ITV turns 70 this year. The network began broadcasting on Thursday 22 September 1955 with a joint evening of programmes by the first two contractors – Associated-Rediffusion, who broadcast on weekdays, and what would soon become ATV, who broadcast on weekends.
ATV is the company that usually gets the most attention from us Culters. Not only was it much longer-lived than Rediffusion – 1955-1981 compared to 1955-1968 – it also had a subsidiary, ITC, that made some of the top cult programmes of the 1960s and 70s.
Rediffusion was by far the larger company, but its output, if kept at all, was in black and white and on video, whereas much of ATV/ITC’s programming was on film in colour. It’s easy to see why that would be repeated to this day, whilst Rediffusion has slid into the background.
But ITV wouldn’t be ITV without Rediffusion. Their deep pockets kept the network afloat whilst it haemorrhaged money during the first two years. When their franchise ended, their parent company became half of the television behemoth that was Thames; the staff went off to found London Weekend Television – another good source of colour cult TV of the 70s.
To celebrate ITV70, my organisation, Transdiffusion, decided that Rediffusion, rather than ATV, would be our focus. We’ve got an extensive archive of Rediffusion internal publications and printed publicity, and we decided to pull it together into a 100+ page softback book.
The book takes the reader from the joyful first day on air through to the bitter last statement to shareholders by the chairman, via such cult telly as No Hiding Place, Double Your Money, Ready Steady Go! and Crane. There’s also lesser-known productions, from The Hidden Truth starring Zia Mohyeddin, Benny Hill featuring in a full-length production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and hard-hitting documentaries made for showing worldwide.
We’ve done print projects in previous years, financed in advance directly by ourselves. This one is a bit more ambitious, so we’ve gone with a crowdfunding model – pay now, get the book in March.
And in the nature of crowdfunding, there’s a ‘perk’ option. Whilst the book is £10, we’ve also made an ITV70 pack, containing the book plus three reprints of brochures given to studio audiences by ATV (in the 1950s), Rediffusion (in the 1960s) and Thames (in the 1970s). We’ve also reprinted the first edition of ATV’s in-house staff newspaper from 1961. All of this – including the book – is £20.
Transdiffusion is a not-for-profit, so these prices have been picked to be affordable while also allowing us to break even if we sell around 200 copies. We think it’s a good way of celebrating ITV’s 70th anniversary, by bringing a bit of the glory days of the network into your hands.
If you’re interested, the fundraiser runs until 31 January for delivery in March 2025 and is being run via the Indiegogo platform.
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