[Humphrey Hacker]

Reading Transdiffusion's article about "Three After Six" it struck me that the provision of local news in London before Thames came was "odd" to say the least. Did ATV London provide a news service?

rediffusion.london 

Three After Six Archives » THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion
Skip to content A MEMBER OF THE TRANSDIFFUSION BROADCASTING SYSTEM Facebook YouT…
  Source: rediffusion.london

[lookoutwales]

Transdiffusion's always a good source to start with.

AFAIK, never seen any evidence that ATV London mounted a local news operation and presumably the ITA at the time didn't feel weekend coverage was an obligation as such (despite what companies such as ABC and Southern had managed to do)

There is this table, taken ad verbatim from the 1963 ITV yearbook, which maps out what each region was - or wasn't - doing at the time (the concept of a nightly regional magazine was very much still in its infancy)

itv1963.transdiffusion.uk 

News and News Magazines Archives - ITV 1963 | Transdiffusion presentation
Skip to content ITV 1963 | Transdiffusion presentation The Independent Televisio…
  Source: itv1963.transdiffusion.uk

Of course, there would have been at least some local elements to ATV's output in London - Police 5 got its start, for example. And remarkably, there's a surviving clip of one early edition in the Dutch public broadcasting archive.

www.youtube.com 

This video can only be viewed on YouTube.

To the same degree, Rediffusion's local programming record was poor but not necessarily non-existent.

They did have bespoke weather forecasts with (ex-Squadron Leader) Laurie West, but as Transdiffusion argue, the company appeared to think ITN more than adequately cover London in its bulletins.

'Three After Six' aside, there was also a weekly magazine programme for a while called Londoners, hosted by Ludovic Kennedy.

transdiffusion.org 

What makes LONDONERS tick? - News - Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Rediffusion's last-minute attempt to get up close and personal with its region
  Source: transdiffusion.org

Of course, even after Thames took over, they didn't really have a local newsroom operation in the traditional sense until the demise of 'Today' - and I suspect, the IBA's overtures leading up to the 1980 franchise round - forced their hand.

John Freeman, then chairman of LWT, also spoke out against the IBA's calls to boost local news at weekends but that's another story entirely.

[Humphrey Hacker]

Thanks for the links there lookoutwales. It seem that as far as both the BBC and ITV were concerned London was full of stories that were of national interest whereas anything going on in Clapham or Tooting Bec was invisible. Granted London as a "broadcasting entity" is unique in UK coverage but events of local importance do happen as well.

[lookoutwales]

Yes - probably fair to say the broadcasters’ views of the time appeared to be that London was above the regionalism that was developing elsewhere.

So far as the Beeb were concerned, they appeared to make a little more effort than Rediffusion with ‘Town and Around’ during the 60s, though there isn’t a great deal of information around about it.

Asides also going out in the South East, it was usually fronted by a couple of the network newsreaders (think the network newsroom at Alexandra Palace produced it?)

Think 1962 was the first year the Beeb extended its regions / nations’ bulletins into full-scale programmes?

What happened with BBC regional coverage in London post-69 is better covered elsewhere, of course.

[London Lite]

Considering London is basically a load of interconnecting towns that have their own identity, it was always going to be hard to get a regional news bulletin that works for everyone. Ilford or Enfield to me may as well be Birmingham or Coventry when it comes to connecting with the rest of the capital. And that's before you take in the rest of the region that takes in parts of the home counties that rarely gets a look in, so I can understand why ATV and Rediffusion went for generic formats to meet the regional criteria.

Thames News and London Tonight up until the ITN takeover managed to get that right with a mix of news that everyone in the capital could relate to, such as crime and public transport stories.

[Robert Williams]

Yes - probably fair to say the broadcasters’ views of the time appeared to be that London was above the regionalism that was developing elsewhere.

So far as the Beeb were concerned, they appeared to make a little more effort than Rediffusion with ‘Town and Around’ during the 60s, though there isn’t a great deal of information around about it.

Asides also going out in the South East, it was usually fronted by a couple of the network newsreaders (think the network newsroom at Alexandra Palace produced it?)

Think 1962 was the first year the Beeb extended its regions / nations’ bulletins into full-scale programmes?

What happened with BBC regional coverage in London post-69 is better covered elsewhere, of course.

Yes, there isn't much info on Town and Around, although by July 1968 it appears to no longer have been considered an essential part of the daily schedule when it got reduced to a twice-weekly, then weekly, programme, although from the start of 1969 it was complemented by another weekly news magazine, London This Week.

Apologies for mentioning my own website, but I have a page where I have set out what I have been able to glean about the various BBC regional news programmes that have served London and the South East over the years: desandmicktv.wordpress.com 

BBC South East News: Part 1 – Des and Mick – TV & Radio
A history of news programmes in London and the South East
  Source: desandmicktv.wordpress.com

[Humphrey Hacker]

Yes, there isn't much info on Town and Around, although by July 1968 it appears to no longer have been considered an essential part of the daily schedule when it got reduced to a twice-weekly, then weekly, programme, although from the start of 1969 it was complemented by another weekly news magazine, London This Week.

Apologies for mentioning my own website, but I have a page where I have set out what I have been able to glean about the various BBC regional news programmes that have served London and the South East over the years: desandmicktv.wordpress.com 

I'm honoured that you've commented. London and the SE seem to inhabit in televisual terms a "universe" of its own where regionalism simply doesn't exist. OK its impossible to focus on everything that goes on in the capital (as it elsewhere) but surely Londoners of the 60's and 70's deserved better?

[lookoutwales]

OK its impossible to focus on everything that goes on in the capital (as it elsewhere) but surely Londoners of the 60's and 70's deserved better?

I suppose if there was one area where there was considerable improvement post-68, both Thames and (eventually) LWT did commit themselves to local current affairs - plenty of examples online of Thames Report / Reporting London and The London Programme, for instance.

A bit OT but there’s a very good edition of the latter on YT which examines the state of local radio in London in 1976.

By which point, BBC Radio London was already running a heavily local service, while LBC and Capital had both cut back heavily to keep afloat - and the latter had already closed its own in-house local newsroom in favour of taking IRN from Gough Square.

BTW, no need to apologise, Robert - that was exactly the site I was thinking of too!

[Robert Williams]

I'm honoured that you've commented. London and the SE seem to inhabit in televisual terms a "universe" of its own where regionalism simply doesn't exist. OK its impossible to focus on everything that goes on in the capital (as it elsewhere) but surely Londoners of the 60's and 70's deserved better?

I think, as you said in an earlier post, it was seemingly considered that if it happened in London then it was important enough to be featured in the national news, and more parochial stories from London, and indeed cross the wider South East, might not get much of a look in - particularly at the end of the 60s when Town and Around wasn't even on every weekday (it's curious that its demotion to twice-weekly occurred in July 1968, around the same time as the ITV franchise changes - coincidence or not?)

The problem is with such a lack of footage from those days, it's hard to know how well the South East was really served by the BBC when it came to regional news coverage.  It's a little outside the timeframe of the thread title, but possibly the earliest footage that can be found online is a clip of the London segment of Nationwide from 1970.  Although the opening menu does indicate proper 'hard' news stories are to come, the top item on the programme is... a feature and interview with Led Zeppelin.

www.youtube.com 

[Humphrey Hacker]

I think, as you said in an earlier post, it was seemingly considered that if it happened in London then it was important enough to be featured in the national news, and more parochial stories from London, and indeed cross the wider South East, might not get much of a look in - particularly at the end of the 60s when Town and Around wasn't even on every weekday (it's curious that its demotion to twice-weekly occurred in July 1968, around the same time as the ITV franchise changes - coincidence or not?)

The problem is with such a lack of footage from those days, it's hard to know how well the South East was really served by the BBC when it came to regional news coverage.  It's a little outside the timeframe of the thread title, but possibly the earliest footage that can be found online is a clip of the London segment of Nationwide from 1970.  Although the opening menu does indicate proper 'hard' news stories are to come, the top item on the programme is... a feature and interview with Led Zeppelin.

www.youtube.com 

Its a tantalising glimpse into what may have been there> I've got to say I'm surprised that the idea of starting a bulletin with an interview is that old.