Action Time Vision - Pop on ATV 1955 - 1981
It's OK, this won't take long.
Thanks to a tip-off theatrical agent Lew Grade made enquiries about applying for
a licence for one the forthcoming commercial television channels, due for launch
in September 1955. After persuading fellow theatrical impresarios Prince Littler
and Val Parnell to get involved the Incorporated Television Programme Company was
formed. Concerns about conflict of interest regarding their access to, and perceived
exclusive use of, talent via their various agencies were raised so another interested
party, the Associated Broadcasting Development Company, were eventually awarded the
contract. Embarrassingly the chosen franchise was then found to be underfunded, so
Grade was brought back and the two companies merged to become the Associated Broadcasting
Company (ABC), changing to Associated TeleVision (ATV) shortly after its launch on
22nd September 1955. The channel would be split into two entities - ABC/ATV London
at the weekend from 24th September 1955, and ATV Midlands, broadcasting during the
week from 17th March 1956.
The first proper show out of the trap would be ABC Music Shop on 24th September 1955
featuring Bert Weedon and Marion Ryan, while the long-running Jack Jackson Show would
be launched the same day. However, the following day saw the debut edition of the
show that came to define the channel, Val Parnells' Sunday Night at The London Palladium.
It would run until 1969 and then again briefly in the mid-seventies, with practically
all the major British pop acts of the era appearing.
ATV over the first few years would provide many short-lived variety/music magazine
shows like Celebrity Spot, Your Kind Of Music, On The Town, Weekend Magazine, and
they were all given a chance to make an impression, but none did and were hastily
dropped. However, true to his Mr Entertainment moniker Billy Cotton's Wakey Wakey,
a part of the Saturday Showtime strand, was a much needed early big hit for the channel.
The numerous variety shows would be seemingly indistinguishable from anything ABC
or any of the later ITV channels would make, each hosted by someone like Bob Monkhouse,
or Bruce Forsyth, or Alma Cogan, but in reality each channel brought something special
to their presentations. With ABC it would be set design and imaginative use of the
stage, while ATV brought out the big guns, talent wise. The Grade/Delfont empire
had a talent agency, owned theatres, and now had a TV channel to show them off. Accompanying
many of the singers on ATV shows would be Jack Parnell and his orchestra. Drummer
Parnell was handed the reigns as the channel's musical director to provide music
for many ATV shows, including a spot as the pit orchestra conductor on the Palladium
shows. It also didn't hurt that his brother Val also owned the London Palladium at
the time.
Like ABC ATV avoided rock and roll and any violent controversy that accompanied it,
with Saturday afternoon's The Music Shop presenting the safe sounds of jazz and trad-jazz.
However, in February they broadcast Teddy Gang, a play about teddy boys and girls
and what the writers thought they got up to. The following month saw ATV Midlands
begin broadcasting Monday to Friday, but it would be the weekend version of the channel
that really provided the music output.
On 7th July 1956 Dickie Valentine began his own series, probably the first of its
type, the type that ATV would define and make its own. While on 26th August 1956
they played an 'admag' for Pye, whose record label division ATV would later buy.
On the 19th September 1956 ATV debuted The Arthur Haynes Show, after a brief spell
with Associated-Rediffusion. Haynes would stay with ATV until his death ten years'
later and his would play host to many popular singers and pop stars.
Despite buying Pye Records in 1959 and having people like Cliff Richard on the books
of Grade and Delfont ATV never showed any serious interest in hosting a dedicated
pop show, staying loyal to its variety roots. Even the Cliff Richard ATV specials
in the sixties had one eye on the American market at all times by inviting American
guests like Liza Minnelli. The purchase of Pye Records gave them access to Lonnie
Donegan, whose hit-making days were slowly fading, but was still a star turn on the
stage and versions of his own show would run from 1960 onwards. Export potential
meant American guests were always welcomed to ATV, so in April 1960 Bobby Darin popped
across the pond to make a special with guest Duane Eddy. In June 1960 ATV came close
to what the fans were looking for with the short-lived The Pan Alley Show. Hosted
by Pete Murray the show might have influenced ABC, whose Thank Your Lucky Stars launched
the following year which also saw Murray host and also include a weekly DJ spot.
For the next few years it ATV would plough the same path over and over with Cliff,
Adam, Alma, Petula, Tommy, Lonnie and chums, with occasional specials from American
acts like Connie Francis, Patti Page and Jo Stafford. However it nearly gave in to
our pop cravings with All That Jazz, beginning in January 1962 which gave pop singers
like Billy Fury and Joe Brown the chance to embarrass themselves by singing jazz
standards.
There's no doubt that ATV knew how to entertain like no other, but with so many proven
and talented variety acts on its books, even with its London based weekend output,
it was never seriously expected to suddenly produce something like Discs-A-Gogo or
Beat The Border or Ready Steady Go, so it didn't. But there was Brumbeat, the media
created cousin to Merseybeat which in 1963 was beginning to surface and would give
us the likes of Mike Sheridan, Denny Laine, Roy Wood, The Ivy League, The Applejacks,
Dave Mason among others. Surely ATV's weekday output from Birmingham could find an
outlet for all this local talent? In 1963 tea-time show For Teenagers Only debuted,
and although it was not a dedicated pop show, this would be the nearest they would
get at the time. It would have a resident local group Steve Brett & The Mavericks
and another local act in each show. Maybe it was a sense of cultural alienation that
led them to conclude that the likes of ABC and Rediffusion should be left to get
on with it, but even then ATV would on occasion drop Thank Your Lucky Stars and Ready
Steady Go from its schedules. The perception that ATV was anti-pop was confirmed
when in 1969 The Move wrote a letter of complaint to ATV asking why they, the Midlands
most successful band, had never yet appeared on ATV.
In the mid-seventies Sweet Sensation from talent show New Faces and Stephanie De
Sykes from Crossroads provided ATV generated pop hits, both from Pye labels of course,
but we really had to wait until 1978, twenty-three years into ATV's contract for
a change of heart and direction. Maybe Lew Grade was looking the other way when ATV
commissioned not just a pop show but effectively a punk show, and following that
with a couple of documentaries about rock outsiders.
Plainly made under the influence of Tiswas Revolver was a truly great idea but one
that would only last one series, but like Tiswas it was not broadcast during prime
time (other than the pilot). Those parking spaces were still reserved for Bing, Steve
& Eydie, Julie Andrews, and The Muppets. Despite the boss looking the other way (usually
across the Atlantic) ATV reserved most of their pop treats for late at night. An
exception however was in March 1978 when a one-off rock and roll show Let The Good
Times Roll was played at prime time 7.00 - 7.30 pm, albeit only locally. This set
in action a re-boot of Oh Boy in 1979 and the similar follow-up Let's Rock in 1980.
A touch of strangeness came in November 1978 as they broadcast Stardust Man, a documentary
about pop peculiarity John Otway, not the most obvious name to give the treatment
to, but two years later they would give the same treatment to punk/actress Toyah.
In March 1981 ATV broadcast a series of concerts under the banner of Rockstage. The
shows were made by Chip productions and were simulcast in stereo by some ILR stations
and featured the likes of The Stranglers, Motorhead, Joe Jackson, Selecter and Hazel
O'Connor.
But it was too late. The ITA had ATV in its sights for some time, finally catching
up with Lew Grade who by now was a successful film producer and giving little time
to his Midlands creation. It was agreed that they should start all over again with
ATV effectively becoming Central Independent Television, this time with minimal (and
later no) input from Grade.