ABC Weekend TV: История британского телевещания

Former ITV service for Midlands & North England
the American anthology for children

ABC Weekend TV was the popular name of the British broadcaster ABC Television Limited, which provided the weekend service in the Midlands and Northern England regions of the Independent Television (ITV) network from 1956 to 1968. It was one of the "Big Four" companies that between them produced the majority of ITV networked programmes during this period. Originally created as Associated British Cinemas (Television) Ltd, ABC was one of a number of commercial television companies established during the 1950s by cinema chain companies, in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television, which was taking away their cinema audiences. In this case, the parent company was the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) — owner of ABC Cinemas — which initially did not wish to become involved with the new broadcasting system, but was persuaded to do so by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) and the manager of its Pathé News subsidiary Howard Thomas, who became the new company's managing director. ABC operated two franchises, one in the Midlands, which was the fourth ITA franchise to go on air, in 1956, and the other in the North of England, which was the sixth franchise to go on air, later the same year. It lost both its franchises in 1968, but merged with another franchisee to form Thames Television, which held the London weekday franchise for 24 years. From 1967, ABC's sister company, ABC Television Films, used the name Associated British Corporation on its exports to the US, such as the last two series of The Avengers.

When Kemsley Winnick, one of the consortia that had been awarded two franchises in the new Independent Television network in 1954, collapsed, the ITA approached ABPC to step into the breach. The Corporation agreed to assume the franchises to broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays to the Midlands and the North of England. The contract agreeing to do so was signed on 21 September 1955, the day before Independent Television (ITV) began in London. This left the new ABC five months to begin broadcasting in the Midlands, the service beginning on 18 February 1956. Soon afterwards, it was also up and running in the North; it began broadcasting in the North West on 5 May 1956, and in Yorkshire on 3 November 1956. It was aided in part by the failure of the original contractor; Kelmsley Winnick had ordered over £1 million (equivalent to £1.0 in 1955 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years million today) of production equipment from manufacturer Pye, which it sold to ABC at a much discounted price.

The London weekend contractor had launched under the name "Associated Broadcasting Company" (ABC), but ABPC wanted to use the ABC brand for its own service, to match its existing ABC Cinemas brand, so it took legal action against the Associated Broadcasting Company who subsequently agreed to rename as Associated Television (ATV) after broadcasting for three weeks as "ABC". This allowed ABPC to launch its own station as "ABC".

ABC's late entry into Independent Television meant that some of the details of how the new system would run were already agreed between the ITA regulator and the other three contractors. ABC felt that some of these details were unfair on itself as the smallest contractor, and the only contractor that broadcast only at weekends. In particular, ABC objected to paying one quarter of the costs for ITN, provider of national news broadcasts for the network, as there would be fewer news programmes at the weekend than on weekdays. ABC's managing director Howard Thomas, former head of Pathé News, felt that ABC could provide its own news for a fraction of ITN's price, but the ITA would not allow this: regional companies were responsible only for regional news, and national news should be independent of the regional companies. ABC lobbied both ITN and the ITA for change, which eventually resulted in a cutback to the amount of programming to be provided by ITN to the network and a substantial reduction in ITN's costs. ABC fought back, first of all, by selling some of its pre recorded shows, including the popular The Avengers, to Associated Rediffusion (instead of ATV) to broadcast to London on weekdays. Secondly, it refused to buy some of ATV's top rated shows such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium and broadcast its own alternatives such as Blackpool Night Out. Eventually ATV gave way and agreed to buy more of ABC's shows. This lasted from the station's launch in 1956 until September 1959. The ITA had criticised ABC's original presentation style for being bland and too much attached to the existing ABC Cinemas chain. The logo uses the notion of threes, three triangles making another triangle, with the points of a triangle often being labelled 'A', 'B' and 'C' in geometry. The tune that was used for all of ABC's idents was a vibraphone playing the notes A B C (la te doh). Out of this look, ABC Television developed a strong corporate identity, effectively becoming the first British TV station to recognise the importance of corporate branding. The company itself was originally called Associated British Cinemas (Television) Limited, which by 1957 had been shortened to A. B. C. Television Limited. However, from about 1967, on exports made by its sister company A. B. C. Television Films Ltd. (such as the last two series of The Avengers), the name 'Associated British Corporation' was used, to avoid confusion with the US ABC network. As for on air, the name was for a few months 'Associated British', before becoming 'ABC Television', or just 'ABC'. The names 'ABC Television Network' and 'ABC Weekend Network' were also used, for example in TV Times listings. The station received a joke nickname from Bob Monkhouse, namely "All Bloody Commercials". The station's spoken slogan varied through time, starting off as "ABC – Associated British in the North/Midlands" before being replaced in 1958 to "ABC, your weekend TV" and again changed in 1964 to "ABC, your weekend television in the North/Midlands".

Networked programmes from ABC included the drama series Police Surgeon, The Human Jungle, Undermind, Redcap, The Avengers, the Armchair Theatre series of single plays, the Habatales cartoons, the popular shows Thank Your Lucky Stars, Opportunity Knocks, Big Night Out, Doddy's Music Box and Oh Boy!, Tommy Cooper's shows Cooperama and Life with Cooper, the children's science fiction serials Emerald Soup, Target Luna and its sequels Pathfinders in Space, Pathfinders to Mars and Pathfinders to Venus, and the gritty drama series Callan and Public Eye (both of which continued as Thames productions after 1968). ITV's first weekly series devoted to the arts, Tempo, was introduced by ABC, as was its first hidden camera show, Candid Camera, and its first attempt to challenge the BBC's dominance of television sport, with World of Sport. ABC also introduced British television's first late night chat show, The Eamonn Andrews Show and, together with ATV, British television's first regular weekly series of adult education programmes.