched, in the US they had proper daily news programs since 1948. NBC had their Camel News Caravan (sponsored by Camel Cigarettes) ABC had John Daly and The News. CBS had Douglas Edwards with the News. Each program was just 15 minutes long.
49:25 - When he talked about the amount of news they have but the limited time they had in 1977 to air it was correct. News on ITV from ITN in 1977 on a typical weekday was a 20 minute lunchtime news called News at One, a fifteen minute early evening news called News at 5.45 and of course the half hour News at Ten. There was no breakfast television news at all on ITV (not until 1983).
ITN were one of the losing applicants for the breakfast television franchise, eventually won by TV-am. They seemed to hold that against the winner especially when Tv-am declined their news services (used by all other ITV stations) and elected to go it alone and create their own news gathering outfit. Famously TV-am ran into financial difficulties avert early on which threatened its’ existence and their news service was one of the main victims of budget cuts. This was brought into focus by the IRA terrorist attack against Mrs Thatcher and her government at Brighton in 1984; to save hotel costs TV-am had sent their OB news unit back to London for the night. When the bomb went off, ITV had no pictorial coverage of the attack unlike BBC Breakfast Time which went into overdrive with it. ITN, who had crews still there swung into action but none of their footage could be used until the News at One as TV-am had not signed a contract to use them. Instead TV-am showed a static caption of reporter John Stapleton whilst he phoned in the story. Tv-am pleaded with ITN for help but were refused, even when the IBA intervened, citing ‘union rules’ as preventing them, something the local station TVS also said. As a result the IBA threatened Tv-am with loss of contract if significant reinvestment was not made in their news operations.
@@yellowbelly06 Just to clear up the TV-am bit, TV-am never wanted to use ITN for their news output. Peter Jay the original MD of TV-am wanted their own news service and so there was never any chance of them going to ITN. The Brighton bomb showed up the severe cost cutting at TV-am under Bruce Gyngell who by 1984 was the new MD. ITN couldn't provide the news coverage there because TV-am had not signed a deal with them, so why would ITN given them free coverage? Sensible move on ITN part in my opinion. TV-am should have had their team based in Brighton, but stingy Gyngell did not want to pay for hotel rooms.
Interesting that the first European transmissions were called 'Eurovision' - maybe where the music contest's name came from? It's definitely not a term used nowadays - I'm a 1970s baby and had never heard it used as an adjective before.
The EBU (European Broadcasting Union) owns and operates the Eurovision and Euroradio telecommunications networks on which major television and radio broadcasts are distributed live to its members. It also operates the daily Eurovision news exchange in which 112 member Nations share breaking news footage. The EBU, in co-operation with its members, also produces programmes and organises events in which its members can participate, such as the Eurovision Song Contest.
