Turned Out Nice Again

by Louis Barfe

  The Windmill formula was replicated nationwide, with touring and resident troupes. In Birmingham, the Aston Hippodrome billed itself as ‘The Windmill Theatre of the Midlands’, and presented the likes of Pauline Penny and her ‘Pennies from Heaven’ troupe. Once, when appearing at Collins’s Music Hall on Islington Green, Penny had made the mistake of performing in front of a wind machine. Word of the effect it had on her luxuriant pubic bush soon got around, resulting in a full house, some punters rushing up from the Angel to catch the phenomenon. Paul Raymond was a magician on these strip bills, but he soon saw that his talents would be better used packaging and promoting the shows. Thus was a multi-million-pound Soho porn and property empire born.

  The rest of the live variety profession was, however, suffering. The growing popularity of television and the cinema undoubtedly had some effect on the decline of the halls, but they cannot accept the total blame. Housing standards were improving, making nights in more attractive for many of the population. Another culprit was entertainment tax, which had been introduced in 1916 as a cash cow for a nation at war, but which had gradually become more punitive over the years. For example, at the start, the tax took a shilling for each ticket over 7s 6d in price. By 1950, it was 1s 1d for each ticket over 2s 9d. The cinema, which accounted for 93 per cent of all entertainment tax receipts by the end of the Second World War, was hit hardest, but the live side took a considerable knock as well. A theatre in South Kensington closed in November 1949 with losses of £7,000, which was almost exactly the amount of entertainment tax its operators had paid since opening.

  By the mid-fifties, variety theatres were closing for conversion or, more often, demolition. Declining receipts, combined with the sudden increase in speculative development, following the relaxation of wartime building restrictions, made the decision easy, and proprietors were made lucrative offers for sites that were no longer earning their keep. Kingston Empire, which had opened at the tail end of the variety theatre building boom in 1910 (and was where Gracie Fields was working when she married her first husband in 1923), closed in March 1955, to be gutted and converted into a supermarket.

  However, as one set of outlets dwindled, another grew to take variety to a greater number of people than ever before.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Strictly commercial

  After the long years of austerity, the fifties saw the British people heading into a period of relative affluence. There was money to spend, and with the end of rationing, there were things to spend it on. The drive to rebuild exports had relaxed a little, meaning that luxury goods were available to buy at home once again. ‘Make do and mend’ was giving way to rampant consumerism. It wasn’t quite time for prime minister Harold Macmillan to declare that ‘most of our people have never had it so good’,1 but the movement towards that memorable utterance was distinct. In fact, it wasn’t quite time for Harold Macmillan, for in October 1951, the electorate had ejected Clement Attlee’s radical Labour government in favour of the Conservatives under the 76-year-old Sir Winston Churchill.

  This, then, was the political and social background for the birth of British commercial television, funded by advertising. There had been rumblings about commercial broadcasting since before the foundation of the BBC, but these began to grow louder and louder after the Second World War. When the BBC’s Royal Charter came up for renewal in 1946, the decision was taken to maintain the existing system until 31 December 1951; after that, other possibilities were open to discussion. The three most prominent voices in favour of breaking the BBC’s monopoly came from the Conservative backbenches. John Rodgers, Ian Orr-Ewing2 and John Profumo were all part of the new intake of MPs from the 1950 General Election, the first to be honoured with any television coverage of the results. Two of them also had vested interests: Rodgers had come into Parliament from the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, while Orr-Ewing was a consultant to a television equipment manufacturer. To be completely fair, Orr-Ewing spent most of his life lobbying against monopolies and restrictions of one sort or another. On top of this, he was a television man through and through. Armed with an Oxford physics degree and a radio ham’s licence, he had joined EMI as a trainee in 1934, just as the final development of the 405-line television system was going on. He then moved, in 1937, to the BBC to work in the outside broadcast department.

  Away from this triumvirate of radical thinkers, the parliamentary reaction was mixed. The Labour Party were all against the idea, as were elements within the Conservative Party. In particular, Prime Minister Churchill was less than enthusiastic, referring to the mooted enterprise as a ‘tu’penny Punch and Judy show’.3 Others had decidedly odd motives for wanting to see an element of competition in broadcasting. Lord Woolton, the chairman of the Conservative Party and the man who as wartime Minister of Food gave his name to a notoriously unappetizing pie, argued in favour of commercial television because he feared that the BBC might fall under communist influence at some point. Most vocal of the Labour naysayers was Christopher Mayhew MP, whose face was so regularly seen on BBC television that he was known to his detractors as the honourable member for Lime Grove. He wrote a pamphlet called ‘Dear Viewer’ arguing that programme quality would suffer, and was the prime mover in the National Television Council, a coalition of the great and the good who were willing to weigh in against the vulgarizing evil of commercial television. Their number included Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Festival of Britain director Sir Gerald Barry, Lord Halifax and Eric Fletcher. The latter, a parliamentary colleague of Mayhew’s, was also vice president of the Associated British Pictures Corporation, one of the two major British film-making and cinema-owning combines, and pledged the part-time assistance of an ABPC publicity man for the Council’s work.

  The pro-commercial interests soon organized themselves into a countervailing lobby, under the banner of the Popular Television Association. The leading lights on this side of the debate were Charles Orr Stanley, overlord of the electronic equipment manufacturers Pye; Sir Robert Renwick, an industrialist with a background in electricity generation; and Norman Collins, journalist, popular novelist, a former controller of the Light Programme and the controller of BBC Television from December 1947 to October 1950. The Association was a lobbying front for a serious, well-organized company called the Associated Broadcasting Development Company Ltd, or ABDC, which had been incorporated on 6 August 1952 and was run by Stanley, Renwick and Collins.

  Collins’s exit from the BBC in 1950 was part principle, part pique. The principle was an unshakeable belief in the possibilities of the medium of television, which he felt could only be realized by maintaining a certain distance from radio and its practices. TV was not merely to be illustrated wireless. Throughout his three years in the job, Collins had been the ideal administrator for a fledgling creative enterprise and also a great evangelist for television. The pique resulted from Collins being passed over for the director of television post in favour of George Barnes, because director general Sir William Haley didn’t think him suitable. Apart from the obvious personal slight, Barnes, as head of the spoken word and the Third Programme, had never dirtied his hands with the junior medium before. Broadcasting House had looked down on television from the start, but appeared to be taking an interest now that the service was gaining in credibility and professionalism. When Barnes’s appointment was confirmed, Collins was asked to stay on as controller. He requested a couple of hours to consider his position, time that he instead used to call his many Fleet Street contacts with the news of his principled resignation and the fact that he would be throwing a party at the Savoy that night to celebrate his liberation. The BBC issued counter-publicity to the effect that Collins hadn’t shown any interest in leaving until being passed over for the directorship, but Collins had outflanked the Corporation.

  As a natural Conservative with television experience and a fair amount of charisma, Collins was the perfect frontman for the commercial television campaign. He set about the task with zeal, touring the country
to preach to the unconverted and allay their worst fears. As both sides lobbied like mad through 1952 and 1953, the proposals for commercial television went through two White Papers, resulting in the Television Bill. As the Television Act, this passed onto the statute books on 30 July 1954, but it had been heavily revised during its progress through Parliament. The main change was the abandonment of the proposed £750,000 grant to prevent commercial TV from having to be too commercial. Instead, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) was trusted to maintain decency by regulation, under the stewardship of chairman Sir Kenneth Clark and director general Sir Robert Fraser, a former civil servant.

  A federal, regional structure was adopted for the new Independent Television (ITV) service, with regional franchises to be awarded to programme contractors for fixed periods. On 25 August 1954, a tiny classified advertisement appeared on the front of The Times, inviting ‘those interested in becoming PROGRAMME CONTRACTORS in accordance with the Television Act’ to ‘give a broad picture of the types of programme they would provide, their proposals for network or local broadcasting of their programmes, some indication of their financial resources, and the length of contract they would desire’.4 On 26 October 1954, the first successful contractors, for London, the Midlands and the North – giving 60 per cent coverage of the UK – were announced. Each region was split, to prevent one dominant player emerging and taking all of the advertising revenue, with one company taking Monday–Friday, and another taking Saturday and Sunday.

  The London weekday franchise, set to begin less than a year later, on 22 September 1955, was awarded to a consortium of Broadcast Relay Services and Associated Newspapers, a combination to be known as Associated-Rediffusion. London weekends and the weekday Midlands contract, beginning in February 1956, went to the Collins/Stanley/Renwick ABDC grouping, while weekends in the Midlands and North were awarded to Kemsley-Winnick, an alliance between Sunday Times owner Lord Kemsley,5 former dance-band leader Maurice Winnick and Isaac Wolfson of Great Universal Stores. Their weekday counterpart in Lancashire and Yorkshire, which came on air in May and November 1956 respectively, was the Granada theatres group, led by the Bernstein brothers, Sidney and Cecil. After these pioneers had reached the airwaves successfully, further regions were added, achieving near-national coverage by 1962. Scottish Television had launched in 1957, then Southern came along in 1958, followed by Anglia in the east of England in 1959, then came Ulster, Westward, Border and Grampian. The roll-out finished in the Channel Islands in 1962, with the launch of the tiny Channel Television.

  Among the disappointed applicants was the Incorporated Television Programme Company Ltd, headed by Prince Littler of Stoll Theatres, commercial radio producer Harry Alan Towers, Palladium boss Val Parnell and the powerful agent Lew Grade. Littler professed himself ‘amazed to learn that no facilities have been offered to us, and we can think of no valid reason for this in view of our experience in the entertainment world and the talent at our disposal’.6 In fact, it was the talent at the group’s disposal that counted against them, as the ITA felt it would put them in far too strong a position. As powerful as the Stoll Theatre and Moss Empire interests were, it was the amazing reach of Grade’s agency business that most alarmed the regulators.

  The Grades dominated live variety, while the other disappointed applicant for a commercial television franchise had a commanding position in the field of film-making and exhibition. Perhaps surprisingly, given that its vice president Eric Fletcher was a leading lobbyist against commercial TV, the Associated British Picture Corporation had applied – chairman Sir Philip Warter and Pathé division chief Howard Thomas having become convinced of television’s potential. Nevertheless, the ITA described the ABPC submission as ‘half-hearted’.7 In his speech at ABPC’s 1954 AGM, Warter declared that the board had ‘considered it advisable to safeguard the Corporation’s interest by applying for a licence’8 while regarding the Cinemascope widescreen process as the future of the business.

  Both the ABPC and Grade’s Incorporated Television Programme Company were to have a second chance, much to the new Authority’s embarrassment. The ABDC bid had Norman Collins’s television expertise, Charles Orr Stanley’s technical know-how and Robert Renwick’s business gravitas, but it proved to be short on capital. On 11 March 1955, just over six months before the first programmes were due to go out on the London transmitter, it was announced that ABDC would be merging its interests with the vanquished applicant ITPC. Prince Littler of ITPC became chairman of the combined group, known as the Associated Broadcasting Company (ABC), with Collins demoted to deputy chairman. If Collins was ever bitter about the situation, he did his best not to show it, no doubt mollified by the considerable riches the venture eventually brought him.

  Meanwhile, the Kemsley-Winnick consortium suffered from Lord Kemsley’s almost complete lack of interest in the venture, the main impetus having come from the Kemsley group’s editorial director Denis Hamilton and Kemsley’s stepdaughter, Ghislaine Alexander. She had appeared as a panellist on What’s My Line and furnished the initial introduction to Winnick, who administered the show’s format rights in the UK. Unfortunately, Kemsley’s sons did not share their stepsister’s enthusiasm, and also developed a personal antipathy towards partner Isaac Wolfson. Worst of all, Kemsley had never got on with Winnick. Getting cold feet, Wolfson withdrew, then Kemsley followed in February 1955 – a bare twelve months before the first Midlands programmes were set to take to the air – leaving Winnick without financial backing. Hamilton tried to talk Kemsley (described by one of his journalists, Godfrey Smith, as ‘a frightful old twit really’9) round, but his mind was made up. Winnick begged the ITA to give him time to find new backers, but it was decided to re-advertise the contracts. On 13 September 1955, barely more than a week before the launch of the London station, the ITA gave Kemsley-Winnick’s franchises to ABPC, who arranged to take on the equipment ordered for the abortive company. ABDC had decided to launch as ABC, but had to change its name to Associated TeleVision, or ATV, after only three weeks. The reason was that the late entrant, ABPC, had already used the ABC name for its national chain of cinemas, and wanted to use the same branding for its television subsidiary.

  Another early snag was the abortive plan to share transmission sites with the BBC. It soon became apparent that the existing masts could not carry both sets of transmitting aerials. Astonishingly, given the time available, suitable alternative sites were found, at Croydon, Lichfield and on Rivington Moor in Lancashire (later better known as Winter Hill), and the already tight schedule was maintained. Studio space being urgently required, all except Granada chose to adapt existing buildings. Associated-Rediffusion took over the former Fox film studios at Wembley, as well as Frank Matcham’s Granville Theatre at Walham Green, while ATV converted the Wood Green Empire into a studio and set up a transmission control centre in Foley Street. Both shared office accommodation in the former Air Ministry building on Kingsway, where Associated-Rediffusion also had studios, and they also briefly shared the tiny Viking film studio in Kensington. ABC had expendable cinemas in the shape of the Astoria in Aston for its Midlands studio, which it would share with ATV, and the Capitol at Didsbury for its northern outpost. Elsewhere in Manchester, architect Ralph Tubbs – best known for the Dome of Discovery and the Skylon at the Festival of Britain – was erecting the UK’s first purpose-built television studios for the Bernsteins.

  As important as the premises and technology, if not more so, were the staff. The obvious source of production talent was the BBC and so the defections began, lured by the promises of better money and instant promotion. One relatively junior BBC LE producer, Dickie Leeman, had left in 1954 in preparation for the new venture. Senior producer Bill Ward moved over to ATV, as did designer Richard Greenough, who became the new company’s head of design:

  I would never have got that promotion at the BBC. Peter Bax had died in 1952, Richard Levin became head of design in 1953 and I was not his favourite [whereas] I was with Peter Bax. I had wo
rked with Bill [Ward] quite a lot, and I think I went to ATV because of Bill. It was better paid, better altogether for me, one way and another. Wood Green Empire was a much better studio than Shepherd’s Bush. The proscenium was 40 feet wide instead of 30, and we built the stage way out to under the circle, with an orchestra pit.10

  On a wing and a prayer, Associated-Rediffusion and ATV were ready for their opening night, 22 September 1955. Although it was a Thursday, the weekday and weekend contractors treated the debut as a joint venture, sharing the programming burden. This made sense, as Associated-Rediffusion’s strengths were to be in drama and documentaries rather than light entertainment, with ATV making an almost perfect complement. The first night began with a short film about the establishment of the service and the city it would be serving, narrated by Cecil Lewis – a reassuring voice from the past, having been one of the founding fathers of the BBC. Similarly soothing was the presence of Leslie Mitchell, announcing for Associated-Rediffusion as he had at the start of BBC TV nearly nineteen years before. Then, at 7.15pm, it was live to the Guildhall for the opening ceremony, relayed by Associated-Rediffusion, complete with speeches from the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Kenneth Clark and Postmaster General Sir Charles Hill. Finally, at 8pm, the new service began to show its true colours with a Bill Ward-produced variety show, transmitted live by ATV from Wood Green.11 The host was bandleader turned disc jockey Jack Jackson, with radio favourite Billy Cotton and his band, Australian zither-playing cutie Shirley Abicair, and Leslie ‘The Memory Man’ Welch as guests.

  The variety show was interrupted at 8.12pm by a novelty act: the first commercial break in British television history. Introduced by Jack Jackson with the words ‘This is what you’ve been waiting for’, a tube of toothpaste in a block of ice was pronounced to be ‘tingling fresh’, giving Gibbs SR the honour of being the first product in that inaugural £1,000-a-minute break. Next came Café Continental’s Hélène Cordet, with a spoof panel game in which both sides declared that Cadbury’s was their favourite drinking chocolate. An advertisement for margarine rounded off the first spot and then it was back to Wood Green. The big show was followed by drama from Associated-Rediffusion, boxing from ATV and then back to Associated-Rediffusion for a visit to the opening-night gala cabaret, with George Formby at the Mayfair Hotel.