TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999


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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.