Late in October I attended a one-day conference on 50 Years of ITV at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford.
It was actually fascinating - although not all of the presentations seemed to have a lot to do with the topic, while some could have been much longer and still retained my interest. A particular source of enjoyment was the people I met there, including the author of this month's lead article, David Liddiment.
David was ITV's Director of Programmes from 1997 to 2002, having originally joined Granada as a promo scriptwriter, and he opened proceedings in Bradford with a riveting presentation on Why ITV Matters. We are privileged to be able to publish it here in two parts, the first of which appears this month.
Our second story is also from someone I met at the conference, David Lee, who was (among other things) the head of the day shift at Emley Moor the day the mast fell in 1969.
In fact, all four new pieces this month are from writers who are, or were, engaged in the business of television: we round off the selection with Gordon Roddick's story of life as an announcer at Scottish Television, and producer Philip Stevens on what it was like to make commercials in the days of film.
