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BBC TV's Summer Holiday

2017-07-25T16:16:06+00:00

The cover of the last Radio Times Television Supplement, from July 1937. The final programme before TV's three week 'holiday' was Review of Revues, which included Valerie Hobson, later the wife of John Profumo MP...

Starting eighty years ago today, in the summer of 1937, television took a holiday for three weeks. The service was still in its infancy, and engineers at Alexandra Palace needed to carry out maintenance on equipment which they were still working out how to use.

Radio Times had given fair warning to the handful of television viewers then tuning in. The issue published on 10 July announced: "INTERIM: In order that an overhaul and certain internal adjustments may be carried out at Alexandra Palace, transmissions will be suspended for three weeks, beginning on Monday, July 26. There will, however, be television transmissions from Wimbledon of the Davis Cup on July 26 and Tuesday, July 27, between 3pm and 4pm, with an extension until 4.30pm if necessary.” The tennis was transmitted as promised, but in fact transmissions continued for the whole period, albeit only of test programmes.

Television had been going for just under a year by summer 1937. Though the official launch was in November 1936, there was a special transmission to the annual RadiOlympia exhibition in August that year, followed by a few weeks of test programmes. All of these alternated the Baird and Marconi-EMI television systems, which the government’s Television Advisory Committee had decided should be trialled for up to six months before the final system was chosen.

By the end of January 1937 however, it was clear to the BBC and the Advisory Committee that although it had some good features, the Baird system, involving separate Spotlight studio (for close-ups) and Intermediate Film (for long shots), was too impractical to take any further. Marconi-EMI, with its higher resolution picture of 405 lines, and more flexible working method, became the sole television format.

That said, there were still issues to be resolved, and so it was decided to take the single studio (Studio A) then in use out of service for a few weeks. The break also saw the end of the Radio Times Television Supplement, which was glossy, lavishly illustrated and expensive to produce; indeed there were no television listings at all in the magazine during the three weeks.

Jasmine Bligh, one of the original trio of television announcers, seen in an off-screen still from August 1937. She was distantly related to Captain Bligh of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' fame

In terms of content and viewing hours, television at this time was still very limited in scope: there was only an hour’s transmission in the afternoon and the same in the evening. During the ‘holiday’ period, films started to be shown in the morning, initially cinema newsreels, and something called Ace Magazine. These gave electrical retailers something to show when demonstrating sets in the morning, even if only during a one-hour window.

This period also saw the debut of the BBC Demonstration Film, which would endure until the mid-1950s in a constantly-changing form. As the recording of electronic pictures, even onto film, had not yet been satisfactorily achieved, demonstration films were made as conventional films, recreating selected items with the original performers. Apart from still photographs and a couple of short excerpts from actual transmissions which have survived, demonstration films are about the only idea we have of what the earliest television looked like.

There was no television transmitted on Saturday 31 July, or Bank Holiday Monday, 2 August. There was also no transmission on Sunday 1 August - or any other Sunday (until April 1938). Sundays in the 1920s and 1930s were regarded as being very special by the BBC, under the influence of the strictly religious Director General, Sir John Reith. As Reith was no fan of television generally, it is perhaps not surprising that Sunday was television’s regular day off, and this only changed a couple of months before Reith left the BBC.

Adagio dancers the Bega Four performing on an edition of Cabaret Cartoons in 1937, while being drawn by cartoonist Harry Rutherford (right), who had studied alongside L.S. Lowry

There were occasional technical breakdowns, though it is not recorded whether these were spontaneous or the result of the maintenance work. There were no evening transmissions during this period, and the afternoon programmes were transmitted earlier than normal. On the last day of the ‘holiday’ period, Saturday 14 August, the service closed down at midday.

Television returned to normal at 3pm the following Monday, August 16. Jasmine Bligh was the announcer, and the first show, after a newsreel, was a ‘mixed programme’ consisting of Indian dances by Mayura Vincent, songs by John Thompson, and an adapted Tolstoy story “Capital Punishment”, starring Charles Lefeaux. After an ‘interest’ film, Bugle from Blue Grass, there was more drama, starring Jean Forbes-Robertson in Scenes from Romeo and Juliet, with Michael Redgrave as Romeo, although he was not credited in Radio Times. (Unfortunately for technical reasons these listings are not presently on the Genome database.)

Evening programmes included veteran actor Bransby Williams in his celebrated monologues, a talk on commercial art, and another newsreel. The transmission concluded with Cabaret Cartoons, with Harry Rutherford doing lightning sketches of the performers, including singer Ingrid Linck, ‘upside-down dancers’ the Topsy-Turvey Two, and adagio dancers the Bega Four. (Two scheduled acts, Trudi Binar and The Grip Four, did not appear.) The programme was directed by the television programme organiser, Cecil Madden.

And so television carried on. It never again took a ‘holiday’ – unless you count the Second World War, the 1947 Fuel Crisis, and the occasional strike…

The Sunday Post: Missing - Believed Unscheduled

2016-09-11T09:00:00+00:00

Radio Times publicises the TV50 season in 1986 - but not all the scheduled programmes were to go out as planned...

Here at Genome we face a lot of challenges with our extensive database. One of them is the days and weeks of schedules and individual programmes that do not currently appear on the website.

There are a number of issues behind these gaps in the record. For example, prior to the start of Radio Times in 1923, there were about nine months of BBC programmes since the Company (as it then was) was founded, which we have not yet been able to include. These will probably have to be pieced together from the BBC’s records of its actual transmissions.

We also have some gaps where no issue of Radio Times was published for other reasons – there is a full list in the FAQs, but here are the details:

14 May 1926 was the first time Radio Times was not published. This was due to the General Strike, which saw almost all newspapers and periodicals stop publication for the duration.

21 and 28 February 1947 saw the next gaps, as the very severe winter led to a fuel crisis, which also saw the recently returned television service and the new-born Third Programme closed temporarily.

A printing dispute meant that the 8 September and 13, 20 and 27 October issues in 1950 did not come out. A similar dispute in 1956 meant that RT was printed in France in broadsheet newspaper format, though at least in that case the details are available.

There were no problems for some time after that, apart from a few occasions where national editions were published due to limitations on printing facilities. An issue was missed on 1 August 1981, the issue following the week of Royal Wedding of Charles and Diana – luckily missing the huge demand for that number. In 1983, printing disputes meant that issues from 2 and 9 April and 3 December did not appear.

As well as whole weeks being absent, there are also days where problems have arisen due to unforeseen circumstances, when planned programmes did not go out. These include momentous world events like 9/11 and the death of Princess Diana, which resulted in the schedules being abandoned or severely altered not just on the day the events occurred, but for days or even weeks afterward. Past events of a similar nature include the deaths of monarchs and the outbreak of wars.

A television scoop - live coverage of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arriving at Heston Aerodrome with his 'piece of paper' - September 1938

For example, Radio Times was published as usual on 1 September 1939, only for it to be superseded by the outbreak of World War Two. An amended schedule was presented on the following Monday, 4 September, though the preceding weekend was incompletely presented as a result, with the replacement of the National and Regional Programmes by the Home Service, and the closure of the Television Service, on 1 September.

In another instance, the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, the schedule was only slightly changed though there were some additional programmes, proving controversial when the scheduled episode of the Harry Worth comedy Here’s Harry was transmitted despite the grim news.

There are also many individual programmes which were not transmitted for one reason or another – and unscheduled programmes that were broadcast in their place.

At the moment, we are confined to publishing what was scheduled in Radio Times, and then only what was listed in a single regional issue, usually the London or South-East of England area. The original Radio Times covered the whole country in one edition, but this gradually refined into smaller areas of the UK, before in recent years the number of regional editions was scaled back again. We’re still working on the best way of displaying regional opt-outs.

We are also missing some television listings from the 1930s, when they were in a supplement or a special page in RT, and then not in every copy (because television was only visible in the London/South East of England area), so we have not always had the data available. But there are records of that information so it will appear on Genome in time.

The Doctor tries Venusian Aikido on a Sea Devil in a 1972 adventure - repeated unexpectedly in 1974 (though not with this scene as it was just for the photo shoot!)

Finally, let’s look at some specific examples of unscheduled programmes…

1936 - The BBC’s television service was scheduled to begin on 2 November, but just after staff had been appointed in August, senior producer Cecil Madden was instructed to start work on programmes to go out that month. The RadiOlympia exhibition was having difficulty selling stands, and the BBC was asked to help out by organising a demonstration of television.

Although they only had a few days to prepare, the BBC team was able to mount a basic service of live programmes and film material for the duration of the show. None of these programmes was billed in Radio Times, nor were several weeks of experimental shows, including the first edition of long-running magazine Picture Page, which went out during October (notwithstanding the billing for 2 November saying that it was the first…)

September 1938 – Television outside broadcasts from Heston Aerodrome of the return of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain from Berchtesgaden and Munich were speedily arranged. The second was especially historic as Chamberlain delivered his infamous ‘piece of paper’ speech. These were also the first occasions when a Prime Minister spoke on television, though they were also captured by radio and newsreel cameras.

1972 – As we detailed a couple of weeks back, the pilot episode of Are You Being Served? was unscheduled when it was first shown. Cancellation of some Olympic Games broadcasts necessitated programmes being quickly found to fill the gaps, and that included this Comedy Playhouse episode.

27 May 1974 – Due to cricket coverage being cancelled, an omnibus version of the Doctor Who story The Sea Devils, which had previously been transmitted at Christmas 1972, was given another airing.

7 November 1986 – As part of BBC2’s TV50 season, celebrating the half-century of television, the first episode of Not Only… But Also was to be screened. However at the last minute clearances could not be obtained so an early Likely Lads and a 1962 edition of Points of View were substituted, separated by an Interlude, The Kitten dating from 1954.

There have been various occasions since when a programme or film has been deemed unsuitable for transmission at a particular time because of a news event which would make it in poor taste; also when a particularly famous star or personality has died, sometimes a special showing of one of their films or programmes is hurriedly repeated before it can be advertised in Radio Times.

Also, there are many occasions when because of an over-running sporting event, or an extended news bulletins, programmes have been cancelled or postponed. With some sporting events there are alternative schedules published, and obviously only one of these alternatives would actually have come to pass on the day in question.

We love creating the Genome database, and we look forward to being able to add even greater levels of detail in the future – though our first task is still to correct OCR errors which arose from scanning the Radio Times. Of course, we couldn’t do it without the support of our dedicated band of crowd-sourcing editors – please continue to contribute, we greatly appreciate your efforts!