Features
Color City
The grand opening of NBC’s new colour studios in Burbank, California, is celebrated by the ‘NBC Chimes’ staff magazine in 1955
ACTT members visit East Germany
Four members of the ACTT union go on a trip to East Germany in 1960 and like what they find
‘ITV was the start of the Coca-colonisation of Britain’
In 1980, Jack Tinker, theatre critic of the Daily Mail, turns his unsympathetic eye to the launch of ITV in 1955
Keeping them Wide Awake
Inside TV-am’s popular children’s magazine show, the Wide Awake Club, in 1988
A World Listened and Watched
How the four American networks – ABC, CBS, Mutual and NBC – covered the assassination of President Kennedy
Toddlers and the £750,000 Question
Lord Hill of Luton on ending the Toddlers’ Truce and handing £750,000 to ITV
The mike and I at Wembley
Ice hockey on the radio propels Stewart MacPherson from the press office at the Wembley Pool into a career with the BBC
‘Early Bird’ spreads its wings
The first geostationary satellite linking Europe and North America goes into service in 1965
Tory-Weighted Programmers For Britain’s Comm’l TV Spark Rumpus
The first ITV contracts are announced in November 1954… but, as Variety reports, politicians are worried
Birmingham’s local millstone
Is Pebble Mill a white elephant? It has been, but that might be about to change says the Daily Telegraph in 1972
Tempo: the impact of television on the arts
Angus Wilson reviews the contribution made to the arts by ABC Weekend TV’s ‘Tempo’ in 1964
It’s Crossroads’ 3,000th Birthday
The TVTimes celebrates 3,000 years of ‘Crossroads’ in 1978 in a – frankly bonkers and baffling – celebratory article ‘written’ by ‘Meg Mortimer’
Voices off guide the casting director
The TVTimes finds the secrets of Associated-Rediffusion’s casting director Weston Drury in 1956
Receiving the Home, Light and Third
Hints on receiving the Home Service, Light and Third Programmes from BBC Engineering in 1951
All for the love of good food
Philip Harben introduces his new cookery show – The Grammar of Cookery – in 1964, part of ABC’s Headway adult education service
Freddie Phillips
You know him from Trumpton and Camberwick Green. We know him from his 8 daily start-up pieces for BBC-1 (two on Sundays) in use 1964-7. Have a listen to them on our SoundCloud channel
Television starts the day
Listen to Television start the day each day on Transdiffusion’s free SoundCloud playlist
Quick march
On retransmission stations of the internet, this is the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Routine Sheet Database
A new resource from Transdiffusion… but what now?
Get Zzzapped!
A new website goes in depth into the 1990s television comic ‘Zzzap!’
I shall say goodnight till it be morrow
The end came for the BBC Two 2s last night