Tag: Television sets

New Chapter in Wireless History

Source: ‘A Wireless Correspondent’, ‘New Chapter in Wireless History’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 1 October 1929, p. 5

Text: NEW CHAPTER IN WIRELESS HISTORY.

Television Demonstrated.

SEEING AND HEARING AT THE SAME TIME.

[By a Wireless Correspondent].

The first public broadcast of television took place yesterday, the transmission being sent out from the 2LO aerial in Oxford Street.

I was one of the few who were able to listen in and “look in” at the same time. We were gathered in a room the headquarters of the Baird Television Development Company in Long Acre, London. There was installed a Baird television receiver, and while we heard the speech and music issuing from a loud speaker which formed part of the apparatus, looking into a glass screen on the front of the cabinet we were able to sec the devised faces of the speakers and the artists, among whom were Sir Ambrose Fleming, tho distinguished scientist and inventor of the wireless valve; Professor E.N. de C. Andrade, another well-known scientist; Mr. Sydney Howard, the comedian; and Miss Lulu Stanley. The studio was connected by land line to Savoy Hill, and tho televised faces were passed on to the Oxford Street transmitter, where they were broadcast in the ordinary way.

Two wave lengths are necessary, however, for television listeners to hear and see the broadcasts simultaneously, and at present the B.B.C. only have one wave length available. Hence any listeners who were in possession of Baird television receivers yesterday were able only to hear and see alternately. It is hoped that when the twin-wave length transmitter is in operation, simultaneous transmission will tako place enabling listeners to see and hear at the same time. We were able to this yesterday because there was a special line connecting tho receiver to tho studio, so that while the B.B.C. were broadcasting the televised face of the speaker, his words came through the loud speaker. The televised image was “picked up” by means of an ordinary aerial on the roof of the building.

Features Recognised.

At the outset, a letter was read from Mr. William Graham, President of the Board of Trade, who stated that he looked this new applied science to encourage and provide a new industry not only for Britain and the British Empire, but for the whole world. “This new industry,” he added, “will provide employment for a large number our people, and will prove the prestige of British creative energy.” In an introductory speech, Sir Ambrose Fleming, who is the president of the Television Society, remarked that television would contribute to the pleasure of countless persons. After Sir Ambrose came Professor Andrade and then Mr. Sydney Howard, whose features were easily recognisable. We could see clearly the movement of his lips as he spoke and his varying expressions as he moved about in front of thee televisor. “This is Television Monday.” he said, “and I am the vision,” and we could see him smiling he said it. “Really I not know why people should have my ‘mug’ inflicted on them,” he added. Next came Miss King, who is member of the Baird staff, and Miss Lulu Stanley, both of whom sang before the televisor. We heard their voices and saw their changing expressions as they sang.

Not Perfect Yet.

Sir Ambrose Fleming summed up the situation in a nutshell when he said me afterwards “At the present time, the B.B.C. have a vast music-hall for the blind in which people can hear but see nothing. What Mr. Baird has done is to provide them with opera glasses or spectacles in which the audience can see well as hear.” It is obvious, of course, that much progress will have to be made before the same degree of perfection reached with television is now attained with ordinary speech broadcasts, but yesterday’s demonstration showed that much has already been done, the televised faces of to-day being marked improvement on the image the early television experiments. Mr. Baird told me that he was perfectly satisfied with the broadcast, and he was particularly glad that he had now been afforded opportunity making a public broadcast. “Men’s faces broadcast better than women’s,” he remarked. “Some men’s faces come out better than others because their features are more marked.” He added that they do not propose that there should any television on a large scale until a satisfactory television service can be provided. At present, very few television sets are in existence.

Comments: The Baird Televisor was first demonstrated to an invited audience in 1926. The BBC began experimental broadcasts using inventor John Logie Baird’s system on 30 September 1929 (a Monday), at 11:00am, in Long Acre, London.

Links: Copy at British Newspaper Archive (subscription site)

An Enquiry into Television Viewing

Source: Robert Silvey, An Enquiry in Television Viewing (BBC, 1948)

Text: In the autumn of 1948, when the post-war Television Service had passed into its third year and TV licences were approaching the 100,000 mark, the B.B.C. set on foot the first of what it is hoped will be a series of enquiries into the nature of the television public and the impact of the new medium upon its leisure habits. A random sample of TV households was selected —1,000 in all— and each was visited by an interviewer. In nearly 900 of these households interviewers were successful in enlisting the co-operation of a responsible adult. The age and nature of the TV set, and data upon which the socio-economic grade of the family could be estimated, were recorded and an enumeration made of the members of the household, their age, sex and education. The informant was then asked to arrange for each member of the household over the age of sixteen to keep a record of his or her activities during the evenings of one week. Special ‘log books’ were supplied in which each evening was sub-divided into quarter-hours. Spaces were provided for showing what programme, if any, had been listened to or viewed, and which of nine types of activity had been pursued, whether coincidently with listening or not. To provide a Control Group, interviewers were instructed to select, whenever they made an effective contact with a TV household, the nearest non-TV household they could find and there to go through the same procedure.

Interviewers paid two more calls on each home—one during the course of the week to see that the logs were in fact being completed, and a final call to collect them. Interviewing was spread over three discrete weeks, and finished early in December 1948. The final report was based on a Television Group of 873 TV households, with a population of 2,724, and a Control Group of 856 non-TV households, with a population of 2,628, while the total number of evening ‘logs’ completed by the adults of the TV Group was 15,869 and by those of the Control Group was 11,434.

It was found that the overwhelming majority of TV households (82 per cent.) possessed separate TV receivers and nearly all of these had sound receivers as well. Only 18 per cent. possessed combined TV and sound receivers (all the Control Group possessed sound receivers). More than half the TV receivers in use had 6 inch by 7} inch screens, 29 per cent. had 8 inch by 10 inch and 11 per cent. 10 inch by 12 inch screens.

The enquiry revealed that television was no longer, if indeed it ever had been, a rich man’s toy. More than half the TV homes were found to be lower middle or working class. Although there was clearly a long way to go before T’V was evenly spread throughout all socio-economic classes, there was unmistakable evidence that television was spreading ‘downwards’ through the social pyramid. Thus, whereas 57 per cent. of those families which possessed TV sets when the Television Service was resumed in 1946 were well-to-do or upper middle class and the remaining 43 per cent. lower middle or working class, the corresponding proportions of 1948 buyers were 39 per cent. and 61 per cent.

Comparison between the TV and Control Groups showed that although these groups were built up of pairs of families living side by side, to the outward eye differing from one another in the single respect of possessing or not possessing a TV set, there were in fact significant differences between them. It was found that neighbouring families do not enjoy the same socio-economic status to anything like the same extent as might have been anticipated. The TV Group, for example, included 21 per cent. who could be classified as well-to-do, whereas among their next-door neighbours only to per cent. could be so described. At the other end of the scale only 18 per cent. of the TV Group consisted of the families of manual workers, whereas the Control Group included 35 per cent. There was, however, far less difference between the educational level of the TV and Control Groups. Indeed it was clear that in the well-to-do and middle class strata television was rather more likely to be found in the homes where the educational level was the lower. This tendency was reversed in the manual working class; there the higher the level of education the greater the probability of finding a television set. For the sociologist the conclusion would seem to be that although population of London and the Home Counties is far from homogeneously housed in terms of income, homogeneity in terms of educational level is much more nearly approached.

Another difference between the TV and Control Groups was that in the middle classes, and especially among the well-to-do, families with television sets tended to be larger than those without them, having more children and old people. In the manual working class, on the other hand, TV tends to be found in those homes where, although there may be rather more old people, there are fewer children and young adults and more adults of full working age. This suggests that the presence of children in a home and the presence of old people each act as a stimulus to acquire television, but that the gratification of children’s wishes to have a television set is more dependent upon the economic circumstances of the family.

Fortunately analysis showed that these differences between the groups with and without TV were not of sufficient magnitude to invalidate comparisons of their leisure habits. It is in fact fair to regard the pattern of behaviour disclosed by the logs kept by the Control Group as a picture of how the T’V Group would have behaved had they not acquired television sets.

This comparison shows that families which had TV did not on that account listen to sound broadcasting materially less between 6.00 and 8.00 p.m. and between 11.00 p.m. and midnight. Their listening in the half-hours before and after the evening TV transmission was, however, appreciably diminished. But during the period of the TV transmission an average of only 14 per cent. were listening—less than one-third as many as would have done so had there been no television set—while 49 per cent. viewed—an audience made up of 32 per cent. drawn from sound, together with 17 per cent. diverted from other activities.

AlJ three sound services—Home, Light and Third Programme—yield up their quota to television. Indeed one of the most significant findings of this enquiry was that the depredations of TV affected each of the three sound services to an equal degree. As to the 17 per cent. who were diverted from other activities, by far the larger proportion (14 per cent.) were people who would have been at home in any case. This category—those ‘at home but not listening’ between 8.30 and 10.00 p.m.—averaged 32 per cent. of the Control Group, whereas among the TV Group the proportion at home but neither listening nor viewing averaged only 18 per cent.

Starting as it does at 8.30, the evening TV transmission has comparatively little effect on the meal-time habits of viewers. (Even in London and the Home Counties, apparently, there are few people who are still eating their evening meal as late as 7.30 p.m.) Television tends to thrust such activities as reading, writing letters and social activities, into the earlier and, to some extent, the later part of the evening, without diminishing their frequency, but it does appear to reduce the total amount of time spent in domestic duties in the evening. When the displaced duties are performed, if they are performed at all, is not clear. They may perhaps be undertaken during the day-time and therefore outside the purview of their enquiry, or it may be that the promise of watching television causes them to be done more expeditiously in the early evening.

If possessing a TV set causes substantial modifications in the habits of those who are at home, it appears to have comparatively little power to keep at home those who would otherwise go out. Thus, whereas the average proportion of the Control Group who were not at home between 8.30 and 10.00 p.m. was 22 per cent., the corresponding proportion of the TV Group was 19 per cent.—only 3 per cent. less. Among the many activities in which those not at home were engaged was cinema-going. This did not in fact account for more than a small proportion, but this is of less significance than the fact that the differences between the Control Group’s and the TV Group’s cinema-going was substantial. Whereas an average of 3.3 per cent. of the Control Group were at the cinema during television transmission hours, the corresponding proportion of the TV Group was only two-thirds of this figure—2.2 per cent.

In all that has been said so far the TV Group has been considered as a whole; but it is of the first importance that variations between the behaviour of one type of viewer and another should be examined; for the television public is growing, and its composition changing, and if, for example, there are marked differences between the behaviour of new and ‘veteran’ viewers, or between that of viewers of various socio-economic classes, the pattern of behaviour of the TV public as a whole will alter as the balance between its component elements shifts.
Analysis in terms of the length of time that viewers had possessed their television sets revealed the extent to which, as the novelty of TV ownership wears off, viewing diminishes and old habits re-assert themselves. For example, among viewers who had had TV sets for less than a year, 51 per cent. were viewing and 11 per cent. listening at TV times, 19 per cent. were at home but neither viewing nor listening and the remaining I9 per cent. were out (including 2 per cent. at the cinema); but among viewers who had had their sets for at least two years, 41 per cent. were viewing, 16 per cent. were listening, 21 per cent. were at home but doing neither and 22 per cent. were out (including 3 per cent at the cinema). Thus viewing had diminished by one-fifth, and listening had increased by half as much again, though still of course remaining far below its Control Group level. The proportion out (including at the cinema) had reverted to a level not far short of that of the Control Group; which, by definition, had never possessed TV sets.

It may be remarked parenthetically that even if, as this evidence suggests, cinema-going habits are only temporarily disturbed by the acquisition of a T’V set, and that in a comparatively short time viewers are going to the movies as frequently as they ever did, viewers are week by week exposed to television for far longer than they are at the cinema. The enquiry shows that even the veteran viewers whose cinema-going habits had almost reverted to normal, were on the average watching sixteen evening TV transmissions for every visit to the pictures. The social implications of this fact are too obvious to need stressing.

Analysis by socio-economic group showed some equally important differences, important because it is to be expected that, as time passes, the lower socio-economic groups will constitute an increasing proportion of the TV public. A comparison of the well-to-do viewers on the one hand and of the manual working class viewers on the other showed that when among the well-to-do 37 per cent. were viewing, 16 per cent. listening, 24 per cent. at home but doing neither and the remaining 23 per cent. were out, among the working class the corresponding proportions were 51 per cent., 14 per cent., 18 per cent. and 17 per cent. Thus viewers in the highest socio-economic class were viewing less, but listening more, were more often prepared, though at home, to leave their radio and TV sets silent altogether, and were also more often out, than were viewers in the lowest socio-economic class. (Analysis showed that the differences described above were greater than could be accounted for by the fact that working class viewers were more prevalent among new than among veteran viewers.

Besides showing that viewers, even after the first novelty of ownership has worn off, watch TV far more often than they would have listened to sound broadcasting, the enquiry also showed that viewers discriminate between programmes much less than do listeners —and this tendency is just as apparent among veteran as among new viewers. To some extent, no doubt, this is attributable to the absence of any choice, and the limited length of the TV transmission. If the viewer wants to watch television then there is at present only one programme he can view, and the normal period of evening transmission is only an hour and a half.

It seems very doubtful, however, if this is the whole explanation, for another factor must be taken into account. Since television engages the sense of sight as well as the sense of hearing, its capacity to hold the attention of its audience is incomparably greater than that of sound broadcasting, which must perpetually compete with visual counter-attractions. The enquiry was able to express the effect of this in quantitative terms. Only one viewer in twenty intimated that while he watched TV he made an attempt to do something else at the same time; whereas eleven listeners in twenty showed that when listening in the peak hours of the evening they were simultaneously engaged in some other activity. But, whatever may be their relative importance, it seems clear that the absence of alternative TV programmes, the limited period of present TV transmissions, and TVs claim upon both eye and ear, together have brought about a situation which sharply differentiates viewing from listening, namely that viewing, far more than listening, is indulged in as an end in itself. In practical terms this means that, even after its novelty has worn off, people watch TV irrespective of programme content to a far greater extent than they listen with similar pliancy to sound broadcasting.

It would, of course, be very unwise to assume that conclusions drawn from observations on the phenomenon of viewing today are going to be valid for tomorrow. Whatever else is in doubt it is certain that television programmes will not remain the same, and so long as new forms are being evolved TV will in a sense continue to be novel. Furthermore, TV is still so young that viewers who have had their sets only two or three years have to be regarded as ‘veterans’. It may therefore be some years before it will be possible to say with certainty that there are viewers for whom the novelty of TV has entirely worn off. Nevertheless, if viewing continues to be regarded not only as a means to an end but also as an end in itself, then as television becomes more widespread there will be more and more people who are as viewers far readier than they were as listeners to pay heed to programmes which are unfamiliar, and perhaps at first uncongenial, to them. Highbrows and lowbrows may each be expected to view with greater catholicity than they have in the past been prepared to listen—though whether with greater tolerance remains to be seen. It must be left to others to speculate upon the possible future role of television as a catalytic agent in changing the pattern of contemporary culture.

Comments: Robert Silvey (1905-1981) was Head of Listener Research at the BBC. This in-house report, held at the BBC’s Written Archive Centre, was produced in 1948, two years after the fledging BBC Television service had returned following its closure throughout the period of the Second World War. At this period the regular broadcasting pattern was 3-4pm and two hours in the evening from 8.30pm.

Links: Copy at The Birth of TV

Television Starts – Where Will It End?

Source: Anon., ‘Television Starts – Where Will It End? “Era” Special’, The Era, 4 November 1936, p. 1

Text: Television for domestic purposes is like a home movie with sound. In a typical Baird receiver the images are thrown on to a mirror about the size of a woman‘s handkerchief.

They are brilliant miniatures, especially when a film is being used, and there is a slight suggestion of eye-strain at this stage. The images behave unexpectedly, as did the early films, but are surprisingly free from atmospheric interference, though the coil ignition systems of passing cars are liable to throw a few flashes on the mirror.

Lord Selsdon, who, in presence and manner, to say nothing of experience, seems cut out to be a Television star, made the important announcement at the opening ceremony last Monday, that people who bought receiving sets now could be assured that there would be no radical change in receiving sets for at least two years, and that the effective range of the Alexandra Palace station was twenty miles, with local variations that might reach much further.

The price of the Baird Television set, manufactured by Bush Radio, on which we saw the demonstration, is 85 guineas.

There is a population of 10,000,000 within the area covered by the Alexandra Palace station, equal to, say, 2,500,000 families. If only one family in a hundred purchases a set of some kind, there is obviously a considerable immediate market for the new attraction.

It will be a tremendous boon to such aspects of broadcast entertainment as “Music Hall,” travel interludes, the news bulletins, and “In Town To-night” – simple, direct things – but it is unlikely, at first to affect the course of radio drama.

Its power, as a rival attraction to other entertainments, depends largely on the amount of money spent on it, and it would appear that the B.B.C. has already pawned its shirt to provide the not very elaborate entertainment now being broadcast from the Alexandra Palace.

We are unable to see that Television increases the menace of radio as a rival to existing forms of entertainment, though it may do something to arrest the decline in the entertainment appeal of radio.

Television calls for so much fixation of attention that an hour at a time is likely to be the limit of the average man’s endurance.

On the whole, it seems to us that the entertainment professions should congratulate themselves on the birth of an entertainment from which they will be able to extract substantial fees, leaving Posterity to decide whether Television is to be a comprehensive umbrella for all forms of entertainment.

Comments: The first regular BBC television series began on 2 November 1936, broadcast from Alexandra Palace in London. Irregular experimental transmissions had taken place since 1929. The regular service alternated for its first six months between the Baird mechanical 240-line system and the EMI-Marconi electronic 450-line system, before the BBC elected to continue with the latter. The first programmes were Opening of the BBC Television Service, a British Movietone News newsreel, a variety programme headed by Adele Dixon, shown 15:00-16:00, followed by Television Comes to London, Picture Page and another Movietone newsreel, shown 21:00-22:00. The Era was a journal for the theatrical business, hence its particular take on television and radio.

"Gerald Cock Presents" – Review of Television Programmes

Source: Kenneth Baily, ‘”Gerald Cock Presents” – Review of Television Programmes’, The Era, 14 October 1936, p. 1

Text: Experimental programmes from the Television Station made by the B.B.C. during the past week have cast some illuminating light on things to come when the television service starts properly on November 2.

As watched on a Baird televisor in my own home, the programmes have, more than anything else, proved that real entertainment value is derived from television only when television technique is scrupulously adhered to and when subjects exclusively suited to the new medium are chosen.

This may sound obvious, but, in its planning and in these experiments, the B.B.C. is already drawing on other spheres of entertainment for television material. I believe that a few more weeks’ experience will show that television is an indifferent foster-mother for the conventional arts, and that it must conceive its own dream-children.

The unsuccessful programmes have been those where stage pieces and films, it seemed, just placed before the television cameras and transmitted. The first of “The Two Bouquets,” for instance, was not a success, and when “The Picture Page,” a pure television production, was shown later, that stage excerpt, in comparison, assumed the unmistakable guise of failure.

And films are made on too grand a scale to fit in to a screen 2 inches by 9 in the corner of the parlour. The sound track heard in proportion in a cinema, is too pronounced and obvious in comparison with the little picture by the fireside.

Half an hour of Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra proved without much doubt that Henry’s gentle and smiling personality is going to be a television attraction. Dan Donovan made an outstanding television début too. Dance band vocalists, hugging the mike in permanent close-up, will tend to bore viewers; but Dan’s mannerisms, and just the way he sings his numbers, are full of that which is going to be at a premium for television soloists – personality.

On the other hand, a fervent lady admirer of George Elrick – as he is heard – was disappointed by his television appearance.

Because of its personalities, Henry Hall’s band should avert the difficulties facing most televising bands – the viewer’s easy assumption that all bands look the same, and lack movement and “picture points”.

In a different way Younkman’s band, which I also saw, succeeded by filling the picture with agility and plenty of “gipsy” abandon.

Leonard Henry knew what he was about when he took his dummy gas mask to the television studio. Even his patter will need visual additions in television, and the mask gave them to it.

The real achievement to date, however, was “The Picture Page.” Its success came of its having been devised and produced exclusively for television. It would be impossible anywhere else – even in film – and that is as it should be with all material for televising.

Its very beginning was a hit, scored by specialised ingenuity. A boy bugler from off the Warspite was seen blowing a fanfare as he stood before a Union Jack, filling the whole screen; then he dissolved into the title of the programme in the form of a magazine page. Credit titles followed as the pages were turned.

Then came the only mistake. As link between the items in the programme, Joan Miller sits as a telephone operator before a switch board, plugging-in viewers to the items they are supposed to be calling for.

Instead of leaving the “pages” for a direct shot of Miss Miller, another “page” was turned, bringing into view a full-page photograph of her at the switchboard.

The direct shot followed this, and Miss Miller was supposed to be in the identical pose of her photograph. The effect was disjointed, and betrayed quite obviously which was photograph and which Miss Miller in the flesh.

Among the personalities seen were Fight-Lieutenant Swain, altitude record breaker of the RAF; Prince Ras Monolulu (I Gotta Horse); Mrs. Flora Drummond, suffragette leader; a Siamese cat; and Diana Sheridan, the photographer’s model.

“The Picture Page” is really “In Town To-Night” gone visible: but, though it inherits from its sound sister the successful basic idea, as it was devised for televising it was literally an eye-opener for this viewer, who, expecting but experimental programmes, was amazed when such a polished production bewitched his screen.

Comments: Kenneth Baily was a radio journalist, editor in the 1950s of the Television Annual and author of an early history of the medium, Here’s Television (1950). His brother Leslie was a well-known radio producer. The BBC Television Service launched officially on 2 November 1936, but was preceded by test broadcasts, with the first broadcast of the magazine programme Picture Page taking place on 8 October 1936. The Two Bouquets was an operetta by Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon. Gerald Cock was the BBC’s first Director of Television. Picturegoing normally does not reproduce reviews, but because of the domestic details, the description of what may have been an afternoon’s (?) programming, and the very early use of the word ‘viewer’ in a television context, an exception has been made.

Everything to Lose

Source: Frances Partridge, Everything to Lose: Diaries 1945-1960 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1985), pp. 332-333

Text: July 13th. [1959] Ralph came with me to London for the night, Burgo driving up with Robert. Ralph was reading Burgo’s translation in the train, I Robert’s new novel.

Visiting Robert’s flat, we admired his new carpet, chair, and moving Irish gramophone records. then came the television set, but ah! there we were unable to follow him. He showed us Tonight, said to be one of the best programmes. It certainly riveted one’s attention in a horrid, compulsive sort of way, yet I was bored and rather disgusted, and longed to be able to unhook my gaze from this little fussy square of confusion and noise on the other side of the room. It’s so old-fashioned and amateurish! ‘Ah, here’s one of the great television personalities – the best-known face in England!’ said Robert, and a charmless countenance with the manner of a Hoover-salesman dominated the screen. lt’s contemptible, it has nowhere near caught up with any of the other modes of expression; it’s the LCM of the common man, one’s mind has to shrink to get inside it. It’s as lightweight as a feather duster, yet vast numbers of people are daily and hourly beaten on the head with it.

Comments: Frances Partridge (1900-2004) was a writer, translator, diarist and member of the Bloomsbury Group. Robert is the broadcaster Robert Kee; Ralph is her husband; Burgo their son. Tonight was a popular BBC current affairs series, broadcast 1957-1965. The main presenter was Cliff Michelmore. LCM stands for ‘least common multiple’.

Television

Source: Roald Dahl, ‘Television’, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967, orig. pub. 1964)

Text:
The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink –
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and –
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole –
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks –
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start – oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Comments: Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was a British writer of both adult and child fiction. ‘Television’ is a song sung by the Oompa Loompas in his children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and echoes the distaste expressed in the novel for television, as exemplified by the television-watching and violence-obsessed character Mike Teavee.

Babycham Night

Source: Philip Norman, Babycham Night (London: Macmillan, 2003), pp. 148-149

Text: To help the little invalid through these long daytime hours, my mother rented a television, a Ferguson model with a seventeen-inch screen and twin frontal knobs set in a strip of gold mesh. But it was an inconstant companion. The solitary black-and-white BBC channel usually did not begin service until mid-afternoon and there were frequent shutdowns, or ‘interludes’, when they killed time with film sequences of a clay pot being thrown on a wheel, or a punt-prow gliding somnambulistically through plantations of river reeds. Unless you lived within a couple of miles of the BBC’s London transmitter, reception tended to be poor; on the Isle of Wight, it was atrocious. At regular intervals, the picture would collapse sideways into horizontal black and grey stripes, or flick downwards in individual squares like frames of film. The only person we knew who could put it right was a taxi-driver from the Esplanade rank named Mr Stiles. We’d have to wait for hours, or even days, until Mr Stiles had time to drop by, in his peaked chauffeur’s cap, and twiddle knobs until the picture stabilized again.

With the television’s arrival, I ceased to be totally bedridden and became capable of the few brave steps from my parents’ bedroom into the adjacent sitting-room, where I would lie on the big brocade Chesterfield sofa, covered with a rug. In the curtain-drawn twilight considered necessary for TV-viewing in those days, I watched all of what little was on – Test cricket, Russian ballet, the afternoon adventures of puppets like Andy Pandy, Mr Turnip and Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. I knew every note of the long drawn-out overture played as a sound track to the test card before transmission began. Beside me in the darkness watched Mrs Kennie, knitting-needles ever in play. ‘Verra gude,’ was her invariable judgement on everything.

Comments: Philip Norman (born 1943) is a British novelist, biographer and journalist. He was brought up in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. Babycham Night is an account of his 1950s childhood. This passage dates from the early 1950s. Andy Pandy was first broadcast in 1950; Mr Turnip was a character in Whirligig (first broadcast 1950); Bill and Ben were the lead characters in The Flower Pot Men, first broadcast 1952. Norman’s ‘illness’ was feigned.

The "Televisor"

Source: ‘The “Televisor”: Successful Test of New Apparatus’, The Times, 28 January 1926, p. 9

Text: Members of the Royal Institution and other visitors to a laboratory in an upper room in Frith-Street, Soho, on Tuesday saw a demonstration of apparatus invented by Mr. J.L. Baird, who claims to have solved the problem of television. They were shown a transmitting machine, consisting of a large wooden revolving disc containing lenses, behind which was a revolving shutter and a light sensitive cell. It was explained that by means of the shutter and lens disc an image of articles or persons standing in front of the machine could be made to pass over the light sensitive cell at high speed. The current in the cell varies in proportion to the light falling on it, and this varying current is transmitted to a receiver where it controls a light behind an optical arrangement similar to that at the sending end. By this means a point of light is caused to traverse a ground glass screen. The light is dim at the shadows and bright at the high lights, and crosses the screen so rapidly that the whole image appears simultaneously to the eye.

For the purposes of the demonstration the head of a ventriloquist’s doll was manipulated as the image to be transmitted, though the human face was also reproduced. First on a receiver in the same room as the transmitter and then on a portable receiver in another room, the visitors were shown recognizable reception of the movements of the dummy head and of a person speaking. The image as transmitted was faint and often blurred, but substantiated a claim that through the “Televisor” as Mr. Baird has named his apparatus, it is possible to transmit and reproduce instantly the details of movement, and such things as the play of expression on the face.

It has yet to be seen to what extent further developments will carry Mr. Baird’s system towards practical use. He has overcome apparently earlier failures to construct light sensitive cells which would function at the high speed demanded, and he as is now assured of financial support in his work, he will be able to improve and elaborate his apparatus. Application has been made to the Postmaster-General for an experimental broadcasting licence and trials with the system may shortly be made from a building in St. Martin’s Lane.

Comments: John Logie Baird (1888-1946) gave the first public demonstration of a working television system before members of the Royal Institution and a single news reporter, from The Times, on 26 January 1926, in his rooms at 22 Frith Street, London. (Earlier exhibitions at Selfridge’s store in March 1925 had featured silhouettes rather than ‘true’ television with graduated tones). The 3x5cm images shown were composed of just thirty vertical lines, and were shown through a viewer pointed at the edge of a spinning disc. The BBC began experimental broadcasts using Baird’s 30-line system in 1929.

For the Children

Source: Extracts from D.J. Enright, ‘For the Children’, in Fields of Vision: Essays on Literature, Language, and Television (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 72-76 (adapted from original essay ‘Quick Brown Fox – D.J. Enright writes in praise of Basil Brush’, Listener, 15 March 1973)

Text: [I]n the early 1970s I wrote a piece on a children’s programme for the Listener. […] [T]elevision was new to me. After many years abroad, living in countries where either there wasn’t any television or else it had just been introduced as a prime tool in the processes of ‘human engineering’ and therefore wasn’t taken very seriously. I had returned to this country – England – where television was both firmly established and basically free.

Now that I have learned to look on television not as in the hour of thoughtless middle age, would I enjoy The Basil Brush Show as much as I did then, when the set seemed apparelled in celestial light and its buttons and its knobs were still a mystery to me?

[…]

The pun is the essence of poetry, or its microcosm. The scorn frequently professed for punning is merely a sign of the higher illiteracy, in all likelihood linked with the taste for ponderous formulations and the concomitant suspicion that punning is a sort of cheating. Punning is at or very near the heart of a television programme in which the visual is combined with the verbal in a partnership of equality, something rarely come across – a children’s programme, nominally, and truly.

The Basil Brush Show is a team effort, and credit is due to the producer, Robin Nash, to the writer (of course), George Martin, and to the cameramen. It is also due to Derek Fowlds, most graceful of feed-men, who really seems to enjoy the proceedings and behaves as if Basil’s interventions were unexpected (perhaps some of them are). thus providing a sense of spontaneity to counteract the obviously drilled and sometimes less than gripping insets or side-shows. The feeling conveyed of a continuous relationship between Basil and Mr Derek, an intimacy still open to new discoveries, must have done much towards the show’s sustained popularity. But the lion’s share of thanks must go to Ivan Owen the prime mover, or (as Basil puts it when he has let his brush down) ‘my man, who speaks for me and generally lends a hand.’ Though outwardly simple and uncomplicated, Basil is an expressive creature, intelligent, nervous, and cunning. Just as onnagata, the Japanese actors specializing in female roles in the Kabuki theatre, contrive to be more like women than women are, so Basil is more like – no, not exactly a fox – more like a living being than many living beings are.

[…]

The show follows its own conventions closely. The two principal characters are discovered in the act of welcoming a duly appreciative audience of children. Then comes a passage of chit-chat, perhaps making play with one of Basil’s many relatives (naturally there is a Herr Brush in Hamburg), or Basil scores a point or two off his colleague: Mr Derek is getting to be almost as well known as his jokes. Now and then Basil falls into a pensive mood, and from the gravity of his demeanour one would suppose him musing on the wickedness of blood sports or the transient nature of jelly babies. On one such occasion he had simply misheard a reference to Khartoum, and confided to the audience how fond he was of cartoons, Yogi Bear in especial.

A guest appearance follows, a marionette theatre (a nice touch) or a magician, the Little Angels of Korea, a school choir or a pop group. This yields to the main course: a playlet, often topical in flavour, minimal in plot and with guest help as applicable. Basil and Mr Derek set about buying a house; they get into trouble at the Customs; they rehearse Romeo and Juliet (‘It’s a bit of a drag!’ complains Basil, dressed as Juliet); or they find themselves on holiday at the North Pole instead of Nostra Palma, that sunny spot on the Med. The Christmas edition featured a party given by Mr Charles Dickens for some of his more congenial characters. Music intervenes, mercifully brief, and the show concludes with the serial reading by Mr Derek of a book, latterly The Adventures of Basil the Buccaneer. The story is skeletal and the style unembellished, but Mr Derek is helped out or hindered fruitfully by Basil, who by turns is absorbed in the tale, at cross purposes with the text, and engaged elsewhere, perhaps with his pet mouse or a bag of peanuts.

[…]

Lavatorial humour of a traditional and innocuous kind (even Freudianly relieving, maybe) crops up regularly. Mr Derek assures Basil that babies’ high chairs always have a hole in them: ‘that’s the whole idea.’ ‘I think it’s a potty idea,’ says Basil. And after some talk of Nell Gwyn, when Basil hears that Charles II spent twenty-five years on the throne, he comments, ‘All those oranges, I suppose.’ The subject of underwear attracts repeated variations: ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist/combs in a commotion/undies in an uproar/tights in a tangle.’ The audience identify with Basil, he is one of them, just a bit bolder and more privileged, and delight to see him putting down an adult, even one so amiable as Mr Derek. For all the excursions into Frankie Howerd country, Basil is unfailingly shocked if he thinks Mr Derek has used a naughty word – ‘Unmentionables must not be mentioned- – and his extreme delicacy obliges him to spell out the title of a children’s book, ‘Winnie the … P.O.O.H.’ ‘Mrs Lighthouse’ being one of his bugbears. A riskier joke occurred when he wished he could act in the theatre and Mr Derek told him, ‘You’re no Thespian’; he replied, ‘You don’t have to be like that to be an actor, do you?’ The children laughed like mad, presumably at the expression of shock and concern written all over his body. Like other good artists, Basil Brush can give pleasure at various levels simultaneously.

This being a serious occasion, we should attend to the profounder aspects of Brush’s art and thought. I am not thinking so much of his dealings with Sir Gerald Nabarro, Lord Longford, Mr Edward Heath, traffic wardens, or the Trade Description Act (‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice!’), nor of his alertness to pressing problems like gazumping and traffic congestion (‘Oxford Street, yes. That’s where you sit in your car and watch the pedestrians whizzing past’). But disciples of Zen could meditate profitably on Basil’s koan in a letter to his cousin Cyril: ‘I am writing this letter slowly, because I know you can read very fast.’ The piece of advice about not mentioning the unmentionable should be pondered by writers, and also Basil’s answer when asked what style he paints in, traditional, primitive, surrealistic, or impressionistic. ‘Mine is more the … contemptuous style.’

[…]

He once confided that he would like to be ‘an executive … running a factory or something … about fifty quid a week’. It was pointed out that he had no experience and therefore coildn;t expect a highly paid position. The pundits might care to study his rejoinder. ‘And why not? The job’s a lot harder if you do’t know anything about it!’

‘Boom, boom!’ (bangs head against Derek) (laugh) …

Comments: Dennis Joseph Enright (1920-2002) was a British poet, novelist, essayist and academic. The puppet fox character Basil Brush first appeared on BBC television in 1962 and was given his own show in 1968, which ran until 1980. It was recorded in a theatre in front of an audience of children. A different Basil Brush Show was broadcast by the BBC 2002-2007. ‘Mrs Lighthouse’ is a reference to Mary Whitehouse, a campaigner against sex and violence on television.

Hee-Hee for Tee-Vee

Source: Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, ‘Hee-Hee for Tee-Vee’ in Whizz for Atomms (London: Max Parrish, 1956), reproduced in Willans and Searle, Molesworth (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999), pp. 277-281

Text: Gosh super! we hav something to contend with which no other generation have ever had before i.e. the television cheers cheers cheers. Everybody know wot a t.v. is it is a square box with a screen. You switch on and o hapen, then just when you have given up hope and are going off to buzz conkers a great booming voice sa, ‘That’s an interesting point, postelthwaite. Wot does higginbottom feel? Higginbottom? ect. ect.’ It may be an interesting point but i could not care less and just go away agane when a ghastley face suddenly appere. It is worse than a squished tomato but it hold me in hypnotic trance and it is the same with molesworth 2, tho he always look dopey like that. We sit and watch more and more ghastley faces with out mouths open and even forget to chew the buble gum we are the slaves of the machine.

Of course all boys and gurls have to go through a time when there is no t.v. xcept at the postman’s down the road. Yore mater and pater then sa weedy things.

i will not hav one in the house.
the programmes are simply terible, my dear.
it is bad for children.
it destroy the simple pursuits of leisure.

Hem-hem if they only knew what the simple pursuits of leisure were like potting stones at vilage oiks or teaching parot rude words they would not hesitate for a moment. Anyway they get one in the end and sa ‘Children can only look for 1 hour at suitable programmes’ then they forget all about it until we are halfway through ‘1984’ and molesworth 2 sa ‘if that is the best a rat can do i do not think much of it.’ ‘The rat,’ i sa, ‘is exactly like thou, o clot-faced wet.’ Then mater become aware of our presence and hury the dreamy-eyed little felows up wood hill to blanket fair, as dear nana sa.

When you setle down to it this is wot hapens in your dulce domun (lat.)

Scene: A darkened room with glowing fire. Mum, Nana, me and molesworth 2 are goggling at the screen. So are the cats, dogs, rats, mice and various bugs about the place.

T.V. Are you a clump-press minder? (Grate cheers)
MATER: I thort he was an aero-dynamicist or a moulding-clamp turner……I really think……
ALL: Sshh

(Enter pater, third from the office.)

PATER: Are you looking at that friteful thing agane? Programmes are terible. Nothing to look at.

(With a roar and a ratle he put coal on the fire).

ALL: Sshh!

(Pater setle down. molesworth 2 aim his gat at very fat gentleman in specs. It is the same gun with which he shot mufin the mule, mcdonald hobley, a ping-pong champion, three midgets, a great-crested grebe, a persian student and lady Boyle and a budgerigar.)

MOLESWORTH 2: Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah. Got you.

ALL: Shh!

MATER: Do you not think it would be better if their heads were not three feet away from their shoulders?

(Pater go and twiddle knobs. First of all there is a snowstorm then what seems like the batle of jutland, then an electronic bombardment. Finaly a vast explosion.)

MATER: You have ruined it, clot.
NANA: Boost the contrast.
MOLESWORTH 2: Adjust the definition.
ME: Oh gosh, hurry up.

(Now picture is upside down, then leaning drunkenly, then it disappear altogether amid boos and catcalls. Finaly Nana do it.)

T.V. Are you connected with seaweed? (Huge cheer)
MATER: look at tibby the cat he canot stand Gilbert Harding…..
ALL: Sssh.
PATER: He’s a guggle-gouger…..

(And so it go on. Supper is not cooked, fires go out, kettles boil their heads off, slates fall off the roof and house burn down, but we are all still looking at a nature film in w. africa chiz in fact we have seen more monkeys since we got the t.v. than ever before xcept at st. custard’s where peason have the face of a wild baboon.)

Aktually t.v. is v. cultural for boys and improving to the mind. You learn so many things than when you go back to skool all are quite surprised.

MOLESWORTH 1: To the q. whether the hydrogen bomb should be banned i give a categorical ‘no’. unless there can be international agreement to co-exist in disarmament.
MOLESWORTH 2: That is a valid point, o weedy wet. Do you kno the population of chile?
MOLESWORTH 1: No. But everyone should look both ways before crossing the road and wot can be more dramatic than man’s fight against the locust, eh?
MOLESWORTH 2: The problem of asia is the problem of over-population and now i will pla brahms etude number 765000 in F flat….

You kno wot this mean he is going to zoom to the piano and pla fairy bells nothing can stop him …

Comments: Geoffrey Willans (1911-1958) was a British schoolmaster and comic writer and Ronald Searle (1920-2011) was a British illustrator. Together they created the comic character of Nigel Molesworth, a pupil at dilapidated boys’ school St Custard’s, whose distinctively mispelt exploits were first documented in Punch magazine (from 1939) and then in four books. ‘Hee-Hee for Tee-Vee’ is the title of a chapter in the third book, Whizz for Atomms. Searle also created the rebellious girls school St Trinian’s. The BBC television production of George Orwell’s 1984 was first broadcast on 12 December 1954 and aroused much controversy for its ‘horrific’ scenes. The quiz show parodied here is What’s My Line, first broadcast by the BBC in 1951 and based on an American original. Gilbert Harding was a regular panellist on the show. Dramatic picture interference was a common experience for television audiences in the 1950s.