What a Hullabaloo! Launching BBC Television in 1936 and BBC2 in 19641

Jamie Medhurst

Abstract:

The aim of this article is to reflect on the opening of the BBC television service in 1936 and the

opening of the BBC2 service in 1964. I explore the background of the two services and focus on

the opening ceremonies before drawing together points of comparison or contrast at the end. The

article draws on original archive material from the BBC Written Archives in Caversham and the

British Postal Museum and Archive in London

Keywords: BBC; John Logie Baird; John Reith; BBC2; Pilkington Committee; pre-war

television; television policy.

1

Introduction

On 2 November 1936, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched a television service

from the newly-opened studios in Alexandra Palace in north London. This was the world’s first

regular public service and followed two periods of earlier ‘experimental’ services, the first in

1929-32 (in conjunction with Baird Television) and the second in 1932-5 which was provided by

the BBC using Baird’s mechanical television system, both of which operated on low-definition

30-line television. The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 resulted in the

service being closed down until 7 June 1946, just in time to televise the Victory Parade held in

London the following day. The BBC’s monopoly on television was effectively broken with the

passing of the 1954 Television Act which led to the advertising-funded Independent Television

(ITV) broadcasting for the first time via Associated-Rediffusion, the London-based ITV

contractor, on 22 September 1955. By 1962 the ITV network of regional franchises was

complete and, in the same year, the committee appointed by the government to consider the

future of broadcasting in the UK, the Pilkington Committee (chaired by Sir Harry Pilkington),

published its long-awaited report. It recommended that, among other things, that the third

television channel, which technical developments had made possible, should go to the BBC. The

decision was made after considerable deliberation and after the BBC had made a strong case, as

discussed in this article. It was also made on the basis that the committee was critical of the

quality and range of ITV programming and of the network’s apparent disregard for its public

service remit. In April 1964, therefore, 28 years after opening its first television service, the

Corporation launched a second channel.

The aim of this article is to consider the opening of the BBC television service in 1936

and the opening of the BBC2 service in 1964. I will explore the background of the two services

2

and will focus on the opening ceremonies before drawing together points of comparison or

contrast at the end. The article draws on original archive material from the BBC Written

Archives in Caversham and the British Postal Museum and Archive in London.

Background to the launch of BBC Television

The starting point for a history of television is hard to locate given that the component parts of

the television system were discovered or invented over time. Nevertheless, John Logie Baird,

whilst not the ‘inventor’ of television, was certainly one of the first to lay the foundations of the

public television service which started in 1936. Baird had been experimenting with the notion of

‘seeing at a distance’ or ‘seeing by wireless’ for some time. In 1923, he placed an advertisement

in The Times which sought support for his ideas. After demonstrating his invention in Selfridges

store in Oxford Street in London in April 1925 and successfully transmitting greyscale pictures

of a ventriloquist’s dummy head (‘Stookie Bill’) in October 1925, he demonstrated his television

system to members of the Royal Institution at his laboratory in Frith Street in London’s Soho

district on 26 January 1926 (Briggs 1995a: 486-7). From that point onwards, having gained a

measure of support for his ideas, he proceeded to put pressure on the General Post Office, the

government department with responsibility for communications at that time, for a licence to

broadcast. There was a good deal of reluctance on the part of the Post Office to accede to the

request, not least because of the views of the BBC, with whom the Post Office felt obliged to

consult and who regarded television with more than a hint of disdain.

The BBC’s reluctance to engage with Baird’s company or to entertain any form of

support for the new invention was based on a number of factors. Firstly, the Corporation’s sound

broadcasting operation had been in existence only since 1922 and any involvement in a new

3

form of broadcasting would inevitably divert resources – human and financial – from what was

seen as the main concern of the BBC. Secondly, as the BBC was a public service broadcaster, the

commercial aims of the Baird company, which effectively needed to sell television receivers,

were anathema. Finally, the quality of the picture – 30 lines with five frames per second –

resulted in a less-than-positive viewing experience in the view of the BBC’s engineers. The

BBC’s negative attitude, however valid, led to various members of the public becoming

increasingly hostile to and accusatory of the Corporation. One such person was Cyril Andrew

Craggy, from York. In a letter to the Corporation on 26 January 1929, he stated that he had read

in the press of the BBC’s attitude towards television and that the impression he had formed was

that the Corporation viewed the Baird company as the new baby that ‘has put the BBC’s nose out

of joint as it were.’ The BBC was accused of being opposed to television broadcasting, and yet,

Craggy argued, television had filled the public with ‘wonder and amaze’. Arguing that the

attitude of the BBC towards Baird was akin to that of a ‘sulky child’, the letter ends: ‘I think the

B.B.C … should come to attention and march along with Television from the start as

reciprocatory [sic] comrades, for the public good’. A response was sent the following day from

Gladstone Murray, the BBC’s Director of Publicity:

The B.B.C. is fully alive to the importance of encouraging and adopting

inventions calculated to improve and widen the broadcasting service. You will

readily understand, however, that the Corporation owes it to its listeners to be

particularly careful to avoid arousing expectations which are likely to be

unfulfilled. New ideas and inventions are constantly under review; as and when

they reach a stage capable of general application, without dislocating the existing

service, they are adopted. This is the rule which is applied to systems of

4

television.2

Nevertheless, the Post Office eventually capitulated to the pressure, primarily as it

became apparent that the Baird publicity machine was hinting that opposition by the BBC was

akin to opposition to a British invention and to British industrial potential. Following pressure

from the Post Office, the BBC agreed to co-operate with Baird, and on 30 September 1929 the

experimental television service was launched, operated by Baird Television from the company’s

Long Acre studios in London and transmitted via the 2LO transmitter (on the roof of Selfridges)

The service lasted until August 1932 when the BBC effectively took over the service and ran it

from Studio BB in the basement of Broadcasting House in Central London before relocating to

nearby 16 Portland Place in February 1934. This second phase of television between 1932 and

the ending of 30-line (twelve-and-a-half pictures per second) television in September 1935 saw

the BBC develop its production techniques under the skilful eye of television producer Eustace

Robb. It also marked the arrival of a rival television system to Baird’s mechanical system – the

Marconi-EMI electronic system.

In the meantime, the government had appointed a Television Committee under the

chairmanship of the former Postmaster-General William Mitchell-Thomson, now Lord Selsdon,

to consider the overall future development of television. Having taken evidence from a wide

range of sources, including the BBC, it concluded in a White Paper in January 1935 that the

development of television should be entrusted to the BBC and recommended that a regular high-

definition (that is, 240-lines or above) service be started as soon as possible.

On 1 April 1935, the Television Advisory Committee, which had been established to

enact the recommendations of the Selsdon Committee, recommended that a site in Alexandra

Palace near Wood Green in north London should house the new television service. The report

5

noted that the Hampstead Heath area would have been better from a television point of view but

that there would have been opposition from the neighbourhood to the erection of a large mast.

Highgate, Sydenham and Shooters Hill sites were also considered, but the height of Alexandra

Palace (330 feet above sea level) meant that the signal emitted from the aerial could reach a

larger area. The site was also in close proximity to the BBC’s Maida Vale studios, acquired in

the early 1930s for music (particularly orchestral) purposes. The Palace had first opened in 1873

as a grand entertainment and exhibition venue but by the early 1930s its glory days had passed,

and when Desmond Campbell, one of the BBC’s lead engineers, arrived to assess the building in

1935 he found it to be in ‘the most dreadful mess’ (Norman 1984: 118). Work started on building

studios, dressing rooms, offices and a restaurant, and between 26 August and 5 September 1936

the BBC broadcast live programmes from Alexandra Palace on both Baird and Marconi-EMI

systems to the Radio Exhibition in Olympia, in order to boost interest in the service (and

encourage the sale of television receivers). Following the Radiolympia broadcasts, trial

transmissions of the television service took place from 12.00 noon-1.00pm and from 3.00pm-

4.00pm from 1 October onwards. Films were shown exclusively in the first slot whilst the second

one was a ‘rehearsal’ space in time for the service ‘proper’.

The opening ceremony

The BBC’s Television Service was launched on 2 November 1936, headed by the Director of

Television, Gerald Cock. The Television Advisory Committee had been discussing who should

perform the opening ceremony and the possibility of inviting the King (George VI) was mooted

although the idea seems to have been dropped subsequently. Internally, the BBC’s senior

management had differing views on who should be invited to open the service as this internal

6

memorandum sent on 5 December 1935 to the Deputy Director-General, Charles Carpendale,

demonstrates:

D.Tel. [Director of Television] suggested obtaining Princess Elizabeth to open the

official Service. C.(E) [Controller (Engineering)], C.(A) [Controller

(Administration)], and C.(P) [Controller (Programmes)] joined in regarding the

proposal with horror: as one person put it, it was exactly the sort of thing that you

would expect Baird’s to try to do if they were running Television. The feeling was

that it was to some extent a prostitution of the Royal Family. D.Tel. urged the

proposal on the grounds of sentimental appeal (a sob in the throat of every woman

looker): from the point of view of the others, this statement was a very effective

crystallisation of their objections. They felt that the Royal Family should not be

dragged into it and that in any case, as things are constituted, the proposal bore an

atmosphere of stunt as was undignified. C.(PR) [Controller (Public Relations)]’s

feelings on the subject were not as strong as those of the other three Controllers.3

As a result of the Selsdon Committee’s decision to require the BBC to operate both the

Baird and Marconi-EMI systems for a trial period, the ceremony was broadcast twice; first from

the Baird studio (Studio B) and then, following a short sound-only musical interlude, from the

adjacent Marconi-EMI studio (Studio A).4 At 3.00pm, Leslie Mitchell, sitting in the small Baird

Spotlight Studio, announced the speakers, the guest entertainment and the fact that viewers

would need to switch their sets from the Baird system to the Marconi-EMI one during the

interlude.5

As one might expect on an historic occasion such as this, a number of speeches were

7

televised, the first by the Chairman of the BBC, R. C. Norman. In a reference to Baird and

others, Norman paid tribute ‘to those whose brilliant and devoted research, whose gifts of design

and craftsmanship have made television possible’. A patriotic note was sounded by the

Corporation’s Chairman in his remark that:

The foresight which secured to this country a national system of broadcasting

promises to secure for it a flying start in the practice of television. At this moment

the British Television Service is undoubtedly ahead of the rest of the world. Long

may that lead be held.6

The Postmaster-General, Major George Tryon, opened the service officially, noting that the

government was ‘confident that the Corporation will devote themselves with equal energy,

wisdom and zeal to developing television broadcasting in the best interest of the nation and that

the future of the new service is safe in their hands’. Tryon ended, as had Norman, with a message

which celebrated this British endeavour: ‘I welcome the assurance that Great Britain is leading

the world in the matter of television broadcasting, and, in inaugurating this new service, I

confidently predict a great and successful future for it.’7 The final speaker was Lord Selsdon who

continued the patriotic thread: ‘Technically, Britain leads to-day, and we shall try … to “keep

our light so shining a little in front of the rest”’.8

Sir John Reith, the BBC’s Director-General, had been invited to attend the ceremony, and

there has been some contention as to whether or not he did so. In their biography of John Logie

Baird, Antony Kamm and Malcolm Baird (2002: 285) note that Reith was on holiday in Scotland

at the time of the opening ceremony. However, a report on the opening ceremony in the

December 1936 edition of Television and Short-Wave World opens by stating that ‘everyone at

Alexandra Palace was genuinely pleased to see Sir John Reith, the B.B.C.’s Director-General at

8

the opening ceremony’. The report goes one to say that many staff were disappointed that he had

not taken an active part in the ceremony, deciding instead to sit in the audience. Interestingly, the

report also notes that ‘Sir John has shown a great personal interest in television since its very

beginning’. There is even a suggestion that he mingled with staff in the Alexandra Palace

canteen during the day (Anon. 1936: 705). A study of Reith’s personal diary confirms that he

was present at the ceremony and that, although he had been invited to take part, he had declined

the offer: ‘To Alexandra Palace for the television opening. I had declined to be televised or to

take any part. It was a ridiculous affair … and I was infuriated by the nigger stuff they put out.

Left early’9

John Logie Baird had been invited to attend the ceremony but had not been invited to sit

with the dignitaries who were being televised. As he wrote in his memoirs (2004: 124):

All the notabilities in any way connected with television appeared on the platform

and were televised, all expect Mr. Baird, who was not invited but sat in

considerable anger and disgust in the body of the hall amongst the rank and file.

Thus is pioneer work recognized … I sat snubbed and humiliated among the

audience.

Although the lack of an invitation may have caused consternation to Baird, he was no longer

managing director of the Baird Television company. It should also be noted that that the Baird

company was represented by Sir Harry Greer, its chairman, just as Marconi-EMI were

represented by its chairman, Alfred Clark, during the second ceremony from Studio A.

Following the official opening, the audience were treated to a variety show which included the

singer Adele Dixon, Buck and Bubbles (the black vaudeville act which Reith disliked), and the

BBC Television orchestra under its conductor, Hyam Greenbaum. The latest British Movietone

9

News was also shown to a relatively small audience – figures from the Radio Manufacturers

Association suggest that only around 400 television sets had been sold prior to the launch of the

service.10

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Control Board meeting on 3 November, the day following the

launch, made only a passing reference to television, noting: ‘The programmes of the opening day

… were discussed’.11 The meetings of the BBC Board of Governors before and after the launch,

on 28 October 1936 and 11 November respectively, failed to mention television at all. Although

this might appear to be a deliberate snub to television, the fact remains that although the event is

regarded as momentous from our perspective today, at a time where television has become

ubiquitous and all-pervasive, in 1936 it was a luxury that only a handful of people could afford

and a minor part of the overall BBC operation.

On 1 December 1936, some four weeks after the launch of the regular television service,

the Control Board met to discuss television at length. Reith remarked that he was more

impressed by television than he had expected to be and that it had developed more quickly than

had been imagined. In true Reithian style, however, he commented that ‘the service had at any

rate high informative and educational potentialities even if the purely entertainment possibilities

were more limited’.12 However, the Corporation’s Controller of Public Relations, Sir Stephen

Tallents (formerly of the Empire Marketing Board and the GPO), had no doubts about the

popular appeal of the new service:

This appeal … would be strongest among the less educated, who derived special

advantage from the double support of sight and sound impressions. On that

supposition development would be controlled by factors of cost and technique,

and not by lack of public demand.13

10

The BBC’s pre-war television service continued until 1 September 1939 when it was shut

down by the Government as a precautionary measure, the fear being that the signals coming from

the television aerial would act as a guide for enemy aircraft. The service returned on 7 June 1946

in much the same form as pre-war and continued to operate on the 405-line service for several

decades. However, within nine years of the service resuming, the BBC’s monopoly on television

was broken with the arrival of ITV. This arose from a set of complex debates around politics,

economics and the desirability of monopoly, and – most importantly, perhaps – from a change of

ideology in 1951 with the election of a Conservative Government. By the early 1960s, the

establishment of a third television channel was a real possibility and a further set of debates and

a report on the future of broadcasting led to the launching of the BBC’s second channel, BBC2,

in 1964.

The background to BBC2

Following the Coronation in 1953 and the arrival of a televisual competitor to the BBC in 1955,

television became a truly mass medium in a relatively short space of time. By the end of the

1950s and beginning of the 1960s it was becoming ubiquitous, with increasing numbers of

households watching both BBC and ITV on a regular basis. Developments in the technical

aspects of television and engineering meant that a third channel was now available, and,

unsurprisingly, both the BBC and ITV made a concerted effort to persuade the Pilkington

Committee that the new channel would be best placed in their hands.

On 17 September 1962 the BBC’s Director-General, Hugh Carleton Greene, wrote to

Kenneth Adam, the Corporation’s Director of Television, informing him that the Postmaster-

General, Reginald Bevins, had formally written to the Chairman, Sir Arthur fforde, conveying

11

his authority to the BBC to provide a second channel on 625 lines in UHF.14 Thus BBC2 was

born. The decision to allocate a second channel to the BBC was based on the recommendations

of the Pilkington Committee which, on the basis of the oral and written submissions it had

received, roundly castigated the commercial television service, ITV, and criticised its populism

in particular. The Committee had a clear propensity towards a notion of public service in line

with the Reithian model which the BBC had been operating, and thus it is unsurprising that it

recommended that the Corporation be rewarded with a second channel, a recommendation that

the Government acted upon.

Furthermore, the BBC had made a strong case for it to be awarded a second channel

during the process of submitting evidence to Pilkington in 1960. In a memorandum summarising

broadcasting developments between 1952 and 1960, the Corporation noted that whilst the prime

aim of the BBC in the post-war period was to ‘give a substantial national coverage to the single

programme’, a further aim ‘was to start a second programme in order to be able, as in sound

radio, to provide viewers with a choice of planned alternative programmes’. The BBC’s view

was quite clear: ‘Two programmes planned as alternatives are essential to good broadcasting.’15

The Corporation went on to argue that it could not fulfil its obligations as a public service

broadcaster with one channel only. Referring to the advertising-funded ITV, which had begun

broadcasting five years earlier, the memorandum stated that the varied needs of the mass

audience could not be met by two competing channels. It thus argued in favour of offering what

it called ‘planned alternatives’ on channels which complemented and were not in competition

with each other:

Two programmes planned together allow different kinds of entertainment to be

broadcast at the same time … Thought and opinion can be set against light

12

entertainment, music against speech, serious drama against light comedy. Without

this possibility of balance the numbers of viewers who at any given moment may

find nothing much to their taste is in consequence increased. (Ibid.)

The BBC outlined the types of programming envisaged on the second channel: a balance of the

light and serious; an increase in the amount of ‘serious, cultural and informational’

programming; programmes that would cater for regional needs; an increase in educational

material; and more work of an ‘experimental nature’ (ibid.).

In his memorandum to Kenneth Adam on 17 September 1962, Carleton Greene drew

attention to the government’s view that the second channel should provide choice to the viewer,

including more programmes of an educational and informative nature or those drawn from

regional sources. The Director-General also noted that the BBC would need to ‘allow for a

considerable development of opt-outs in Scotland and Wales’ and to increase regional input into

the two national networks. This aspect, he stated, was an important element in the government’s

decision to award a second channel to the BBC.16

Planning for both the opening night and the longer-term programming had begun even

before the formal announcement by the Postmaster-General. In a document entitled ‘Some Ideas

in Relation to a Second Channel’, written in May 1962, Grace Wyndham Goldie, then Assistant

Head of Talks at the BBC, outlined her thoughts. These included the problem of a second

channel competing with the ‘original’ channel and with commercial television. She also

suggested that a second channel could be used as an opportunity to diversify the Corporation’s

workforce – a radical viewpoint at the time:

At the moment we tend to recruit … people of rather similar type. We have, I

think, rather too many people (excellent though they are) with the right sort of

13

degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, with the right sort of social background,

with good manners and an interest in sociology, politics and what they call in a

vague way ‘people’ – which normally means they have a missionary spirit and

wish to do some good to somebody. These are not the people who want to do

programmes on car-driving and sailing or service programmes or the tougher sort

of enterprises which might a give a new look to some of our programming.17

In a confidential memorandum dated 16 November 1962, Adam outlined a number of ideas on

programme policy and other aspects of the new service. With regard to the relationship with

what would now be called BBC1, he foresaw a complementary partnership between the two

channels:

BBCI would continue to offer to a wide television audience a balanced service of

consecutive programmes. BBCII would not aim at pleasing a cultural minority.

Nor would it set out deliberately to be either more or less popularly attractive than

the full network programme. But it would attempt to cater, on any one evening, in

depth and at the appropriate length, for a special section of its audience. 18

He also foresaw a greater opportunity for regional programming although that would depend on

regional studios being fully converted to the higher definition 625-line system. The balancing act

here, of course, was to offer something for as wide an audience as possible in order to stimulate

the purchase of the new dual-standard television sets (which viewers could switch between 405

lines for BBC1 and ITV, and 625 lines for BBC2) required for the new service, whilst at the

same time avoiding a schedule which was overly-populist so that it merely replicated that offered

by BBC1.

By the summer of 1963, the BBC was encouraging staff to submit ideas for the opening

14

night. One suggestion, from John Page and Michael Scott, took as its theme ‘London – the centre

of world communications’, whereby a ship, an aeroplane and a train (‘staffed’ by pairs of

celebrities including Peter Ustinov, Fenella Fielding, Sammy Davis Jnr., Jonathan Miller,

Michael Bentine and Robert Morley) would arrive at the Port of London, London Airport and

Kings Cross station respectively at the same time. Other suggestions all had a similar theme –

namely that, from the outset, the new service should be distinctive and different. 19

It is clear from archive material that the new Controller of BBC2, Michael Peacock, was

thinking on a large scale for the opening night. In a letter to Charlie Chaplin on 2 August 1963,

inviting him to be part of the opening of the channel, Peacock outlined the background and remit

of the new channel:

BBC-2 will be an exciting venture. We will be taking risks, experimenting,

escaping from the tyranny of ratings and fixed schedule patterns; above all, trying

to give programmes the length on the air which they need to develop their full

potential instead of forcing material into pre-determined twenty-five or fifty-

minute ‘spots’. 20.

Sadly, it would appear that nothing came of the approach to Chaplin as the paper trail goes cold

after 18 September 1963.

A memorandum from Peter Dimmock (General Manager, Outside Broadcasts,

Television) to Alan Chivers (Events Producer) on 27 September 1963 noted that Peacock would

like a fireworks display on the opening night. After considering all the possibilities, Dimmock

suggested Southend as a good location, envisaging a sea battle ‘with two or more ships firing at

each other and finally one of them exploding and disappearing from view. I suggest that BBC-2

should attack and sink BBC-1!’21

15

The ideas continued to flow, and a memorandum from Peacock to Kenneth Adam on 3

October 1963 suggested the idea of holding a service at Westminster Abbey, an idea that had the

support of the BBC’s Head of Religious Broadcasting, Kenneth Lamb. Peacock stated that ‘we

would … hope to introduce the right balance between celebration and joyous anticipation, and

solemn recognition of the responsibilities which BBC-2 will bring with it’. BBC1 would carry

the service, and Peacock suggested that the BBC2 transmitters be opened up a day ahead of the

official opening so that they too could carry it.22 This service went ahead as planned and was

broadcast on 19 April as The Word and the Vision, Westminster Abbey, conducted by the Dean

of Westminster, ‘to commend to God the developing activities of the broadcasting services in the

United Kingdom’ (Anon. 1964b: 13). This is an interesting decision on the part of the BBC,

given the generally more secular attitudes at the time. It is worth noting that there was no

discussion of a service of this kind during the inauguration of the 1936 service, and it is tempting

to suggest that the BBC had ‘out-Reithed’ Reith.

BBC2’s opening night

The new service was scheduled to open at 7.20pm on 20 April 1964, broadcasting to London and

the south-east of England from the Crystal Palace transmitter. The opening night schedule was as

follows:

7.20pm Line-up

7.30pm The Alberts’ Channel Too. (Comedy with The Alberts and Ivor

Cutler, produced by Dennis Main Wilson).

8.00pm Kiss Me Kate

9.35pm Arkady Raikin. (Russian comedian)

16

10.20pm Fireworks from Southend (also on BBC1)

10.35pm Newsroom

11.00pm Closedown23

A memorandum from Michael Peacock’s secretary to BBC Hospitality requesting items for

Peacock’s office on the evening of 20 April at 6.00pm reflects the confident and anticipatory

mood of opening night:

A drinks trolley (not the lock-up variety, please): with glasses for twelve. Could

this include ice, aperatifs [sic], cigars and cigarettes? At the same time, could we

have food for six in the form of an extended working lunch – two thermos of

soup, cold meats, salad, cheeses, fruit and coffee. Mr Peacock would also like

twelve bottles of good champagne to be put on ice, to be available at 11.00pm,

together with two dozen glasses.24

Other correspondence also reflects the upbeat and mutually supportive atmosphere both inside

and outside of the Corporation. A letter on 16 April 1964 from Frank Gillard, the BBC’s Director

of Sound Broadcasting, to Kenneth Adam, Director of Television, noted: ‘We wish the new

service the utmost success in the confident expectation that, following the eminent example of

BBC-1, it will speedily become a distinguished and indispensable part of our national life.’ A

note from Adam to all Television staff on the day of the launch stated that ‘there is a general and

widespread sense of achievement and pride at the launching today of one of the most spectacular

advances in the history of world television. It is right that this should be so’. A number of

telegrams wishing the BBC all the best for the new channel were received, including those from

pre-war television announcer Leslie Mitchell, the CBS network in the United States, the British

Radio Equipment Manufacturers, and a ‘new baby’ telegram (from a Reg and Mary Jordan).25

17

And then disaster struck. A huge power failure as a result of a fire at Battersea Power

Station in London resulted in a massive blackout of much of London, including Television

Centre in west London, where BBC2 was based. Alexandra Palace, which was in north London

and where the news department was still based, was not affected, and so journalist Gerald

Priestland attempted to host the first night of the new service from Studio A (‘where it all

began’) for those who had the requisite power and suitable television sets (Briggs 1995b: 411).

All hopes of rescuing the opening night schedule were abandoned by 9.45pm, when it was

decided to go ahead with the opening the following night.26

Rowan Ayers, Assistant Head of Presentation, Television (Programmes) recorded in the

BBC’s in-house magazine Ariel his impressions of the night that BBC2 was due to go on the air:

Figures, and faces, lost in gloom, became part of one big refugee heap, huddling

together in the last lit corners of the building, knowing now that opening-night

had already gone, that whatever sparks could be retrieved would, by nine-thirty,

be senseless and in vain … The night floated mysteriously, unbelievably on. The

lights had finally died. TV Centre seemed detached from its moorings and cast

helplessly adrift. (Ayers 1964: 5)

There were around 900 calls to the BBC’s Duty Office on the night of the 20 April. Kenneth

Adam sent a note of appreciation to the Supervisor, Evelyn Crocker, saying that he was

conscious of the ‘heavy load you and the girls must have been carrying’. In reply, Crocker sent a

note to Adam thanking him and including a cartoon of mother kangaroo Hullabaloo looking into

her pouch with a torch and saying to Custard: ‘Come on out! I know you’re in there’ (Anon.

1964c: 20). The Controllers meeting on 21 April also discussed the ‘night that never was’,

remarking that ‘in some ways the situation and the responses it evoked from individuals had

18

been very reminiscent of the Blitz’.27 The same day Adam wrote to Waldo Maguire, the Editor of

Television News, stating: ‘Heroic action from ancient halls – with Gerald Priestland in

magnificent form – cheered and heartened us all in our dimlit tragedy. We salute and thank our

latterday saints!’ A similar memo was sent by Maguire to all Alexandra Palace staff on 22 April

passing on the thanks of the Director-General to all staff there for keeping the two networks on

the air.28

BBC2 finally launched on the evening of 21 April 1964, with announcer Denis Tuohy

blowing out a candle to signify that the power cut had ended and that the service was now on-air.

As noted elsewhere in this volume, the channel went on to broadcast a great deal of ground-

breaking and innovative programming. As increasing numbers of the population came into the

reach of the service, its popularity grew. On 27 May 1968, O. J. Whitely, the Chief Assistant to

the Director-General, wrote to the BBC’s Director of Television, Kenneth Adam. He had

overheard a conversation amongst a group of young men in a café in Great Portland Street the

previous week and wanted to pass its contents on to Adam: ‘BBC-2 is fantastic. We’d more or

less stopped watching TV. But BBC-2 is fantastic’.29

Conclusions

Having discussed the background to, and opening ceremonies of, the BBC Television Service in

November 1936 and BBC2 in April 1964, I now want to make a number of concluding

comments which will show both the factors that both events had in common and those that can

be said to differentiate them. The launches in 1936 and 1964 launch heralded new television eras

in Britain. The pre-war television service marked the beginning of a full-fledged public service

without an ‘experimental’ tag. Whilst it might be possible to argue that the 1932-5 30-line BBC

19

television programmes moved beyond the experimental stage of the 1929-32 period, the fact

remains that this was still a limited, low-definition service. The 1936-9 service was, eventually,

provided on 405-lines, a standard which remained for decades to come. Both television services

came about as the result of government-appointed committees: Selsdon in the case of the pre-war

service and Pilkington in the case of BBC2. The former was established specifically to consider

the future of television whilst the latter was established partly as a result of the BBC Charter

review process. In terms of audience reach, both the pre-war service and BBC2 (at first) were

available only to viewers in London and the south-east of England, served by the Alexandra

Palace and Crystal Palace transmitters respectively, and to those who had purchased television

sets capable of receiving pictures from both the Baird and Marconi-EMI systems (in the case of

the pre-war service) and both 405-line VHF and 625-line UHF television (in the case of BBC2).

Therefore both services had, at the outset, a southern metropolitan bias.

The original reason for the ‘experimental’ label given to early television was to signal

that the programmes being transmitted were not necessarily up to the standards expected by both

broadcaster and government, but were being permitted in order that standards might improve.

Thus the run-ups to the launch of both services share an experimental feel in terms of what the

service might provide. For example, it was not clear in 1934 what exactly a regular public

television service might entail (particularly in terms of programme formats) should the

Corporation be given the responsibility of running it, and various ideas were exchanged between

executives.30 Likewise, there are discussion papers from a range of BBC executives and

programme-makers during a two-year period before the launch of the second channel regarding

what might constitute a programme service on the second BBC channel.

The opening ceremonies of both the BBC’s Television Service and of BBC2 had to be

20

repeated, the former due to the requirement placed upon the Corporation to trial both the Baird

mechanical and Marconi-EMI electronic systems. In the case of BBC2, as noted above, the

power cut that struck London on 20 April resulted in the service being launched ‘officially’ the

following night. Finally, both services were incentivised to produce popular programming in

order to encourage an increase in the ownership of television sets and, through this, numbers of

viewers. Nevertheless, the television service’s pre-war programming reflected the audience most

likely to be able to afford to purchase television sets, and whilst Gerald Cock, Cecil Madden (the

Programme Organiser) and their team ensured that a wide variety of programming was

broadcast, it did appeal to mainly upper-middle and middle-class viewers. BBC2’s programming

policy had, from the outset, to balance the need to attract viewers through popular programmes

as and when the transmitter network was adapted to allow 625 line UHF transmissions, but, at

the same time, to provide a distinctive and alternative provision from that of BBC1. Thus it could

be argued that in both opening ceremonies there existed a potential clash of cultures between, on

the one hand, Reithianism (certainly prevalent in 1936, and still pervasive in the early 1960s)

and, on the other, a populist approach to television.

Politically the two services were established by different regimes. The Labour

Government under Ramsey MacDonald initiated television developments in the late 1920s and

this was followed up by the two National Governments under MacDonald which governed until

June 1935 when Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative Government won the General Election. It was

Harold Macmillan’s Conservative Government that appointed the Pilkington Committee and

Alec Douglas-Home’s premiership which authorised the launch of, BBC2, though it was Harold

Wilson’s Labour Government (and Tony Benn as Postmaster-General) which oversaw the early

years of the service after winning the October 1964 General Election.31

21

There are two points to make about the place of television in contemporary society. In 1936,

the wonder and miracle of ‘seeing at a distance’ was fresh in the minds of amateur enthusiasts,

regular viewers, the BBC and the government. By 1964, television was pervasive: 90 per cent of

UK households had a television set (Briggs, 1995b: 438). The second point, leading on from this,

is that there were concerns that viewers were being exposed to too much television and that there

were harmful side-effects to this. It is no coincidence that the launching of Mary Whitehouse’s

‘Clean Up TV’ campaign in 1963 occurred at the same time that television set ownership and

numbers of viewers were on the increase.32

One final point to note is that there is a noticeable shift in terms of how television was

perceived in terms of its aesthetic and form. In the pre-war years, television was seen very much

as an extension of sound broadcasting. For example, in 1934 Lord Selsdon suggested that ‘the

relation between sight and sound broadcasting is so close as to be absolutely indissoluble.33

However, by 1960 there was acknowledgement on the part of the BBC that television’s own

grammar and visual style was closer to that of the theatre and cinema as opposed to that of radio.

The medium had clearly come of age.

Writing on the eve of the 1936 Radio Exhibition, the editorial of The Listener, 26 August

1936, led with a story about the BBC television service being exhibited and demonstrated for the

first time at Olympia. Referring to television’s ‘first steps’, the article pondered the future role of

television in national life. The generally positive tone ended on a careful note:

The chance of having eyes as well as ears in every home in communication with

the outside world is tremendously exciting. Imagination, dwelling on the

possibilities of television, is justly fired and imagination is often right in the long

run. But we shall be wise to dilute it, for the present, with a dose of caution.

22

(Anon. 1936b: 376)

By the time BBC2 was launched in 1964, it could be argued that caution had been thrown to the

winds. Television was an omnipresent medium bringing the world into the living rooms of the

vast majority of households in the UK and offering the promise of world-wide communication.

With the arrival of the third television channel, the viewing public were about to be informed,

educated and entertained even further.

Notes

1. The title of this article is an attempt to link 1936 with 1964. A specially commissioned song entitled ‘Here’s

Looking at You!’ was composed by Ronald Hill for the high definition television trial service that was transmitted

from Alexandra Palace to the Radiolympia exhibition in August and September 1936 prior to the launch of the

regular service on 2 November 1936. The chorus included the lines: ‘What hullabaloo!/We’re just peeping

through/To say “how do”/Here’s looking at you.’ ‘Hullabaloo’ also refers to the logo adopted by the BBC to

promote and launch the second channel in 1964– a mother kangaroo called Hullabaloo (signifying the now BBC1)

carrying the baby Custard (BBC2) in her pouch.

2. BBC Written Archive Centre (WAC) T16/42/2: TV Policy (Baird)

3. BBC WAC T16/195: TV Policy: Sponsored programmes.

4. The decision on which system would be used first was decided on the toss of a coin (see Burns 1986: 419-20).

After the opening ceremony, the Baird and Marconi-EMI systems were used on alternate weeks until February 1937,

when the Marconi-EMI system was adopted.

5. As the Baird system operated on 240 lines and the Marconi-EMI operated at a higher definition on 405 lines,

television sets had a switch which would allow viewers to move from one system to another. During the trial period,

which lasted from November 1936 until February 1937, viewers were reminded in the Radio Times about which

system was operating on a particular week.

6. BBC WAC T16/193: TV Policy: Opening Ceremony.

7. BBC WAC T16/193.

23

8. BBC WAC T16/193.

9. BBC WAC S60/5/4/4. Reith Diary, 2 November 1936. The ‘nigger stuff’ to which Reith disparagingly referred

was Buck and Bubbles, a vaudeville act, who were the first black performers on British television.

10. British Postal Museum and Archive POST 33/5531.

11. BBC WAC R3/3/11: Control Board Minutes 1936

12. BBC WAC R3/3/7.

13. BBC WAC R3/3/11.

14. BBC WAC T16/315/1: TV Policy: BBC2 File 1a.

15. Report of the Committee on Broadcasting (1960), Appendix E, p.89. ‘Programme’ here refers to a ‘channel’.

16. BBC WAC T16/315/1.

17. BBC WAC T16/315/1.

18. BBC WAC T16/315/1.

19. BBC WAC T23/125: TV Publicity: BBC-2 Opening Night 1963-4.

20. BBC WAC T23/125.

21. BBC WAC T23/125.

22. BBC WAC T23/125.

23. Other programmes planned for the first week of broadcasting included a music programme, Jazz 625, a modern

dress production of Julius Caesar by the National Youth Theatre, and a live performance of Verdi’s Requiem from

the Royal Festival Hall in London (Ariel 1964a: 8).

24. BBC WAC T23/125.

25. BBC WAC T23/125.

26. As power was returned by the following morning, the first BBC2 programme, transmitted ahead of the official

opening, was the children’s programme, Play School which went out at 11.00am on 21 April 1964.

27. BBC WAC T23/125.

28. BBC WAC T23/125.

29. BBC WAC T16/315/1.

30. BBC WAC T16/7: Television Policy contains a number of memoranda to this effect

31. See Freedman (2003: 43-5).

24

32. See, for example, an article in the Radio Times on 16 April 1964 written by Kenneth Adam, BBC Director of

Television: ‘BBC-2 is not an invitation to watch more, to become a television addict. A new channel, some religious

and social leaders have said, means more ‘vegetating’ in front of the set. We shall become even more of a passive,

peering people.’

33. British Postal Museum and Archive POST 33/4682 (Part 2)

References

Anon., Ariel, April 1964a.

Anon., Ariel, May 1964b.

Anon., Ariel, May 1964c.

Anon., The Listener, 26 August 1936.

Anon., ‘Studio and Screen’, Television and Short-Wave World, December 1936.

Ayers, R. Ariel, May 1964, pp. 4-5.

Baird, M. (ed.) (2004), Television and Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird, Edinburgh:

Mercat Press.

Briggs, A. (1995a), The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Vol. II: The Golden

Age of Wireless, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Briggs, A. (1995b), The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Vol. V: Competition,

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Burns, R. W. (1986), British Television: the Formative Years, London: IET.

Freedman, D. (2003), Television Policies of the Labour Party 1951-2001 London: Frank Cass.

Kamm, A. and Baird, M. (2002), John Logie Baird: A Life, Edinburgh: National Museums of

Scotland Publishing.

Norman, B. (1984), Here’s Looking at You: the Story of British Television 1908-1939, London:

25

BBC/RTS.

HMSO (1962), Report of the Committee on Broadcasting 1960: Vol. I: Appendix E: Memoranda

Submitted to the Committee (Papers 1-102), Cmnd. 1819, London: HMSO.

Jamie Medhurst is Reader in Media and Communication in the Institute of Arts and Humanities

at Aberystwyth University where he is also Co-Director of the Centre for Media History. He has

published widely on broadcasting history including A History of Independent Television in

Wales (2010) and Broadcasting in the UK and US in the 1950s: historical perspectives (co-

edited with Siân Nicholas and Tom O’Malley and published in 2016). He is currently completing

a book on The Early Years of Television and the BBC (to be published by Edinburgh University

Press) and is Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Trust-funded Research Project on

Television and Society in Wales in the 1970s.

Email: jsm@aber.ac.uk

26