The most colourful thing here was Alan Wicker's voice. Beautiful.

Thank you for this of course too!

I read somewhere that Rediffusion managed to supply tv pictures to Jersey even before the BBC set up their first service there. They even managed to show the Queen's Coronation on 110 screens linked by cable to an off air receiving station on the island that was equiped with some fancy aerials that could pick up signals from the UK mainland.

@johnking5174

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, cable television arrived in Jersey in 1953. It was a tight going thing, as they had only a matter of a few weeks to prepare. They built a receiving station in Alderney, relayed the signal to Les Platons in Jersey, which was then relayed to their HQ in St Helier. By 1954 they started expanding their cable service to a large chunk of Jersey (the mostly populated areas). BBC saw this, and opened up their own dedicated relay station at Les Platons in October 1955, bringing the first over-the-air BBC signals to the Channel Islands, and of course served Guernsey for the first time too. Cable would be the first to provide ITV from Southern Television relay in 1958, four years before Channel Television launched as the islands franchise.

"Once you've seen colour you'll never go back to black and white!" - Alan Whicker I have a feeling Alan would have said the same thing about HD. "Once you've seen digital HD you'll never go back to standard definition!"

@AntarcticaTelevision

3 жыл бұрын

I want to go back to SD.

@dollyrawlins5470

Жыл бұрын

Thats not true about black and white, film noir is a massively popular genre which is black and white. Now HD yes, and black and white restored in HD is magnificent. Nothing like watching the Black and white stuff. And im a millennial. Love colour too but can appreciate both.

@GeoNeilUK

Жыл бұрын

@@dollyrawlins5470 Coluur TV channels still broadcast black and white films, and the the colorized stuff either, though you see less of it nowadays. Talking Pictures TV broadcast a lot of black and white stuff, sadly, on Freesat at least, they're on a low bitrate so image quality isn't exactly the best. Also, film can be digitised up to 4K. Videotape, you're stuck at whatever resolution the tape was recorded in.

@dollyrawlins5470

Жыл бұрын

@@GeoNeilUK yes very true, they should air more so younger generations can see the many wonderful films that have been made.

You know what? from 1976 to 1982, the six-hexagon logo for Channel Television has color. So instead of black and white, they used cyan and sepia.

History of Analogue Television on the Channel Islands is this - Monday 3rd October 1955, BBC Television arrives in the Channel Islands broadcasting from the Les Platons transmitter on 405 line VHF. Channel Television, the ITV franchise started airing on Saturday 1st September 1962 from Fremont Point transmitter on 405 line VHF. Colour Television, BBC1, Channel TV and for the first time BBC2 launch from Fremont Point UHF 625 line transmitter on Monday 26th July 1976. Channel 4 Television launches from Fremont Point on Tuesday 2nd November 1982.

Yeah, the Channel Islands had to wait until 1976 to receive colour.

@aroma2174

6 жыл бұрын

Kwadwo Holloway That's crazy

@CJODell12

4 жыл бұрын

Aroma 217 Just bringing television to the Channel Islands in the first place was a massive challenge in itself. The Channel Islands are much closer to France than to the UK. As such, they didn’t get BBC service until 1955, and ITV service until 1962.

@saxongreen78

3 жыл бұрын

Australia and NZ - 1975 and 1976, respectively.

Wasn't Channel TV the last ITV franchisee to be able to produce it's local live and taped program(me)s in colo(u)r?

5:00 - She mentions the Isle of Lewis here, this is in Scotland and the transmitter was called Eitshal, serving the outer Hebrides of Scotland opened on Friday 23rd July 1976.

5:40 - And now viewers in the Channel Islands can see in glorious colour the badly stained and uncleaned teeth of Lady Plowden, a woman so posh, she simply could not be bothered to use a tooth brush and toothpaste.

@xenu-dark-tony

3 жыл бұрын

They were getting ready for the CIs to be the last place in Europe to have toothpaste.

The other "Crown Dependency" Isle of Man was always that bit more luckier with television. The Isle of Man is situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, and compared to the Channel Islands, could receive the mainland television transmitters with great ease since the 1950s. This was the reason why the Isle of Man has never been provided with its own ITV franchise, unlike the Channel Islands.

@raymonderrity1419

2 жыл бұрын

The Isle of Man started with Granada, switched to Border in 1965 and could pick up them plus HTV Wales and UTV

Wow, this is a nice find.

Fitting that Jersey’s television president is twice the size Guernsey’s. Proportionate to the islands themselves.

They speak French as well in the channel islands.

Alan Whicker was interviewed by Channel Television as a 'Jersey resident' on a result of him becoming a UK tax exile on the strength of shares he had in his then employer Yorkshire Television, which made him a millionaire.

@johnking5174

5 жыл бұрын

Yes, but to add a bit of perspective. The Labour government in 1974 increased the highest rate of income tax to an eye watering 83%. This meant if you were a successful broadcaster, and say ITV were paying Benny Hill maybe £25,000 a year for his four specials say in 1976. Benny would have to pay £20,750 to the tax man. On the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man they had their own tax laws, and the basic rate has been 20% top rate, so I would not blame Alan for moving there. I would if I was in his position.

@anonUK

5 жыл бұрын

How many Whickers?

@johnking5174

5 жыл бұрын

@@anonUK ??

@yellowbelly06

5 жыл бұрын

@@johnking5174 don't get me wrong, it wasn't a criticism. I'd have done the same as Alan. It was just the irony of Channel interviewing a man who made his fortune (and thus his 'passport' to Channel Islands residency) out of another ITV station.

@johnking5174

5 жыл бұрын

@@yellowbelly06 You did what you had to do to keep your income back then. There were other ways of getting around the huge income tax rates back then, even if you stayed in England and didn't move to Jersey or the Isle of Man. Part cash, part cheque method was the way Alan would have used before he moved to the Channel Islands I suspect.

3:27 - Which of course, is via Channel 9 on Westward.

3:03 - The new Irish channel she mentions here would be the forthcoming RTE 2 channel. The Irish Republic from December 31st 1961 until November 1st 1978 had just one national television station RTE Television. On November 2nd 1978 RTE 2 launched to provide more choice to Irish viewers, filled with large amounts of British and US imports.

@europa2000man

3 жыл бұрын

I was looking through the programme listings for RTE 2 / Network 2 from 1978 to the 1990's, and RTE 2's promise of showing Irish viewers plenty of BBC, ITV and US programmes was broken by 1981. Between 1978 and 1981, RTE 2's line-up each day was nearly all BBC and ITV programmes with one or two American programmes. By early 1981 however, RTE 2 began to show less and less British programmes to the stage where RTE 1 was showing more British programmes than RTE 2. All RTE 2 were showing then was mainly American programmes, Irish Current Affairs and Farming programmes, and the odd British programme (Most of the time, it was Coronation Street). Only for simucast programmes like Coronation Street, Top Of The Pops and This Is Your Life, there would be next to no BBC or ITV programmes. By the 1990's, RTE 1 and Network 2 as it was called by then, had few British programmes on, and most of the one's that were on was mainly repeats of old drama's like The Onedin Line, Upstairs Downstairs and Thomas & Sarah. By 1997, there was less British programmes on than there was in 1977 when RTE was only one channel. I don't know what happened to RTE and British programming. Maybe RTE wanted to make Irish people have American accents, because I notice with the younger generation especially in Ireland, they tend to have a bit of an American accent now, and even some of the words they say is American, like they call a lift an elevator, a fridge a refrigerator, and a chips fries. I wonder where they get their dialect from?

@johnking5174

3 жыл бұрын

@@europa2000man 1981 was the year RTE were hit hard by financial cutbacks. In 1980 Ireland won the Eurovision Song Contest, and 1981 they had to host it, which nearly bankrupted RTE - It got to the point where RTE management were on the brink of closing RTE 2 down and just having one channel again. When the Irish government heard that plan they came down hard on RTE and threatened them with legal action, for a state broadcaster to close a tv station. So instead RTE drastically cut back the budget on all departments, especially RTE 2 which was seen as the "bitch" channel, that could easily be hacked back. It was estimated the cutback to RTE 2 budget stood at 25 to 35% in 1981. This meant they could not afford the broadcasting rights to a large number of UK shows. Coronation St, Top of the Pops and a few others came under a long term carriage agreement in place, which was signed for at least 7 years, so they couldn't get out of it, but other programming suffered. So to fill the 5 to 6 hour a night schedule, they went looking to America, Canada and Australia for cheap crap. In fact, RTE managed to purchased a few British sitcoms through Canadian distributors rather than going straight to the BBC or ITV. By 1988 the channel looked appalling, and RTE decided to relaunch both RTE 1 and 2, they renamed it Network 2, and it was around 1987/88 that RTE finances were much better, more money could be spent. RTE 1 and Network 2 in 1988 would both start the day at around 2/2.30pm - unheard of back in 1981. Hope this helps?

@europa2000man

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnking5174Thanks for that. I knew about the hardship RTE had from 1981 to 1988. I didn't know about Coronation Street and Top Of The Pops being under a long term agreement to broadcast their programmes for over 7 years. Still all the same though, during the 1990's, there was less British programmes on than there was in the 1980's, most of which were repeats of older programmes and mainly in the early afternoon slot. It's hard to know.

@johnking5174

3 жыл бұрын

@@europa2000man Did you know that Ireland was way ahead in terms of cable television in the 1970s and 1980s, maybe this might have some degree of reason. In 1970, RTE launched a commercial subsidiary RTE Relays, a cable television firm to provide cable tv to homes who could receive the UK stations via spill over signals in Dublin. From 1972 Dublin was being cabled at a fast rate. The first town to follow Dublin was Waterford in the mid 1970s. In 1980 the Irish government permitted cable television to non spill over areas meaning cities and towns in Ireland could get the UK stations on cable, with Cork City launching in 1981. By 1985, the year I was born, cable television was available in nearly every Irish major city and town, and adding to it, many UHF deflectors were also rebroadcasting the UK channels, this led to a large chunk of the population watching these British shows this way, and not relying on RTE to air them, thus giving RTE the excuse not to have so much British imports on their two stations. What do you think?

@europa2000man

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnking5174 I did. Ireland were well ahead of Britain when it came to cable television. Here is a list the years of towns that were fully cabled (With television region the area received)- 1974- Dublin City (Northern Ireland) 1975- Waterford (Wales) - Celbridge (Northern Ireland) - Arklow (Wales?) - Dundalk (Northern Ireland) - Cavan (Northern Ireland) 1976- Glenties (Northern Ireland) - Enniscorthy (Wales) - New Ross (Wales) 1978- Boyle (Northern Ireland) - Sligo (Northern Ireland) - Mullingar (Northern Ireland) 1979- Carlow (Wales?) - Greystones (Wales?) - Rush (Northern Ireland) - Ashbourne (Northern Ireland) 1980- Navan (Northern Ireland) 1981- Dundrum (Northern Ireland) - Athlone (Northern Ireland) - Dungarvan (Wales) - Cork City (Wales) - Naas (Northern Ireland) 1982- Longford (Northern Ireland) - Swords (Northern Ireland) 1983- Bagnalstown (Wales) - Maynooth (Northern Ireland) - Limerick City (Northern Ireland) 1984- Portlaoise (Northern Ireland) - Clane (Northern Ireland) - Tullamore (Northern Ireland) - Kilkenny City (Wales?) - Portarlington (Northern Ireland) 1985- Buncrana (Northern Ireland) - Carrigaline (Wales) - Ballina (Northern Ireland) - Clonmel (Wales?) - Nenagh (Northern Ireland) 1986- Galway City (Northern Ireland) - Donegal (Northern Ireland) - Newbridge (Northern Ireland) By 1990, most towns and cities had cable television. Also, around the late 1980's or early 1990's, many people who lived in the rural areas where there was no cable were able to get it relayed via a special aerial (which looks like a cross between an aerial and a satellite) from transmitters in different locations. Cork cable changed from channels from Wales to channels from Northern Ireland around 1992. There was one story of an old man that refused to get cable on this particular street in Portlaoise for reasons unknown, and it ended up that the whole street couldn't receive cable television and were stuck with the two channels.

Alan Wicker, a Jersey resident, stated that he had been receiving colour tv from Southern Television's transmitter on the Isle of Wight, and presumably BBC tv too, for four years prior to the IBA opening their ground breaking hi tech link from the British mainland. How on earth did he manage that? It is a fair distance between The Isle of Wight and Jersey and not even line of sight. It must be remembered of course that BBC in colour also came to the Channel Islands at this time and for the first time ever BBC2 which being on UHF was not previously receivable with any certainty even in black and white before 1976.

@johnking5174

3 жыл бұрын

SABRE offered the solution. This new arrangement of receiving aerials at Alderney ensured the safe and reliable UHF 625 line colour signal from the British mainland could be received. Until then, the black and white VHF 405 line signals were much easily received at Alderney, without the need of SABRE. However colour television signals using the UHF bands were far more complicated. SABRE managed to pick up the signal, boosted the signal power, which was then relayed from Alderney to Fremont Point by microwave link, and thus provided for the first time UHF transmission in colour of BBC One, BBC Two and ITV Channel Islands. Does this help?

@johnking5174

3 жыл бұрын

Alan could receive colour television via two methods on Jersey - He could pick up a reliable UHF 625 line colour signal from the Rowridge transmitter if he was living on the northern parts of Jersey, in fact Les Platons could receives the mainland channels fairly easily since the mid 1950s. Second, cable television had been introduced in 1954 to Jersey, providing BBC Television and Southern Television on their cable platform, which he could have subscribed to.

@SoulDamnFunky

Жыл бұрын

My auntie used to live in Britanny and received English television pictures from a massive beam on a mast on the side of her house. Picture wasn't perfect but it's doable. Not sure which transmitter she got pics from tho.

There are still films made in black and white. The Elephant Man made in 1980 was filmed in Black and White.

Channel took their ITV feed from Westward Television - which must have been problematic if Westward often opted out of network programming - which meant that it wasn’t on Channel, either - when Westward became TSW, there were even fewer ITV network programmes on there - so they switched their ITV feed to TVS - they had a similar anti-network policy as well - in each case, Channel would have been faced with the option of showing a Devon-centric or Southampton-centric programme from that region, showing one of their own programmes or showing a programme from another region, suitable for network consumption, but not simulcast on the network! Today, of course, ITV is pretty much the same nationally, except for local news, so Channel Television can easily slot in their local news without encroachment on the network schedule and don’t take a different region’s news programme!

I understand the SABRE link deteriorated as it got older to the point Channel TV and BBC had to revert to satellite for programmes.

I suspect that today, Channel gets ITV program(me)s by satellite, insuring the best quality picture and sound.

I am surprised the Channel Islands weren't able to get colour until 1976. Was it because they didn't have the technology to beam the signals from South-West England in colour?

@johnking5174

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, getting the perfect UHF signal from the English mainland proved a headache for their technicians. They were able to get a very good VHF signal for the BBC Television Service which launched on Monday 3rd October 1955 in the Channel Islands from Les Platons. Getting ITV proved hard with legal issues and technical issues, which delayed Channel TV launch until September 1962. UHF and colour was the biggest headache, but they managed it with the new system they had here in 1976, which also brought BBC Two to the islands for the first time too remember.

@CJODell12

4 жыл бұрын

John King Channel 4 did somehow launch in the Islands on time in November 1982.

Did many Channel Islanders, those with money to burn at least, buy PAL-SECAM sets to pick up French TV and in time, British TV on UHF and in colour?

@johnking5174

5 жыл бұрын

Why would they spend that money for a television service they could not understand, it would all be in French.

@zetametallic

3 жыл бұрын

My dad lived with family members in Alderney in the early 1970's. He was a TV engineer by trade and there was an old French TV set dumped in the workshop so somebody had that idea but had just left it there when it broke.

@anonUK

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnking5174 The local dialects of the Channel Islands were all French. More people understand French than you'd think.

@marcuskelly2264

3 жыл бұрын

@@anonUK Marcus Kelly was in early 1979 till 1975 bbc showed in channel islands test card c. And,itv test card .

@marcuskelly2264

3 жыл бұрын

If I am right.

and of course america had color from 1953... yes, you had to be rather well off to have them at the time.... but by 1957 or so we had that all worked out.... check out "an evening with fred astaire" won several emmys... as it should have... and it, as enourmously entertaing as it is all by itself... it also happens to be the second oldest color vidiotape in existance.... the first would be several months earlier.... when president eisenhower would dedicate the nbc studios in washington in may 1958....... so by 1976 i would have imagined you might have been left behind... just a little bit....

@johnking5174

4 жыл бұрын

Colour television was always a problem in the UK as unlike you in the states, we were set back by the lack of UHF 625 line frequencies provided to us, as the more channels we had, the more interference would arrive from Europe, especially from the French stations and Irish stations. So we were limited into how we could develop our colour television network. Also people in Britain were used to the VHF 405 line black and white channels from BBC and ITV and did not want to change or spend a vast sum of money in getting a new aerial installed and a new colour television set. Rental of television sets, both colour and black/white was the norm for a large chunk of the population. Poor Channel Islands were worse off that us here in the UK mainland, as they were over 80 miles from the mainland UK, and receiving the VHF signal from the network was just about fine, colour UHF was impossible, which is why it took until 1976 before colour came to the islands. Hope this helps does it?

@martinhughes2549

4 жыл бұрын

But not all NBC network affiliates broadcast Color from 1st January 1954 though did they they? Many didnt convert until the early 1960s, and CBS and ABC ignored color until 1965(mostly). Many black and white kines exist of wiped color shows because there was still a demand for them in the late 1960s bu some smaller US TV stations. 70% of the UK could get a Colour PAL signal by the end of 1970, by 1972 most of the principal transmitters were operational, with the exception if Sheland and the Channel islands due to unfavourable geography. Btw, the RCA color system was genius and NBC plugging away with color for years alone helped to develop the technology. The Fred Astaire special used low band Ampex quad recorders modified by RCA for color, which was a real step forward.

@trevordance5181

2 жыл бұрын

The other thing that delayed the introduction of colour tv in the UK and in Europe too was that the powers that be and the engineers, whilst applauding NBC''s NTSC colour system for its technical advances, also saw the flaws in the system such as inconsistant, faithful colours with less sharp pictures and poorer contrast especially over long distances or in difficult reception areas and therrfore were prepared to wait until better systems were developed for colour tv before adopting colour transmissions themselves. This meant waiting for PAL or SECAM to come along which overcame the inherent faults that plagued the NTSC system. By then colour cameras and the colour tv sets people could buy for their homes had also improved in reliability aswel.