Associated-Rediffusion - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion, London, was the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

contractor for London

Greater London

Greater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...

and parts of the surrounding counties

Home Counties

The home counties is a term which refers to the counties of South East England and the East of England which border London, but do not include the capital city itself...

, on weekdays between 1954 and 29 July 1968. Transmissions started on 22 September 1955.

Formation

The company was originally a partnership between British Electric Traction

British Electric Traction

British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rentokil Initial.- Early history :The company was founded as...

(BET) and its subsidiary Broadcast Relay Services Ltd.

Rediffusion

Rediffusion was a business which distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, one of the first companies to win a terrestrial ITV franchise in the UK...

(trading as Rediffusion) and Associated Newspapers

Associated Newspapers

Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...

, owners of the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

. In the aftermath of the heavy financial losses made by the new ITV system in its initial years, Associated Newspapers sold the majority of their share to BET and Rediffusion, although the company did not drop the word "Associated" from its name until 1964. Associated Newspapers, later realising the potential of ITV, was a significant investor in the ITV franchise contractor for southern and south-east England, Southern Television

Southern Television

Southern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...

.

Captain Thomas Brownrigg

Thomas Brownrigg

Captain Thomas Marcus Brownrigg CBE DSO RN was a British Royal Navy officer before and during World War II who later became the first General Manager of Bracknell New Town Development Corporation before founding Europe's first commercial television station, Associated-Rediffusion.-Naval...

RN (Retired), the general manager of Associated-Rediffusion from 1955, had a very clear idea of what his new commercial television station was to be like - the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

Television Service, with advertisements. To this end, the station had a heraldic-style on-air clock, referred to as "Mitch" by staff (after chief station announcer Leslie Mitchell

Leslie Mitchell (broadcaster)

Leslie Mitchell , was famous in the United Kingdom as the first voice heard on BBC Television at its inception on 2 November 1936, and also for making the first announcement on Associated-Rediffusion, the first ITV company, on 22 September 1955...

, who had not only made the first announcement when A-R went on the air in 1955, but had done the same when the BBC TV service started in 1936).

This strategy was intended to allay fears that the new service would be aimed at the bottom of the market. Associated-Rediffusion sought to make ITV respectable. It did introduce popular game shows, but also provided quality programming across all genres gained large audiences both in its own London area and, as the ITV network grew, for its programmes shown across the country.

Rebranding and loss of franchise

In 1964 the directors had a change of heart, pensioning off Captain Brownrigg to the south coast and a directorship of the TV Times
TV Times
TVTimes is a television listings magazine published in the United Kingdom by IPC Media, a subsidiary of Time Warner. It is known for its access to television actors and their programmes. In 2006 it was refreshed for a more modern look, increasing its emphasis on big star interviews and soaps...

, and rebranding the station as "Rediffusion, London", with a very hip 1960s style, the face of Swinging London

Swinging London

Swinging London is a catch-all term applied to the fashion and cultural scene that flourished in London, in the 1960s.It was a youth-oriented phenomenon that emphasised the new and modern. It was a period of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. One catalyst was the recovery of the...

in the shiny prosperous new Britain. However, the new Rediffusion did not survive for long - in 1967 the Independent Television Authority

Independent Television Authority

The Independent Television Authority was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" , the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom...

announced that there was no place for Rediffusion in the redrawn franchise pattern. Following changes to the ITV network structure, that resulted in the abandonment of the Midlands and North weekend franchises held by ABC Television

Associated British Corporation

Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...

, ABC lost all their franchises and lost the rights to take over the Midlands, held by ATV

Associated TeleVision

Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...

, or the London Weekend franchise, awarded to the London Television Consortium

London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...

. To preserve the sizeable ABC, the ITA proposed a "shotgun marriage" between ABC and Rediffusion to form a new company: Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

. Rediffusions parent company, BET

British Electric Traction

, took a 49% stake in Thames, and were under-represented in the management of the new company. When Rediffusion objected to this, the ITA replied that either Thames took the new contract, or ABC took over. Rediffusion chose the former, and went off air on 29 July 1968. Employees based at Wembley went to work for London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television

whilst those at Television House were employed by Thames. Some managerial and presentation staff re-located to the new Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...

in Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

.

The vast majority of Rediffusion's programme library was either lost or destroyed following the creation of Thames. Surviving titles from the Rediffusion archive are held by the BFI National Archive

BFI National Archive

The BFI National Archive is a department of the British Film Institute, and one of the largest film archives in the world. It was originally set up as the National Film Library in 1935; its first curator was Ernest Lindgren. In 1955 its name became the National Film Archive, and in 1992, the...

at Berkhamsted

Berkhamsted

-Climate:Berkhamsted experiences an oceanic climate similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.-Castle:...

, Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

. Most titles are the intellectual property of Archbuild Limited, with the exception of some of Rediffusion's musical output such as Ready, Steady, Go!
Ready Steady Go!
Ready Steady Go! or simply RSG! was one of the UK's first rock/pop music TV programmes. It was conceived by Elkan Allan, head of Rediffusion TV. Allan was assisted by record producer/talent manager Vicki Wickham, who became the producer. It was broadcast from August 1963 until December 1966...

which is the property of Dave Clark

Dave Clark (musician)

David 'Dave' Clark is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He was the leader and drummer of the 1960s beat group The Dave Clark Five, the first big British Invasion band to follow The Beatles to America in 1964....

International. Some Rediffusion shows have been re-discovered in recent years. In the late 1980s, a series of five At Last the 1948 Show
At Last the 1948 Show
At Last the 1948 Show is a satirical TV show made by David Frost's company, Paradine Productions , in association with Rediffusion London...

compilations was found in the archives of Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

broadcaster, SVT

Sveriges Television

Sveriges Television AB , Sweden's Television, is a national television broadcaster based in Sweden, funded by a compulsory fee to be paid by all television owners...

Revival

In the 1990s, the name "Associated-Rediffusion Television" and the adastral trademark were acquired by the British journalist Victor Lewis-Smith

Victor Lewis-Smith

Victor Lewis-Smith is a British satirist, producer, critic and prankster. He is known for his sarcasm and biting criticism.-Radio and recordings:...

, and are now used by his own production company. Productions have included:

TV Offal
TV Offal
TV Offal was a British television comedy sketch/archive series that ran on Channel 4, from October 1997 to June 1998. It was written and narrated by comedian and writer Victor Lewis-Smith, who shared writing duties with Paul Sparks...

, a satirical series of dire TV archive clips presented by Victor Lewis-Smith
Victor Lewis-Smith
Victor Lewis-Smith is a British satirist, producer, critic and prankster. He is known for his sarcasm and biting criticism.-Radio and recordings:...
Ads Infinitum, a retrospective of vintage television advertising presented by Victor Lewis-Smith
Victor Lewis-Smith
Victor Lewis-Smith is a British satirist, producer, critic and prankster. He is known for his sarcasm and biting criticism.-Radio and recordings:...

over two series
An Omnibus documentary covering Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...

's love for music and his struggle with progressive supranuclear palsy
Progressive supranuclear palsy
Progressive supranuclear palsy is a degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific areas of the brain....

, titled Dudley Moore: After The Laughter. It turned out to be Moore's final interview for television and won a BAFTA Television Award in 2001.
A one-off revival of Dee Time
Simon Dee
Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd , better known by his stage name Simon Dee, was a British television interviewer and radio disc jockey who hosted a twice-weekly BBC TV chat show, Dee Time in the late 1960s...
A series of documentaries presented by comedian Keith Allen
21st Century Bach, a long-running series of programmes no more than ten minutes in length, each featuring short pieces of organ music by J.S. Bach and played by John Scott Whiteley
Alchemists Of Sound, a documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...

Studios

The company's administrative headquarters and transmission facilities were at Television House

Television House

Television House, on Kingsway in London was, from 1955, the London headquarters of Associated-Rediffusion, Independent Television News , TV Times magazine, the Independent Television Companies Association and, at first, Associated TeleVision...

in Kingsway

Kingsway (London)

Kingsway is a major road in central London in the United Kingdom, designated as part of the A4200. It runs from High Holborn, at its north end in the London Borough of Camden, and meets Aldwych in the south in the City of Westminster at Bush House. It was built in the 1900s...

, London. Most programmes were produced at Wembley Studios in north-west London. However, a small basement studio at Television House, Studio 9, was occasionally used for current affairs programmes and was home to Ready, Steady, Go!
Ready Steady Go!
Ready Steady Go! or simply RSG! was one of the UK's first rock/pop music TV programmes. It was conceived by Elkan Allan, head of Rediffusion TV. Allan was assisted by record producer/talent manager Vicki Wickham, who became the producer. It was broadcast from August 1963 until December 1966...

during its first few years.

Television House had been known as Adastral House when it was the headquarters of the Air Ministry. This gave its name to A-R's logo, the 16-point Adastral Star, which appeared not only at the start and end of each commercial break but also between each advertisement. (The motto of the Royal Air Force is "per ardua, ad astra" - "through adversity to the stars".) The stations Archives were also kept at these properties, with the original programme library situated on the roof of Television House

Television House

with some storage in the film vaults at Wembley Studios.

Following Rediffusions merger to form Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

, the Wembley studios were sold off to the newly formed London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television

by order of the ITA, who used them until 1970. Since then, the studios have been independently run, and are now known as Fountain Studios. Television House

Television House

was used as Thames' headquarters until their Euston Road studios were built in 1970, and was since sold off.

Presentation

When Rediffusion originally launched, as Associated Rediffusion, presentation consisted of a simple animated ident, featuring the station name, and a spinning star called the Adastral. This first ident was accomapnied by a five note electronic fanfare, accheived by tapping out the morse code for 'A-R'. To accompany the ident, a timepeice was created based on a heraldic coat of arms and nicknamed 'Mitch' after Head of Presentation Leslie Mitchell.

In 1964, Associated Rediffusion rebranded itself as Rediffusion London, using a black and grey ident featuring the same as previous, but with the new name now in a stripe and in a serif font. A new and simpler clock was designed featuring a 24 hour display at the bottom of the face and an adastral at the centre. The original timepeice 'Mitch' was given to the Science Museum

Science museum

A science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...

, where it became the first ITV exhibit, and now resides in the National Media Museum, Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

.

Rediffusion used a number of continuity announcers throughout its thirteen years on air, with Redvers Kyle

Redvers Kyle

Redvers Kyle is a retired television announcer and presenter who worked on ITV in the United Kingdom.-Biography:Kyle was born in South Africa and was named after General Sir Redvers Buller, the British military commander in the early stages of the Anglo-Boer War...

and Muriel Young

Muriel Young

Muriel Young was a British television continuity announcer, presenter and producer.-Early life:...

being the most recognised.

Programmes

Programmes produced by Associated-Rediffusion and Rediffusion, London included:

Double Your Money
Double Your Money
Double Your Money was a British quiz show hosted by Hughie Green. Originally broadcast on Radio Luxembourg, it transferred to ITV in 1955, a few days after the commercial channel began broadcasting. It was produced by Associated-Rediffusion until 1964 and then by Rediffusion London, and it finished...
Take Your Pick
Take Your Pick
Take Your Pick was a UK game show originally broadcast by Radio Luxembourg in the early 1950s. The show transferred to television in 1955 with the launch of ITV, where it continued until 1968...
Ready, Steady, Go!
Ready Steady Go!
Ready Steady Go! or simply RSG! was one of the UK's first rock/pop music TV programmes. It was conceived by Elkan Allan, head of Rediffusion TV. Allan was assisted by record producer/talent manager Vicki Wickham, who became the producer. It was broadcast from August 1963 until December 1966...
The Rat Catchers
The Rat Catchers
The Rat Catchers is a 1960s British television series about a top secret British Intelligence Unit who receive orders from the Prime Minister and without questions battles enemy spies, saboteurs, and other criminals in order to protect the security of Great Britain and the Western Alliance...
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Do Not Adjust Your Set was a children's television series produced originally by Rediffusion, London, then by the fledgling Thames Television for British commercial television channel ITV from 26 December 1967 to 14 May 1969....
This Week
This Week (ITV TV series)
This Week was a weekly current affairs series first produced for ITV in January 1956 by Associated-Rediffusion , running until 1978, when it was replaced by TV Eye...
Crane
Crane (TV series)
Crane is a British black and white adventure series that aired on ITV from 1963 to 1965. It was shown on Monday nights at 8 PM.-Plot:The series was based around Richard Crane who was a successful city businessman who was tired of the big city rat race...
Riviera Police
No Hiding Place
No Hiding Place
No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967....
Top Secret
Five O'Clock Club
At Last the 1948 Show
At Last the 1948 Show
At Last the 1948 Show is a satirical TV show made by David Frost's company, Paradine Productions , in association with Rediffusion London...

.

Rediffusion Cable

Redifusion also offered a low-bandwidth cable TV and radio distribution system. This was based on connecting homes with multiple twisted-pair cables. Each twisted-pair carried a single TV or radio channel. Selection of TV or radio station was by means of a rotary switch, usually mounted on a wall or window frame close to the point of entry of the cable into the home. From this a two-wire cable led to the TV or radio. The TVs used on this system were stripped-down TV sets with no tuner or RF front-end and the radios were modified speakers with no RF section. Rediffusion abandoned this system of TV and radio distribution some time in the 1970s or early 1980s.

Overseas Rediffusion

BET and Rediffusion Limited had strong links with the former British colonies. These included holding the concessions for wired and over-the-air radio and television stations. A subsidiary company, Overseas Rediffusion, operated these stations and also sold advertising time and programming for them. Stations included the radio station Rediffusion Barbados, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the wired television service Rediffusion Television

Rediffusion Television

Rediffusion Television was the first television station in Hong Kong, established on May 29, 1957, making it both the first British colony and the first predominantly Chinese city to have television...

in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, the latter now known as Asia Television.

Rediffusion Rentals

There were also electrical rentals chain and TV, radio, VCR and HiFi servicing chains related to Associated-Rediffusion called Rediffusion that was once common on high streets until it was bought by Granada Rentals

Granada Ltd.

Granada plc is a former British conglomerate which was best known as the former parent of the Manchester-based Granada Television....

in 1984 and which had featured the Adastral Star on shop signs and marketing.

External links

Animated Associated-Rediffusion Presents logo, 1956, from 625.uk.com (requires Macromedia Flash 6 or later).
Animated Rediffusion Black logo, 1964, from 625.uk.com.
Associated-Rediffusion at TV Ark
Fountain Studios, formerly known as Wembley Studios
Rediffusion Singapore (official site)
Television House from Telemusications (unofficial history site)
The history of Rediffusion by Gerald K Clode

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Formation

Rebranding and loss of franchise

Revival

Studios

Presentation

Programmes

Rediffusion Cable

Overseas Rediffusion

Rediffusion Rentals

See also

External links