independent-television-in-britain

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After thirty years of broadcasting in Britain under a public monopoly, the Television Act of 1954 introduced a controversial new force called Independent Television (ITV) which was a plural structure combining private enterprise and public control. Its income came from advertising. This volume, the first of three recording the history of Independent Television, describes the campaign to end the BBC's monopoly in television and tells of the vicissitudes of the early years of ITV, how it survived to become an accepted part of the fabric of British life. The book draws on much previously unpublished information to reveal the inside story of the problems which were encountered and the people principally involved in them. It tells how ITV's programmes captured a major share of the television audience and also how its rapid growth and the way the network was conducted led to a divergence from some of the ideals of its founding fathers. Whilst enjoying great popularity with the audience in general, ITV encountered criticism among people concerned about both 'excessive' profits and the social impact of the medium. The book sets the record straight on a number of questions on which judgements have been based more often on legend than on fact. The story ends on the eve of the Pilkington Report of 1962, which was to advocate 'organic change' in the whole system of Independent Television. The second volume will contain a detailed review of this report, describe the passage of the second Television Act of 1963 and go on to tell what happened to ITV after the arrival of Lord Hill of Luton, the former radio doctor and Postmaster-General, as Chairman of the ITA in the summer of 1963.

The ITV network was designed as a federation of companies, different in size and character, jointly and severally constructing programme schedules in which strands of entertainment were interwoven with news bulletins, drama with sport, feature films with documentaries, church services with broadcasting for schools. The purpose of this volume is to convey some impression of diversity by illustrating and illuminating the rich assortment of companies and programmes making up ITV's overall service to the public in the operation of a plural system on a single television channel during a peak period in British broadcasting.

"Since breaking the BBC's monopoly in 1955, ITV has been at the centre of the British television landscape. To coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the first ITV broadcast, this accessible book offers a range of perspectives on the complex and multifaceted history of Britain's first commercial broadcaster."--BOOK JACKET.

Success out of near disaster, finances taken to the edge of bankruptcy, resignations - this volume tells the dramatic stories of the major new commercial television developments in Britain between 1981-92. This is an authoritative account, from the people involved and from official documents, of the launches and first ten years of Channel 4 and TV-am, the expansion of cable television and early difficulties of satellite broadcasting.

Public issue television is a major contribution to understanding the relationship between television, politics, and society. Based on full access to the archives, it offers a fascinating historical account of how one television series--Granada's World in Action, celebrated for its tough journalism, visual directness, and public impact--functioned and developed over its run across 35 years between 1963 and 1998. This book gets deep inside the making of factual television and examines how a particular culture of production works within broader conditions of possibility and constraint. As well as discussing achievement and success, it examines the tensions, the debates and open conflicts that formed part of the context within which the series was made and transmitted across four decades.

Since television in the UK began, advertisements have come to be acceptable to the viewer and to be considered, by some, as a bastion of "Britishness" in a world of increasing media globalization. This study examines the question of television advertising as an expression of cultural identity.

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This book provides, for the first time, a detailed historical narrative and critical analysis of independent television (ITV) in Wales. Focusing primarily on the critical years of the 1950s and 1960s, and drawing on key archival sources from Wales and beyond, it locates the history of ITV within wider debates over national identity, language and culture in Wales. It also aims to redress an imbalance in media historiography where the more established BBC has ‘stolen the limelight’. The attention devoted to Wales, and commercial television in Wales in particular, in the broad spectrum of broadcasting historiography has been minimal. Seen by some as a more populist and sometimes ‘tacky’ alternative to the BBC, the book argues that in Wales ITV pioneered across a range of programming formats, including games shows and news in the Welsh language, and moved the television service forward in many ways. ITV in Wales provided nurture for creative talent in both English and Welsh languages and produced some ground-breaking programmes which changed the face of Welsh television. It also provided a degree of plurality within the media in Wales. Accessible to undergraduate and postgraduate students, it will also appeal to the general reader with an interest in the media in Wales, Welsh history and the cultural politics of broadcasting in a small nation.

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