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Tonight’s Anglia TV… in 1974
30 June 2015 tbs.pm/6695
From the TVTimes for Sunday 30 June 1974 comes this run down of what you could be watching on Anglia. Things worth noting:
- ITV’s day begins as 9.05am. The famous 9.25am start-up time is a symptom of TV-am’s arrival, not an immutable law of broadcasting
- Everything is in colour – something that could still not be guaranteed by 1974
- Even Yoga for Health, a US programme that ATV often passed off as their own, is in colour. Early episodes were in black and white
- The government’s extension of broadcasting hours mixed with the IBA’s continuing requirements for religion, education and heavier programming makes for a remarkably varied schedule
- Graham Hill, providing advanced driving lessons for ATV, is just over a year away from dying in a light aircraft crash
- The Protectors, a very good ITC series, is basically the product of Lew Grade getting Gerry Anderson confused with a different producer and offering him the entirely live-action series he’d always wanted to do – much to Anderson’s own surprise
- London Weekend has recovered from its shaky start and has found a useful niche for light entertainment on ITV. Nevertheless, it only gets an hour and 20 minutes of network time on Anglia today
- The film – 1963 pot-boiler The VIPs – is unique to Anglia. LWT goes with the 1956 brightly coloured dullness of The Trapeze; ATV (“Midland” – the TVTimes remains curiously allergic to the letters “ATV”) goes for the 1964 flop Goodbye Charlie; Southern appears to have the James Garner vehicle 36 Hours (one hopes it’s not the dreadful 1953 Hammer film of the same name); and YTV seems to be going for the creaking 1959 Technicolor epic The Miracle
- The people of Lincolnshire have, at this point, exactly a month left of Anglia, with the Belmont transmitter shifting to Yorkshire Television’s area on 30 July
You Say
5 responses to this article
Arthur Nibble wrote 30 June 2015 at 8:37 pm
How did the people of Lincolnshire take to, or get used to, a change of ITV region, especially one which I understand was Leeds based / biased and which was more likely to lend itself to the county it was named after, especially taking into account the counties’ populations?
Kif Bowden-Smith wrote 1 July 2015 at 1:12 am
It was all a bit of a sham by the IBA who held town hall consultations but were determined to do the deed anyway to increase YTV’s income and decrease Anglia’s. They used the local moans about South Humberside getting local news from Norwich as an excuse.
YTV was one of the “Big 5” with network production quota obligations, and were under resourced. Anglia was minting it, with no network obligations. So the IBA did the deed to increase Yorkshire’s viewing population and thus income. For network reasons.
The local news angle was the excuse the IBA needed. So it was all a bit of a hoax…
Dave Rhodes wrote 28 July 2015 at 12:37 pm
A network outing for Geoffrey Druett, who went on to be a regular on Yorkshire’s Calendar soon afterwards – presumably moving around the time of the Belmont switch.
Note Thames’ The Craftsmen at 9.30am – their adult ed programmes occasionally aired at weekends.
I’m sure I’ve seen Redvers Kyle credited as a narrator on Choirs of the World, but I can’t turn up the reference at the moment – incidentally, the two religious half-hours suggest the usual Morning Service was taking a break.
Also on a break for the summer is Weekend World ; ITV tended to replace it with other public affairs programming, including Tyne Tees’ Face the Press, before it moved to Channel 4.
n hewit wrote 19 January 2016 at 5:46 pm
Remember that Yorkshire TVs transmission area was anything but coterminous with the County bearing its name. Areas north of York, (and according to the transmission maps in the IBA Year Book the City itself was part of Tyne Tees as was Harrogate and Filey on UHF.
This part of the Region was served by the Bilsdale Transmitter situated on the North Yorks Moors, between York, Scarborough and Midlesborough. Emley Moor was epicentral between Huddersfield and its height was two thirds its intended size after the higher original mast was demolished in a Gale, even the original Northern Region service had difficulty radiating to the whole region on VHF, hence from the opening of the Belmont transmitter there was a tendency for an overlap with Anglia, the latter having a presence in the area at Hull and Grimsby. The wolds proved to be a barrier to UHF hence the need to put the more densely populated part of the transmission area into Yorrkshire, on UHF even Bridlington was Anglia!
YTV provided a bespoke News service for Belmont with news centres at Hull, Grimsby and Lincoln, the Fens and North West Norfolk was covered by Anglia’ base at Tuesday Market Plce, Kings Lynn. The Yorkshire regional image was toned down and by the time I located to the area in 1988 it was euphemistically referred to as “YTV: Your TV”! they even slipped Belmont connections into Network production in Rising Damp Leeds Land Lord Rigsby was said to have an estranged wife in ,’Cleethorpes’ and Emmerdale”s NY Estates is based in’ Lincoln’! Priot to the 1974 seitch the parts of South Lincolnshire around Grantham and Stamford were part of ATV anyway and the Midlands transmission area could be received in most parts of the South and East of the County!
Alan Keeling wrote 14 May 2016 at 12:01 am
Anglia’s Sunday afternoon schedules included the Anglo-Australian series called “Riptide”, starring the former “Bronco Laine” star, Ty Hardin supported by a repertory cast of familiar Aussie actors. Produced in 1970.
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