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A
great many things happened within ITV and broadcasting in 1972
and they were aptly reflected in the 1973 Yearbook.
The
minister for posts and telecommunications had postponed any
decision on a 4th national TV channel, much to the
disappointment of the ITA. However, he offered a sweetener -
changing the restrictions on broadcasting hours, which the
industry had been lobbying for 10 years. The ITA was pleased
that there was enough advertising money for the extra programmes
this brought to take advantage of the situation.
The
"extra hours" programmes were launched in October and
just fell within the remit of the 1973 ITA Yearbook, which went
to press soon after. The greatest changes on ITV were the
introduction of an afternoon schedule, starting after the
morning schools programmes the ITN News. The extended hours also
provided a platform for a range of programmes from the middle
ranking and even junior ITV companies. A typical schedule would
include:
- ‘First
Report’, from ITN
- ‘Scotch
Corner’, traditional Scottish music and song from Scottish
Television, or ‘Country Hoedown’, country and western
entertainment from Anglia Television.
- ‘Crown
Court’, a thrice-weekly drama set in a courtroom from
Granada, who had previously made a similar evening series
"The Verdict Is Yours".
- Yorkshire
Televising also networked a new afternoon serial called ‘Emmerdale
Farm’, created by Kevin Laffan.
Other
afternoon programmes included ‘About Britain’, a half-hour
travelogue, with contributions from Border, Ulster, Grampian and
Channel amongst others. There was a part networking of
Southern's ‘Houseparty’, a women's magazine, and Thames
launched ‘Tea-Break’, a weekday show with Michael and Mary
Parkinson.
Some
regional quizzes got a network offering including ‘Mr and Mrs’,
from Border and HTV, the first with Derek Batey and the latter
with Alan Taylor. HTV also provided adult education in the form
of ‘Paint Along with Nancy’.
There
were changes at the weekend at London Weekend TV finally moved
into Kent House on the South Bank and began to produced for the
ITV network a Sunday current affairs series called ‘Weekend
World’. Tyne-Tees managed to slip in its current affairs
offering ‘Face The Press’ at weekends too.
However,
towards the end of the year, as the presses for the 1973 ITV
Yearbook were rolling, a row broke out about ITV Christmas
schedule, which the ITA said was far to lightweight. The ITV
network eventually relented and ‘Flight of The Snowgeese’, a
Survival one hour special, was imported into the Christmas day
programmes before the Queen's Message, and the entire schedule
was amazingly cleared on Wednesday 27th December at 9pm for a 3
hour opera from Glyndbourne made by Southern, sang entirely in
Italian.
The 1973
ITV Yearbook reflected on these an other happenings in 1972
which had wide reaching affects on broadcasting today, including
the Sound Broadcasting Act and the creation of what was to
become British commercial radio. |
