Some Highlights in the Engineering of the British Commercial Independent Television Service

Abstract

The history of the creation of a new national TV network for the United Kingdom is given. From the start, the United States has been accustomed to free enterprise radio and television services (not forgetting the FCC). But in the United Kingdom and Europe, however, broadcasting was strictly state-controlled and no advertising was permitted. Then, in 1954, a British Conservative government, against severe opposition from the Left, introduced a new "Television Act" which permitted a Public Authority—the Independent Television Authority (ITA)—to provide a second television service for the whole of the country by granting a franchise to a number of separate, financially self-supporting program companies, each with their own technical facilities and staff. These companies were to supply programs that they and the ITA considered to be of national merit to various regions of the country and to broadcast such programs over a comprehensive lines network and a series of transmitting stations sited, built, and operated by the ITA itself. This was a unique combination of private initiative and public control. In contrast to a centralized organization such as the BBC, the ITA established its service as a federal system. The considerable influence of this policy on the way the new network should be engineered and the technical developments that followed are described. In particular, it is interesting to note the spectacular rate of increase in the number of viewers receiving the ITA programs as the new service was developed.