For the last time… 

3 May 2021 tbs.pm/72806

It was a shock. It hadn’t even been imagined. The ITV companies had all presumed they had a degree of permanency. If they did anything truly wrong, then they might be booted out at some point. But it just wasn’t likely that they’d be told to leave just because there was a better offer on the table from someone else.

All of this especially applied to ITV’s flagship station, the first commercial television company, the founder of the network, the company that had kept the others afloat during the first precarious years when the finances were rocky. The backbone of the ITV network was Rediffusion, and they’d been told to get out, reduced to a mere 49% of their replacement, with no more say in the programmes or the future of Independent Television.

The injustice of it. The company most able – repeatedly – to meet and beat the BBC at its own game, replaced by a fluffy weekend company from the provinces.

 

 

Presentation managers try to see the bigger picture. They don’t interfere in the minutiæ of presentation, leaving that up to their talented transmission controllers and continuity announcers. But in the 1960s, a time where rules were important, they did try to make sure that the diktats of the Postmaster-General, the regulator’s regulator, were strictly followed. One such rule was the handover from the owner of the transmitters to the programme company each day. A registered piece of music was to be played, and an announcement mentioning the Independent Television Authority and the transmitters in question or the region, plus the name of the company, must be read out. These were usually recorded to tape in order to ensure they were the same every day, day in, day out. And they always were. But…

 

 

TVTimes announcing Rediffusion's last day

The Rediffusion daily start-up music, Widespread World of Rediffusion, was popular with viewers. It made it into the TAM ratings – not the top 10 or anything, but its presence was obvious. Did people notice the handover announcement in the middle when they put their TV sets on 5 minutes early in order to catch the music? Probably not – it’s the type of thing that washes over most people, especially when it’s the same announcement every weekday.

But today is Monday 29 July 1968 and today is different. The head of presentation at Rediffusion, Neil Bramson, wanted to mark the day just as much as his staff did. For this was Rediffusion London’s last day. After the usual Monday off-peak and early-peak programming, much of peak time would be devoted to celebrating Rediffusion’s programming accomplishments. The day was starting early, thanks to a cricket match ITV were covering. Presentation would still like to do something a bit different.

Chief announcer Redvers Kyle, like Neil Bramson about to transfer to the new Yorkshire Television in Leeds, also wanted to do something. He was rostered on to the late shift, but 5 minutes in the continuity studio before programmes began got his voice spliced into the standard music, replacing his ordinary handover announcement. The rest of the announcing team were dispersing. Muriel Young went to Granada as head of their children’s output. Jon Kelley, rostered on the early shift that day, went back to acting. Howard Williams got a staff job at Radio Luxembourg. They would be replaced by voices previously only heard in the midlands and north of England – David Hamilton, John Benson, John Edmunds, Philip Elsmore, Sheila Kennedy.

 

 

From tomorrow, those new voices would be sitting in the same seat, speaking into the same microphone, looking into the same camera, in the same studio, in the same building as Bramson’s team. Only now it was to be Geoffrey Lugg’s team, the announcers would welcome people to Thames Television, and behind them would be a Manchester-drawn sketch of London.

So this was it. For the final time, this is Rediffusion.

 

 

The unregulated closedown – the General Post Office was as uninterested in the handing back of the transmitters at the end of the day as it was interested in the handing over of them at the start – was a time for more effusive goodbyes.

 

 

But the really powerful message of the day was right at the beginning.

 

With thanks to Darren Brian Renforth and Geoffrey Lugg.

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11 responses to this article

Russ J Graham 4 May 2021 at 1:39 pm

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