SIR PHILIP WARTER, chairman of ABPC [Associated British Picture Corporation], announced last week plans and policy for the corporation’s commercial television subsidiary company which will operate as programme contractors for week-end programmes from the Midlands and North.

The capital is increased to £500,000 [£10.5m today, allowing for inflation – Ed] and the ITA has been told that ABPC is prepared to put in further loan capital of the same amount from its own resources. Allowance has been made for up to 10 per cent. of the first half-million to be put up by leading provincial newspapers.

“We do not believe that TV is in any way going to replace the kinema,” said Sir Philip. “We are entering the television field because we believe that 28 years of catering for the public fit us for fulfilling the function of programme contractors in the new medium.”

He added that the corporation regarded the television venture as a regional and not a London operation. It was not concerned, he said, with making a profit in the first year, but was concerned that the prestige won as the result of 28 years of presenting entertainment to the public should be continued in its television programmes.

“The whole of our kinema operation is based on family business, and TV is essentially a form of family entertainment,” he said.

‘No Feature Film’

Sir Philip said he would encourage programmes of the “Current Release” type run by the BBC. There was not, however, any thought of televising feature pictures. The arrangements would not affect those the corporation has with CEA [Cinema Exhibitors’ Association].

When dealing with films programmes as contractors, said Sir Philip, ABPC films would not be favoured. Playing time would be open to all the film industry.

As reported in Kine, last week, Mr. Howard Thomas was named as managing director of the new television company. His colleagues on the board are the same directors as those of ABPC.

Mr. Thomas said operations would begin from Pathé House, and the London Pathé studios would be used for programmes which would have to originate in London.

Although no staff had yet been signed up, the plan would be to draw the best available men from journalism, advertising and other professions – but there would be no poaching from the BBC.

The company’s first programmes will be early next year from the Lichfield transmitter. The Manchester station is expected to open in summer, and Yorkshire at the end of the year.

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The answer was yes. To get an overview of his new, unexpected empire, Howard Thomas made a trip to Pathé’s headquarters in Soho. There he found piles of tins of film in no order; there was no preservation or filing in operation; the film was decaying in the rusting tins and nobody cared.

His first order to his new workforce was to reverse this. The film, all millions of miles of it, was to be index and preserved. Rushes, too, would be kept from now on. There would be no throwing things away: someday, film going back to the wars in South Africa it would be of use to ABPC, and, if not, then at least to historians.

This is why we now have the huge and wonderful resource that is the British Pathé archives. In that resource are two tins of rushes from the opening of ABC Weekend TV in Didsbury in Manchester on 5 May 1956.

They’re a mix of rehearsals and live output; they’re mostly silent, but what was captured in sound is fascinating.

Here’s what you’re watching.

• 0:01 Guests arriving at the Didsbury studios
• 0:17 The outside of the converted Capitol cinema with its new, illuminated ABC Television sign
• 0:32 ABC Television camera inside, filming the stage from the gods
• 0:45 Rehearsals for the ensemble finale of the opening variety show
• 0:58 The sophisticated lighting control grid
• 1:15 Jerry Desmonde and Thora Hird rehearsing
• 1:20 Continuity announcer?
• 1:25 The lighting rig in operation
• 1:34 Betty Driver and Jerry Desmonde feeding a dog chocolate. Please don’t do this
• 1:48 Floor manager or director in action
• 1:58 Guests arriving at the Didsbury studios
• 2:02 Howard Thomas of ABC and Sir Philip Warter of parent ABPC arrive
• 2:13 More shots of the outside of the studios and more guests arriving
• 2:27 The Lord Mayors of Lancashire towns ABC North serves
• 2:37 More shots of the outside of the studios and more guests arriving
• 2:47 Rehearsals continue in Studio 1
• 3:39 Betty Driver singing
• 3:45 More rehearsals
• 4:08 Jerry Desmonde and Thora Hird rehearse their skit
• 4:23 An outside broadcasting van
• 4:42 Pretending to repair a camera for the cameras
• 4:57 Camera rehearsals while the scenery is constructed
• 5:05 Sound boom operator and an electrician playing with his inky-dink
• 5:24 Ready Camera 1
• 5:37 Scenery assembled, rehearsals starting
• 5:45 The actual event – dancers amongst the diners in the studio
• 6:15 Jerry Desmonde comperes
• 6:22 SOUND! Derived from the television output itself
• 8:12 The first ABC ident chimes! And the start of some title music
• 8:18 Dancing for the guests in the studio. ABC’s actual output is likely to have moved on by now

• 0:01 Camera rehearsals; wildtrack of sound
• 0:42 Jerry Desmonde and Thora Hird rehearsing
• 1:14 ABC’s “casual” symbol
• 1:21 Camera rehearsals
• 1:34 Wildtrack of sound; no vision
• 1:53 Choreography rehearsals
• 2:46 Launch programme underway, filmed from off to one side
• 3:44 Jerry Desmonde pauses. Commercial break?
• 3:48 Back to the show
• 4:20 Sound boom operator and cameraman
• 4:28 Conducting the music
• 4:35 Live output: the town cryer makes an announcement; meanwhile, “station host” Edward Ward can be heard in the background – his voice is going out live on the ABC Network
• 5:27 The film camera keeps running in the studio as Edward Ward sends the televiewers over to an OB in Liverpool. The hand-painted background ABC logo is… wrong
• 5:36 OB welcome is over, back to the studio and APBC starlet Susan Stephen
• 5:45 The big announcement from Edward Ward
• 6:09 Cue Susan Stephen!
• 6:58 The opening variety show starts with an exciting ABC-based jingle
• 8:26 The show continues
• 9:37 The show ends

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The Associated Broadcasting Development Company became Associated TeleVision for London weekends and Midland weekdays. Granada Theatres developed Granada Television Network for Northern weekdays. Kemsley Newspapers and Winnick Entertainment formed Kemsley-Winnick for Northern and Midland weekends.

Then a problem appeared. Maurice Winnick admitted to the ITA that he did not have the finance available to run two ITV stations. The finance had never existed, but he had hoped it would arrive. It didn’t, and the potential losses frightened Lord Kemsley’s newspaper group (later to be bought out using ITV profits by Lord Thompson of STV) away.

Winnick insisted the he could, eventually, pull together the people and talent required for a new television channel. He was wrong, and, in any case, Kenneth Clark and the ITA staff had lost faith in his consortium. But what now?

Two days in the Midlands and the same two days in the North was not a plum contract. The ITA had to fill the weekends – ITV without weekends was ridiculous, while ITV with seven-day companies in major regions would hand the network to Granada – or worse, to ATV with a national contract (Monday to Friday in the Midlands, weekends in every major region) – but who would want such a minor role?

The Associated British Picture Corporation, with their chain of ABC cinemas, had campaigned long and hard against advertising-supported television. Television took viewers away from the cinema, and advertising-supported television would take even more revenue from the company. Even when Granada Theatres decided to use the old adage ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, ABPC held out.

Then Kemsley-Winnick fell at the first hurdle. Sir Kenneth was soon on the ‘phone. Would ABPC consider taking a contract? Would you help me out of a spot? What if the contract offered large returns for little risk – two days a week in two regions? What if I promised to pay you some of the £750,000 promised by the government should ITV fail?

ABPC had no choice – a business opportunity avoided by gut feeling was one thing. A business opportunity avoided despite there being a guarantee of breaking even at the very least was another.

ABPC accepted the contracts for Midlands (Saturdays and Sundays) and Northern England (Saturdays and Sundays). ABC Television, as the new venture was to be called, had five months to prepare for broadcasting to begin in the Midlands.

This is the story of that company. The story of the only organisation to never apply for an ITV franchise, yet get one. The story of a company that produced the best drama, the most popular programmes, and the classic presentation that gave rise to Transdiffusion. ABC produced a generation of producers, presenters, directors, designers and technicians with ‘quality’ written through them.

ABC, by accident and design, created and nurtured ITV. ABC was the trendsetter whose influence we still see, hear and feel today. ABC made television that still resonates now.

ABC Your Weekend TV.

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By this date, it was becoming clear that commercial television was a disaster. Indeed, Associated Newspapers, part of Associated-Rediffusion in London, were already making increasingly panicked moves to pull out of the company. ATV in the midlands and London were feeling the pinch and began to look for ways to extend their financing – until now supplied mainly by television and camera manufacturer Pye.

ABC’s midland operation had begun on 19 February that year and the extension into the north had been more expensive than the parent company, Associated-British Picture Corporation, had hoped.

Very soon, retrenchment became the watchword of the network. Morning programming died away. A-R backed away slightly from the ‘BBC with adverts’ ethos, moving highbrow, low audience programmes like those from the Hallé Orchestra away from peaktime and into the (comparatively) late night.

ABC was already producing a mixture of popular drama and entertainment programmes from its three sites, and the lower overheads inherent in their contract insulated them from the spiral downward. But ABPC rarely tolerated loss-making subsidiaries – especially one created for not much more than a way of promoting ABC Cinemas and ABPC films.

“Invisible earnings” was a phrase not much known outside of non-Keynesian economists and supply-side politicians at the time. Instead, 1950s capitalists saw things in terms of black and white – profit-making or non-profit-making.

Programmes meant profit, being sold to other stations in the UK and beyond, attracting advertising to the two operations and getting bums on seats, televisions bought and Band-III aerials installed.

Presentation, the forgotten linking material between one programme and another, or between a pause in programming and a resumption of the entertainment, was obviously non-profit-making.

So this is where the axe fell. More continuity came from Teddington and less from the regions. The presentation was perfunctory, plain, and likely to drop in a mention of the cinemas too for good measure.

As ITV’s fortunes began to recover, and with boom times possible round the corner, ABC’s management still thought little of presentation. Its programmes were popular, the station began to break even, then moved into profit. Who cared?

The regulator cared. The Independent Television Authority took its duty of providing quality television very seriously. An otherwise complementary annual report expressed dissatisfaction with ABC’s presentation style and content.

ABC management were horrified. Whilst the ITA had been critical about aspects of ATV, A-R and Granada, ABC had expected a good report – it was the golden boy of the regulator and had been since its inception.

The criticism was taken as a body-blow, but ABC did not react in the style we have become accustomed to in latter days. Instead, Howard Thomas, their legendary Managing Director, seemed to vow that this criticism would never be heard again. He hired a skilled presentation manager, relaunched the on-screen identity of the company (something never heard of before) and began to pump money into presentation.

In doing so, he changed the ethos at ABC forever. Suddenly, the identity of the station, its mark on its viewers minds, was to become of paramount importance. In doing so, he also solved a problem that the company was not necessarily even aware of – that of being noticed in amongst the 5-day players of A-R and Granada and the all-embracing 7-day might of ATV.

Suddenly, local viewers knew the difference between ABC and ATV in the midlands, and between ABC and Granada in the north. The advertising sales force had a recognisable brand from which to launch their hard sell. The ABC ident and chimes became synonymous nationwide with the quality programming, and the programming with the quality ident.

As the 1950s drew to a close and the exciting world of the sixties began to unfold, ABC entered its golden age.

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