Tonight’s ATV… in 1955 

25 December 2014 tbs.pm/5439

ATV deformed 2From the TVTimes for Sunday 25 December 1955 comes this run down of what you could be watching on Associated TeleVision. Things worth noting:

  • HM The Queen is live, but in sound only, originating from the BBC. There would’ve been a still picture of her or of a Union flag or a close-up on the BBC’s model of the clock face of what we usually call “Big Ben”. The Queen didn’t allow television until 1957; began pre-recording in 1959 (in order not to be shown heavily pregnant with Prince Andrew) and reverted to radio for one broadcast (1963, again not wishing to be seen heavily pregnant with Prince Edward)
  • The American flavour of ITV at the time and ATV in particular is all over this schedule
  • An extra 15 minutes for Sunday Night at the London Palladium doesn’t disguise that this is an pretty ordinary Sunday night on ATV
  • Theatre Royal is a Towers of London production, otherwise known as Harry Alan Towers of ATV. The Incorporated Television Programme Co Ltd is one of Lew Grade’s vehicles. Both are involved in managing ATV, but Grade would engineer Towers out of the company as soon as he could
  • It may be Christmas Day, but no weekend on ATV is complete without I Love Lucy. The series started in the States in 1951; ATV bought it in 1955 and ran it from the start, so this episode is number 14 of series 1, dating from January 1952
  • The legal maximum output of 7½ hours a day is not waived this Christmas Day (although the Queen’s Message doesn’t count towards the total) as it would increasingly be in future, so ATV’s 2pm on-time leads to the startlingly early 10.45pm closedown (there’s also an enforced hour off for people to go to church 6-7pm)

You Say

1 response to this article

Arthur Nibble 28 December 2014 at 10:46 pm

Interesting to see the contrast and familiarity with a recent ATV weekend schedule on this bespoke forum. The contrast being that Jack Jackson’s on at the end of the day and not near the start. Apart from “I Love Lucy”, the familiarity is shown by another complete lack of guest listing for the Palladium show.

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