Tonight’s BBCtv… in 1950 

17 March 2015 tbs.pm/6190

From the Radio Times for Friday 17 March 1950 comes this run down of what you could be watching on the BBC. Things worth noting:

• Television’s only channel serves London and the Midlands on VHF in 405-lines black and white. The next stage of the expansion of the service would be in a year and a half with the opening of a transmitter to serve northern England.
• In a standard-sized edition of the Radio Times, the magazine gives a munificent two whole pages to television, each day being given roughly a quarter of a page, plus this dull featured image.
• The schedule has not changed all that much since the pre-war Television Service – the 8 programmes (4 repeated) across 2 hours of 1938 being very similar to the 6 programmes across 3 and a bit hours here.
• The news is in sound only, mainly because the BBC had an irrational fear that newsreaders on-screen would display emotions relating to news stories across their faces and give the impression of bias.
• Fashions from Cotton is, in effect, an advertising magazine paid for by the statutory Cotton Board, based in Manchester (a city not covered by television at this time).
• This standard dull schedule would be enlivened somewhat after television caught on with the masses in the wake of the coronation.