Tonight’s Anglia TV… in 1964 

24 October 2015 tbs.pm/7614

The TVTimes gives us a run down of the programmes on Anglia Television for Saturday 24 October 1964. Things worth noting include:

  • ABC’s World of Sport doesn’t arrive until January 1965, so the Saturday sports programmes are presented separately and locally.
  • The Olympic Games in Tokyo are happening before there’s a geostationary satellite link between Asia and Europe, so the events are being recorded in Tokyo and flown back to the UK by aeroplane. The only other option was to send them to Hawai’i by cable or the West Coast of the US by the Syncom 3 satellite, then use AT&T’s coaxial network can get the pictures to New York, from where they can get to the UK by the Relay 1 satellite in bursts of 10-20 minutes or so as it passes over the Atlantic. The aeroplane method was cheaper and led to better quality of pictures – but less coverage being shown on ITV.
  • Entertainment programmes begin at 5.15pm with an episode of ITC’s The Forest Rangers. At 5.50pm, Brian Matthew presents ABC’s Thank Your Lucky Stars. Appearing this week are Mary Wells (1943-1992) whose most famous hit was “My Guy”; The Ronettes, whose biggest hit was “Walking in the Rain”; French cover singer Richard Anthony (1938-2015); Sandie Shaw (born 1947), singing the Bacharach and David song “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me”; Hull-born crooner Ronnie Hilton (1926-2001) with “Don’t Let the Rain Come Down”; rock band The Pretty Things singing “Don’t Bring Me Down”; bass player Tony Dangerfield (1944-2007); and the totally forgotten group The First Gear.
  • Variety at 6.35pm, again from ABC, with Comedy Bandbox. It was just as bad as it sounds.
  • Back to ITC at 7.30pm for The Saint. This episode is almost exactly a year old.
  • The rest of primetime is dominated by ITC’s sister company ATV.
  • 11.05pm sees man, woman, birth, death, infinity in the ABC (US) medical drama Ben Casey, starring Vince Edwards (1928-1996) as the title character. You may remember him from… well, no. You remember him from this or nothing: this was the peak of his career.

You Say

3 responses to this article

Arthur Nibble 25 October 2015 at 5:38 pm

Two helpings of Kent Walton, as wrestling commentator and an Olympics anchorman.

Fascinating to see a sporting event as idiosyncratric as South Wales v British Police in a swimming contest.

Totally forgotten group The First Gear apparently included Jimmy Page as a band member.

“Gideon’s Way” is still being shown even now on Australian channel GEM 90.

Victor Field 26 October 2015 at 12:33 pm

I assume Ben Casey was just as overshadowed by Dr. Kildare over here as he was in the US (although both had a healthy run).

Ant 21 November 2015 at 9:30 pm

Mildly interesting. Just the Anglia flag is used as the visual identifier for the company at the top of the page. I only recall the whole Knight being used in both TV Times and then Look-In.

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