| The
top people and programmes of ITV in 1970 make it on to the cover
of the 1971 Yearbook. Most recognisable are David Frost,
looking unbelievably young (LWT, bottom front)), Pat Phoenix as
Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street (Granada, bottom right) and
Millicent Martin, formerly of the BBC's 'That was the week that
was' (top right TV screen).
Brian
Young gives his first introduction to a yearbook, having
replaced Sir Robert Fraser, the first Director-General of the
ITA. Lord Aylestone is still chairman, having taken over
from Lord Hill (who went to the same position at the BBC) in the
aftermath of the franchise change announcements in 1967.
The
themes dominating the first few pages of the book reflect the
ITA's obsessions of the time. An explanation of
advertising regulation is followed by a chapter celebrating
ITV's news services - specifically ITN's national news. At
that point, the ITN news was seen for 10 minutes at 1750 and 30
minutes at 2200 each weekday. On Saturdays there is one
more bulletin, but the total time is only 20 minutes. On
Sunday, there are only two bulletins, but they total 25 minutes.
ITV's
local news at the time was interesting. Whilst today most
regions offer a half-hour news-and-features programme every
weekday (some follow it with a 30 minute 'news feature'
programme several nights a week) this was not the case as at the
end of 1970.
The
ITA split news provision into two categories - local news and
news magazines. It made no distinction as to how long,
frequent or regular these programmes were, deciding instead to
add up a weekly total for each company. One company, LWT,
was even excluded from that.
Here
are the English-language news programmes of each company by
category, aggregated so local news within a magazine is counted
as part of the magazine (as we would do now):
| Company |
Local
news programme |
mins
per week |
news
magazine |
mins
per week |
total |
| Anglia |
Anglia
Newsroom |
15 |
About
Anglia |
170 |
185 |
| ATV |
|
|
ATV
Today |
135 |
135 |
| Border |
Border
News |
25 |
Lookaround
& Diary |
175 |
200 |
| Channel |
Channel
News |
55 |
Gazette,
Lookaround & Report |
55 |
110 |
| Grampian |
Grampian
News |
50 |
Grampian
Week |
25 |
75 |
| Granada |
Newsview |
50 |
Six-O-One |
105 |
155 |
| HTV
Wales |
|
|
Report
Wales |
115 |
115 |
| HTV
West |
|
|
Report
West |
215 |
215 |
| STV |
|
|
Dateline |
160 |
160 |
| Southern |
Southern
News |
70 |
Day
By Day & Scene South East |
215 |
285 |
| Thames |
|
|
Today |
165 |
165 |
| Tyne
Tees |
Northeast
Newsroom & Late News Extra |
90 |
Today
at 6 |
115 |
205 |
| Ulster |
Headlines |
25 |
UTV
Reports |
155 |
180 |
| Westward |
Headlines |
10 |
Diary
& Farming News |
160 |
170 |
| Yorkshire |
|
|
Calendar |
135 |
135 |
If
the ITA's figures for 1970 are to be believed, the amount of
local news in English put out be each company not only varies
considerably from region to region but also bears little
relation to a company's size. Grampian's 75 minutes is far
below ATV's 135 minutes, yet Grampian was a 'regional' company
and ATV has a retrospective-reputation for having a poor
commitment to the Midlands.
To
put this into perspective, the following graph shows, in
minutes, how much local news per week each company put
out. The respective wedges are surprising and worth any
student of television history thinking about.
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