Features
Never on a Sunday
The British cabinet discusses what ITV should be showing on Sunday afternoons in 1955
Coming your way soon – the voice of Radio Homespun
The government has promised to vanquish the pirates and then introduce local radio across the UK. But what will the new stations sound like? The Daily Express in 1966 listens in to Manx Radio to find out
Granada knocked
June 1970: a prolonged strike at Granada has just finished, but, the Financial Times asks, will they ever recover? And even if they do, surely Coronation Street is now doomed?
Almost a silent night
CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED – almost. Gary Rodger takes us through the industrial dispute that almost closed the BBC at Christmas in 1978
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
Haldane Duncan 1945-2018
Scottish television director Haldane Duncan has died aged 73. Read his autobiography we first published in 2006
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
They watch your viewing
The Independent Television Authority took on new powers in 1964. The TVTimes in February 1965 explains what these are and how the ITA is structured
‘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
Back in time for TV: BBC-2
Han Cooper takes her time machine back to 1964 watch the output of the brand new BBC-2
How wrestling can get a hold on you
ATV’s new wrestling sitcom ‘The Losers’ gives the TVTimes an excuse to look behind the world of professional wrestling in 1978
Sentenced to death
Rediffusion’s chairman tears the ITA to shreds in his final address to shareholders in December 1967
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’
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