JUST what is ITC and what does it do? One of the vagaries of ATV House is that there is no ground floor through-way between the eastern and western halves of the building. Maybe this is one of the reasons so many members of ATV themselves have little idea of what is happening in the western sector, occupied by ITC.

The initials stand for Incorporated Television Company.

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of ATV , and it has a dual function.

ITC is responsible for all the film series — such as “William Tell”, “The Invisible Man”, “Danger Man”, “Supercar” and “Sir Francis Drake” — for ATV. It is also responsible for the sales of all ATV-produced programmes throughout the world.

The ATV organisation leads the way in the international sales of television product, through ITC, London and ITC (Independent Television Corporation) New York, the latter with a team of salesmen selling to stations throughout America and covering the Western hemisphere. The company has agents in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Thailand, Japan, Manilla, Canada and Australia, as well as many others. It is the largest integrated organisation in the world for the distribution of TV programmes.

All over the world people are watching ATV. Overseas sales of the Company’s products, through its subsidiary ITC, now exceed 3,750 different programmes.

We are therefore playing an important part in Britain’s export trade, bringing into the country much needed foreign currency — a fact which is all too frequently forgotten by our critics.

PIONEERING

ATV decided six years ago to make a long-term investment by planning to break into world markets almost before they existed. Even today, the full potential has by no means been reached. Almost every week, new television stations are being opened in various parts of the globe.

It was obvious that television film series could not be made as economic propositions for showing only in our country. To get their money back, they would have to penetrate markets which would come into existence in the years to follow. The production of these series therefore represented a heavy ATV investment in the future.

This pioneering has resulted in an organisation which is now taking ATV programmes to almost every country.

The “Adventures of Robin Hood” series first broke the ice in smashing into the American market. More recently, our “Danger Man” series has won a new regard for British-made product in the United States and elsewhere, and “Sir Francis Drake” has just been bought for peak-hour network showing by N.B.C.

“Supercar” is also enjoying phenomenal and rapidly increasing success in America, with the result that ITC has just embarked on a new puppet series. “Fireball XL-5”, which is being produced by the “Supercar” team.

Mike Nidorf, president of ITC in America, is now visiting London, and is more enthusiastic than ever about the future of our product in the States. “It’s a hard battle”, he points out, “The American attitude is, ‘We’ve got enough of our own mediocre material without having to take any from other countries. But give us something that’s really good, and we’ll be glad to take it’. They are so pleased with ‘Supercar’ and ‘Danger Man’ that we now have greater opportunities than ever. From what I can judge of ‘Man of the World’, ‘The Saint’ and ‘Fireball’, we’ll really be going into orbit this year!”

“Man of the World” is now in production at Shepperton Studios with Craig Stevens starring, and “The Saint”, with Roger Moore in the title role, is being made at the ABPC Studios, Elstree. Both are one-hour shows of twenty-six episodes.

DUBBED

Many of our programmes are “dubbed” into French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Italian.

Our shows can be seen on TV screens in such areas as Arabia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Holland, Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Rhodesia, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Yugoslavia, Monaco and Czechoslovakia.

The adventures of John Drake in “Danger Man” are being followed just as avidly in such countries as Sweden, Poland, Germany and Portugal as they are in Britain. In Thailand the children are enjoying “Noddy in Toyland”. In Egypt and Japan they thrill to the adventures of William Tell.

DOCUMENTARIES

Sales abroad are not restricted to fictional TV programmes. Several of the documentaries we have made are being shown on overseas screens. Australia, Finland, Germany, Hong-Kong, Hungary, Malta, Norway and Sweden have all bought the brilliant documentary ATV producer James Bredin made in South America earlier this year.

ITC is right on the spot wherever new stations are opened, as with the new one at Lagos, Nigeria; another in Northern Rhodesia; one in Malta, and another in Gibraltar; and the soon-to-be-opened stations in Sierra Leone, Trinidad, and Nairobi. Australia has plans for several new stations as well.

If you’re working on programmes for ATV, don’t imagine that only home audiences are going to see them. You’re making them for viewers right the way round the world!

Our other interests

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THE work of ITC is only one of the ways in which the Company has been able to diversify its interests beyond that of being television contractor for London at the weekends and the Midlands, Monday to Friday.

Other companies in which ATV is concerned include:

ATV (Australia) Pty. Ltd.: This is a wholly owned subsidiary which has been operating for nearly four years in Sydney. It has holdings in seven radio stations and participates in the Australia-wide Macquarie Radio Network. Through a subsidiary called Artransa radio programmes are produced and sold in many countries outside Australia. ATV (Australia) also has interests in eight television stations in places such as Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.

Planned Musk Ltd.: All over Britain people in offices, factories, shops and restaurants are listening every day to Muzak — a selected programme of music piped to them direct from several centres which have been set up. This company was started as an ATV subsidiary over three years ago.

Pye Records Ltd.: The Company owns 50 per cent of this, the third largest record company in the country.

British Relay Wireless & Television: ATV has more than two million shares in this company which serves 17 metropolitan boroughs in London with wired TV and radio and has networks covering extensive areas of the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland. Big plans for participation in coin-in-the-slot TV, when permitted by law, have recently been announced by BRW.

Canastel Broadcasting Co. Ltd.: A wholly owned company in Halifax, Nova Scotia which has investments in radio and television stations at Halifax and in a Vancouver TV station, and also the company which supervises the networking of programmes in Canada.

Ambassador Bowling Ltd.: This company has been formed to cater for the ten-pin bowling enthusiasts. A centre has been opened at Ipswich and another will shortly come into operation at Stevenage, Herts. Other centres are also planned.

The post World Sales for our Shows appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

“Pretax profit highest in Group’s 17-year history”

The Seventeenth Annual General Meeting of Associated Television Corporation Limited was held in London on September 28th 1971. The following are extracts from the Statement by the Chairman, Lord Renwick of Coombe, K.B.E., for the year ended 26th March, 1972:

Results

The Group Profit of £6,240,000 [£70.3m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] before taxation is the highest in the 17-year-old history of your Company.

This wholly admirable result shows an improvement of 27 per cent on the profit for the preceding year and fully justifies the confidence which I expressed at the time of the half-yearly interim statement.

This confidence remains unimpaired. Accordingly, your Board has recommended an increase in the total dividend for the year from 28½ per cent to 30 per cent, and proposes to recommend an increase in the Corporation’s share capital and a scrip issue.

Approximately half the Group Profit was derived from the Network operation and half from diversified activities. This is entirely healthy. And it is in both these fields that a continuing growth is to be foreseen.

Prospects for Television

From the Autumn of this year, the enforced restriction on broadcasting hours will be lifted, and ATV Network will be able to transmit programmes from mid-day onwards and thus provide the housewife with a full afternoon service of news, entertainment and information. This long-awaited development in the ATV Network operation is something which your Board has always been seeking.

The lifting of the restriction will mean that Independent Television in the Midlands will be on the air for an extra 40 hours a week. This extension of the Service will offer entirely fresh opportunities not only for new programmes, both local and national, but also for both new and established local and national advertisers.

The market demand is certainly unquestionable, and the extension of hours should be seen against the background of the year’s trading in which advertising revenue rose by nearly 14 per cent, from £14,255,000 [£160.5m] for 1970-71 to £16,232,000 [£182.8m] for 1971-72. It was this increased volume of sales, together with the reduction of Turnover Levy (£2,483,000 [£28m] for 1971-72 as against £3,865,000 [£43.5m] for 1970-71) which enabled the Network to do more than absorb the increase of nearly £600,000 [£6.8m] in the rental payable to the Authority.

Export Potential

Nor is large-scale growth foreseeable only in the operation of Television in the U.K. The export potential both for film series and for Special Programmes is enormous, and your production and distribution subsidiary ITC-Incorporated Television, and your American distribution subsidiary, Independent Television Corporation, are once again in a dominant position in the market. This situation could not have been achieved without a massive investment of some £7,000,000 [£78.8m]. Benefits from the income generated by this investment will be reflected in the current and subsequent years.

The other main subsidiaries are all in good order and offer assurance for the future.

Theatres

Stoll Theatres Corporation and Moss Empires enjoyed a year which fell only slightly below the previous record year and the present year promises well.

It remains to be said, however, that over the whole world of the theatre hangs the ominous question mark of Value Added Tax. If this tax — from which newspapers, for example, are to be completely exempted — is applied indiscriminately to the theatre, then the results will inevitably be far-reaching and deplorable. Such a tax, without alleviation, may well compel the eventual closure of certain Provincial theatres.

Records & Tapes

I am happy to be able to report that Pye Records has more than maintained its 10 per cent share of the total UK record production. Precision Tapes has, in its first two years of trading, achieved sales amounting to nearly one-third of the total UK market for tape cassettes and cartridges.

Music

Northern Songs’ music catalogue has been further strengthened by a new seven-year co-publishing agreement to cover future compositions with Paul and Linda McCartney. In order to rationalise, the whole of ATV’s interests are shortly to be re-grouped and controlled by ATV Music Limited.

Planned Music, which provides the Muzak service is also steadily expanding.

Indeed, within the Group the results of only two of the subsidiary companies, Ambassador Bowling and Bermans & Nathans, have proved disappointing.

Property & Investment

Of especial importance to the Corporation is your subsidiary, Bentray Investments Ltd., which is responsible for all ATV properties.

The last valuation of Land and Buildings was made in 1966, and a full re-valuation is being undertaken during the current year. This operation will serve not merely to enable a realistic figure to be quoted under Fixed Assets, but to provide a proper financial basis for the development of various of the Group’s valuable properties in London and elsewhere.

Up to date, Bentray’s major development — representing an investment of some £12,000,000 [£135m] — has been confined to Birmingham. The 29-storey, 200,000 square-foot office tower at ATV Centre will be available for tenancies by December.

In the Spring of 1973 the Holiday Inns Hotel at the Centre will be ready for occupation. During the coming year, therefore, the greater part of the whole six-acre complex will become revenue earning.

In June 1972, ATV’s holding of 4,290,000 shares in British Relay Wireless and Television Ltd., was disposed of for a profit before tax of £2,519,810 [£28.4m] and the cash inflow will serve most usefully to reduce current finance charges.

Directorate, Management and Staff

To the Corporation’s Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive, Sir Lew Grade, I must extend not only my thanks but my congratulations. ATV and Sir Lew are by now synonymous.

Finally, I extend my thanks to Management and Staff at all levels in Birmingham, Elstree, London, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Paris and Lausanne.

The post ATV financial results: 1972 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

The 14th Annual General Meeting of Associated Television Corporation Limited was held at ATV House. Great Cumberland Place. London, W.1. on 25th September, 1969 at 12 noon.

The following ore extracts from the Directors’ Report for the year ended 30th March, 1969.

Sir Lew Grade. Your Board was truly delighted to learn on January 1st that Her Majesty hod bestowed the honour of a knighthood upon Sir Lew Grade for his services to export. This wos a magnificent recognition of the untiring efforts Sir Lew has mode on behalf of your Corporation in overseas markets.

Queen’s Award. The Company’s 1968-69 year is memorable for another reason, for we were notified that your Company was to receive a second Queen’s Award to Industry for its export achievement.

GROUP RESULTS

The profit for the Group before levy and taxation is £11,042,000 [£152.5m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] a decrease of £1,327,000 [£18.3m] from last year. After the payment of £5,431,000 [£75m] for Levy and £2,498,000 [£34.5m] in taxation, the Group profit is £3,113,000 [£43m], which is £300,000 [£4.1m] less than last year. The Board has considered these results and has decided to recommend a final dividend of 12.9625%, making the total distribution for the year 28.4625% (same).

Shareholders’ Funds are £24,238,000 [£334.8m], compared with £23,812,000 [£328.9m] for 1968.

BENEFITS OF DIVERSIFICATION

It must be recognised that ATV Network’s seven-day licence in the Midlands will be less profitable than the two-day London and five-day Midlands licence which ATV previously held. Not only is the income from advertising inherently lower, but servicing of the capital required to provide the new Midlands studios complete with equipment for colour, rising costs, the heavy incidence of S.E.T. and, above all, the increased rote of the Turnover Levy combine to produce a situation which cannot be regarded as other than financially unsatisfactory.

It is because the margin of profits of the television operation is bound to be severely reduced that your Directors are pleased to be able to report the success of their policy of diversification. In the year under review the profits of ATV’s non-television subsidiaries already amount to no less than 51% of your Group’s total profits and, in the current year, the advantages to your Corporation of planned expansion outside the television network operation will become increasingly apparent.

TELEVISION AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

New Midland Studios. We ore well pleased with the progress in completing our new television studios of Paradise Centre in Birmingham which will be available for transmissions from the target date next month. However, it will not be before the early part of 1970 that all parts of the Paradise Centre Television Studios will be fully operational.

Programmes. The centre of ATV Network’s activities is in its programmes. In spite of the many difficulties of the post year, ATV has once again produced a wide range of programmes of all types. There hove been indications of o reduction in the total amount of viewing for television programmes. The largest proportion of the decline has fallen to BBC programming in spite of its control of two channels ond monopoly of free advertising for its television programmes on BBC rodio. In the last six months, ATV Network’s proportion of the total television audience has risen substantially, ond now stands at approximately 56%, with BBC 1 and BBC 2 combined having 44%.

FILM PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION

During the course of the year, this division of the Group further extended the already wide ranqe of its activities.

ITC’s sales effort embraces every category of film ond television programmes — from documentaries ond religion on the one hand through the whole range of drama series to international variety, sport ond feature films.

It is unprecedented for any British company to have four major variety shows and four filmed series on the American networks in the same year.

THEATRES

The Stoll Theatre Corporation has had another successful year. Total admission receipts were slightly up although, due to rising costs and in particular the unfair burden of S.E.T., profits were marginally down.

MERCHANDISING AND PUBLISHING

Your merchandising and general publishing activities are now grouped together under Century 21 Enterprises. The merchandising division has been successful in obtaining exploitation rights for properties both inside ond outside the field of television. We hove been appointed exclusive licensees to handle a majority of CBS properties in the U.K. A new children’s comic titled ‘Joe 90’ was successfully launched and ‘TV 21,’ our other children’s weekly, celebrated its fourth anniversory.

RECORDS AND MUSIC

Pye Records. During the year, we completed a re-equipment of our recording studios with the most modern equipment and we are now able to record in eight track. This technical improvement hos attracted a great deal of further business to our studios from other record companies and third parties.

New overseas licensing arrangements have been made in many overseas countries, including Japan, Denmark, India and Pakistan. We are also delighted to report that exports increased by 41% over the previous yeor.

Soho Record Shops. During the year we completed negotiations to acquire the remaining 49% of the Alex Strickland chain of retail shops called Soho Record Shops.

Other Developments. Negotiations hove been completed with General Recorded Tape Company of California to form a joint record company in the States and negotiations are progressing to form a joint company in the U.K. for the manufacture of recorded tapes, cartridges and cassettes. This is a development of major importance for our record ond music division.

Music Publishing. In line with our policy of planned expansion in the music publishing field, on agreement was reached for the purchase of a 32.1% share in Northern Songs, additional to the 2.7% which ATV already owned. As part of the agreement, an offer was made for the purchase of the remaining shareholding in the company. This offer has now lapsed and your Board is keeping the position under review. Meanwhile, Mr. Jack Gill and Mr. Louis Benjamin have been elected to the Board of Northern Songs to represent your interests.

Welbeck Music continues to flourish. It has extended its agreements with the Music Corporation of America and has also formed two new music companies with M.C.A.

PROPERTY AND INVESTMENT

Bentray’s first major development, Paradise Centre in Birmingham has got off to a good start. The television studios will be fully complete in the Autumn, approximately twelve months after a start was made.

We are now embarking on the second stage, the building of car parks, restaurant and multi-purpose Hall/Theatre together with some offices ond a canteen for ATV Network. The foundations of the tower block are also being laid at the present time and we hope this great feature in Birmingham will be completed in 1972. Negotiations for an hotel are also well advanced.

British Relay Wireless and Television Ltd. BRW, in which we have on important investment, continues to move steadily ahead. The Group is one of the largest rental and relay organisations in the U.K. and long-term prospects remain extremely bright.

Canada. During the year a contract was mode with Western Broadcasting Company of Vancouver to sell our investment holding company in Canada — Canastel Broadcasting Corporation — at a price around $2½million [C$20m]. The necessary Government consents have been obtained and completion was effected at the end of July. This sale represents a profit on the original investment of approximately $1 million [C$8m].

OTHER ACTIVITIES

Ambassador Bowling. In spite of the very adverse conditions in the Bowling Industry which resulted in the closure of twenty bowling centres operated by competitors, your subsidiary company, Ambassador Bowling, has remained profitable.

Planned Music. Soles of contracts for Muzak continue to improve and hove now reached a record level with a 20% rise on the preceding year.

Bermans. The post year turned out to be outstandingly successful for Bermans. Its profits increased by 70% to a record level. The Company’s established position as a leading costumier to the theatrical industry outside the United States has been further strengthened.

MANAGEMENT AND STAFF

The past year has been a difficult one for the United Kingdom’s economy as a whole and this has produced many snags and problems for the managements of your Group of Companies. In particular the problems arising in Independent Television have been extreme. Your Boord wishes to express its gratitude to the management of all ATV’s companies and their staff for their efforts over the past year.

The post ATV financial results: 1969 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

REASONS FOR DECLINE IN PROFITS

LEVY ON TURNOVER A DISTORTION OF TAXATION PRINCIPLE

GOOD NEWS REGARDING SECOND INDEPENDENT CHANNEL

SIR ROBERT RENWICK ON EFFECT OF NEW AGREEMENTS

The 8th annual general meeting of Associated Television Limited will be held on 26th August, 1963, at 12 noon at ATV House, Great Cumberland Place. London W.1

The following is the statement of the chairman. Sir Robert Renwick, Bt., B.E. circulated with the report and accounts for eleven months ended 31st March, 1963:-

Your Directors decided that it was in the interest of the Company to change its year-end date from 30th April to 31st March and the Accounts now before you are, therefore, for a period of eleven months to 31st March, 1963.

You will see from the Consolidated Profit and Loss Account that the profit of the Group before taxation is £3,405,714 [£59.1m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] for the eleven months as compared with £5,038,204 [£87.5m] for the previous twelve months. This profit is after charging all expenses including depreciation. Taxation based on the profit for the period amounts to £1,556,005 [£27m] and, after making allowance for this and for the interests of outside shareholders, there is left a profit of £1,860,135 [£32.3m] attributable to ATV

The amount retained in subsidiary companies is £249,706 [£4.3m] leaving £1,610,429 [£28m]. Arising from the change in the Parent Company’s year-end date, certain provisions for taxation, made in previous years, amounting £1,546,000 [£26.8m] are no longer required and, together with the unappropriated balance brought forward from last year of £2,424,909 [£42m], make available for appropriation now an amount of £5,581,338 [£96.9m].

An interim dividend of 20% has already been paid and your Directors now recommend a final dividend of 21.25% making a total of 41.25% for the eleven months. This is equivalent to 45% for the full year as against 60% paid in respect of the year to 30th April, 1962. If this recommendation is approved and after transferring a further £500,000 [£8.7m] to Investment Reserve there will be left a balance of £3,906,486 [£67.8m] in the Accounts of the Parent Company.

Balance Sheet Items

Turning to the Consolidated Balance Sheet it will be noted that the Investment Reserve has been used to offset the Goodwill arising on consolidation. Current Assets have increased during the period by £518,077 [£9m] to £8,558,556 [£149m] whereas Current Liabilities have decreased by £816,170 [£14.2m] to £7,440,500 [£129.2m]. It will be noted, however, that Advances from Bankers have increased by £1,781,020 [£30.9m] to £3,018,618 [£52.4m]; this is in the main due to increased investment in the Group’s Fixed and Current Assets and the payment of an exceptionally heavy taxation liability in respect of the financial year 1960/61.

In deciding to change the year-end date from 30th April to 31st March, your Board recognised that this would inevitably mean the exclusion of the profit deriving from one of the more remunerative months in the calendar. Had the trading results for April been included, the profit figures would have been substantially higher.

A decline in profits would nevertheless have been revealed. This decline is due to a variety of causes. In the first place, there has been a drop in revenue from advertising of approximately 5%. Secondly, certain of the subsidiary companies have, as anticipated, made losses in the early stages of their development. Thirdly, the Company was feeling the full effects of the new agreements with Equity and the Musicians’ Union and, to a lesser extent, of a new agreement with the Variety Artistes’ Federation. Some indication of the increases which the Company had to meet in programme expenditure may be gauged by citing a few examples. The settlement with Equity on which work was resumed on 6th April, 1962, provided a new minimum fee for an actor on a networked programme of 36 guineas [£37.80 in decimal, £656 with inflation]; the old fee was 10 guineas [£10.50/£182]. The settlement with the Variety Artistes Federation reached on 17th November, 1961, provided for a new minimum fee of £30 [£521] for a networked programme as against 10 guineas: the settlement with the Musicians’ Union reached on 10th April, 1962, gave a minimum fee of £18 [£312] for a networked programme as against £6 [£104] under the previous arrangement.

Threat of the Television Bill

Historically, the year 1962/63 will be remembered by your Board as one of many and major preoccupations, chiefly concerned with the future of Independent Television in general and with the future of this Company in particular.

In June, 1962, the Report of the Pilkington Committee, which was appointed in July, 1960, was at last published. This Report, which proved to be hostile towards Independent Television as a whole, recommended the total abolition of the system as we know it to-day and the substitution for it of a system whereby the Independent Television Authority was to plan the programmes, arrange for their networking and for the selling of the advertising time – leaving Companies, such at ATV, to play the role merely of programme suppliers to a Government Authority.

It is to the credit of the Government that the main recommendations of the Pilkington Report were rejected. Nevertheless, when, on 20th December, 1962, the Postmaster-General presented his Television Bill it was immediately apparent that the atmosphere Pilkington was still pervasive. For, although it was recommended that the Programme Companies should continue as full operators of the television service in their various areas, it was laid down in the Bill that the Authority should be able to specify not only which programmes should be networked but at what price the originator should be required to supply them.

Nor was this all. The financial provisions in the Bill included a clause empowering the Postmaster-General to impose additional charges on the Programme Companies by way of a tax on profits deriving not only from the operation of a television licence but from the operation of any subsidiary company or companies.

It was because your Board felt that such a discriminatory tax was most improper that we took action. First, I wrote to shareholders warning them of the gravity of the situation; then, on behalf of your Board, I issued a number of statements to the Press; finally, I sought, and obtained, an interview with the Postmaster-General and corresponded with him. Throughout I made it my business to see that Members on both sides of Parliament were informed of the true facts of the situation

I mention these matters because in certain quarters much play has been made of a Television Lobby and the activities of a so-called Television “pressure group”. Those who have been most vociferous in expressing their disapproval have completely ignored the fact that within Independent Television there are nearly as many points of view as there are Companies, and that it was only in respect of certain limited objectives that there was any measure of agreement at all. This state of affairs seems to me healthy. democratic and in the true spirit of free enterprise.

So far as ATV is concerned I would regard it as a total dereliction of my duty as Chairman if, faced by a situation which could obviously be grievously harmful to your Company, I had not exerted every legitimate effort to induce the Government to revise its thinking.

The Board, and shareholders in general, have every reason to be grateful to your Deputy Chairman, Mr. Norman Collins, for the unsparing and untiring work which he devoted to securing improvement in the Television Bill.

An Ill-conceived Levy

Not that our efforts were entirely successful. Quite the contrary, in fact. For on 25th April, 1963, the Postmaster General suddenly withdrew his proposed omnibus tax on profits and substituted for it an arbitrary – and I think thoroughly ill-conceived – levy on turnover. In my view the levy is entirely mis-applied. The purpose of a turnover tax, as it is usually called. is to extract money for the Exchequer at the various stages where profit has accrued in a developing economic process – say between the suppliers of raw materials, the manufacturers, the wholesalers and the retailers. To attempt to apply it to an industry such as Independent Television which has only one operation – the earning money from advertisements to enable it to put out a free service to the public – is clearly a distortion of this taxation principle.

In order to substantiate our case financial statements were made freely available to the Postmaster General and to his colleagues. These statements clearly indicated one thing, viz., that a levy on turnover would affect some Companies far worse than others – your own Company, I regret to say, worst of all.

Why? For the simple and inescapable reason that ATV with its dual and divided seven-day operation in London and the Midlands has two lots of overheads, two lots of studios, two lots of offices, two lots of programme costs and so forth. The revenue – now to be subject to the levy – earned from this dual operation is no larger, and may indeed be smaller, than the revenue earned by a Company operating a five-day service in one area only with one lot of overheads, one lot of studios, one lot of offices, one lot of programme costs and so forth.

The Postmaster General has now said that he will look to the Authority to iron out these inequalities by imposing a system of differential rentals as between the various Companies. It may well prove to be the case, however, that the inequalities are so great that it is only by some measure of re-allocation of days or areas that the Authority will be able to seek to redress the balance.

Competition Achieved

Nevertheless, if your Board has failed in some of its efforts, there is cause for congratulation on one matter of major importance. On 27th June the Postmaster General announced in the House that by 1966, when there should be not fewer than 1½ million television sets in London capable of receiving a new 625-line service in UHF, he would authorise a second Independent Channel in the main areas. That is good news indeed and does much to remove the sourness of a singularly long and frustrating series of negotiations. It represents the culmination of a campaign that your Company alone has fought from the very beginning of Independent Television. Over the years we have repeated in Annual Report after Annual Report that we have never believed that a single Independent Television Service could comply with the basic requirements of the 1954 Television Act that “there is adequate competition to supply programmes between a number of programme contractors independent of each other both as to finance and also to control.” Within a single service the Companies inevitably tend to be complementary rather than competitive. Your own Board, moreover, has always felt that the advertisers. on whom the revenue to support Independent Television depends, should enjoy the freedom of buying in a competitive rather than a monopolistic market.

As the pioneer Company in advocating competition, ATV looks to play its full part over the years in the expanding field of Independent Television.

In the meantime. and for the immediate future. we have concentrated our efforts on making the most effective contribution that can be made in both the areas in which, under the terms of the licence, we are required to provide programmes. The success of London programming at the week-ends will be familiar to all the viewers who live within range of the Croydon transmitter.

4,000,000 Audience in the Midlands

Not that we regard our Midland audience as in any way less important. For those who do not live within the area served by the Lichfield transmitter I should report that for the first time our audiences have topped the four million mark. Many notable figures from all political parties and from all walks of life have appeared in programmes. These have included the Prime Minister, both when he addressed the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce early this year and also when he made his important announcement on leadership only last month at Wolverhampton. In such regional programmes as “Midland Montage”, “Midland Profile”, and “Look Around”. Mr. Iain Macleod and Mr Ernest Marples have appeared; and Miss Jenny Lee and Mr Roy Jenkins have spoken for Labour.

ATV is particularly proud of being the first Company to introduce a regular mid-day programme, and Noele Gordon’s “Lunch Box”, now in its seventh year, is already running into its 1,600th edition. Scarcely less important is the children’s programme conducted by Jean Morton, “The Tingha and Tucker Club”, which now has an estimated membership of half a million children and is firmly established as the most popular children’s programme in Midland television.

Company’s Multiple Interests

From the earliest days of the Company your Board decided on a policy of diversification. In the result our production subsidiary, Incorporated Television Company Limited, has traded widely throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. ITC Ltd. deals with 42 countries in the Eastern Hemisphere, 21 of them in Europe, nine in the Middle East and North Africa, seven in Australasia and the Far East, and five Commonwealth countries in Africa. ITC Ltd. also deals with the three of the Islands in the British Caribbean which operate a television service.

During the twelve months ended 31st March, 1963, over 5,600 hours were sold in these territories, approximately 4,300 hours being sales of film series, the balance telerecordings and documentary-type programmes.

Sales in these areas in this period amounted to £336,810 [£5.9m], and this is a steadily expanding market.

In the U.S.A., Independent Television Corporation has again shown progress in distributing our productions in the Western Hemisphere. Though trading conditions have been difficult within the USA. this Company since its inception has brought not less than $12 million [$119.3m] into this country.

“Fireball XL5”, beginning in the autumn, has been taken for showing on one of the principal American networks, while both “The Saint” and “Broadway Goes Latin” are being sold for syndication.

In partnership with the National Broadcasting Corporation of America and Herbert Brodkin, we are producing twenty-six one-hour episodes of “Espionage” in England. Our Group has world-wide distribution rights in this series outside the U.S.A. The series is to be shown on the N.B.C. Network as well as by our Company in the U.K. and has already been sold for transmission in Australia, Canada and Japan. The production on film of any television series necessitates considerable expenditure which can be recovered only over a period of years and provided a satisfactory sale can be secured in the U.S.A. Not the least of the reasons for deprecating the new levy on turnover is the fact that less money will be available for the production of film series which are vitally important both for home use and for export.

I am happy to say that Australia has emerged from its recession to which I referred last year and the results from our group investments in Australia have once again produced better figures. Our investment in Canada is also making satisfactory progress.

The build-up of our background music service, Muzak, is continuing slowly but steadily. It will be appreciated, however, that inevitably heavy investment in the development of this type of service will take some time before it can be fully recovered and the Company be made profit-making.

In the last eighteen months we have taken the first steps to set up and operate a chain of tenpin bowling centres. Our wholly owned subsidiary, Ambassador Bowling Limited, now has two centres in operation and a further three or four will be in operation in the course of the next twelve months. It is already apparent that tenpin bowling is a sport which has found considerable favour in this country and I am sure that this new venture of ours will prove remunerative over the years.

Pye Records Limited, in which your Company has a 50% holding, continues to make excellent progress and with the advent of its up-to-date recording studios will, I am confident, continue to expand.

As to our large investment in British Relay Wireless and Television, as shareholders will appreciate from the figures recently produced by that Company, it is progressing well.

Top Management

During the year under review,. your Company has seen major changes in top management. Mr. Val Parnell, who has acted as your Managing Director from the inception of the Company, retired at his own request. The services which he rendered during the formative years of the Company cannot be over-valued and we are delighted that he has agreed to remain on the Board and to act in a general advisory capacity, in addition to remaining responsible for one of the most popular programmes on Independent Television, “Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium”. Your Board was fortunate in having his successor so close at hand. Mr. Lew Grade, who over the years has acted as Mr. Parnell’s deputy, was immediately appointed to the top post. Mr. Grade’s appointment has proved to be universally popular throughout the industry and has been widely acclaimed by the Press. The Board regards itself as equally fortunate in obtaining the services as deputy to Mr. Grade of Mr. Edward J. Roth who, prior to joining your Company, was Director-General of Radio Eireann.

In the general context of Independent broadcasting as a whole I am happy that the date of this Annual Report makes it possible for me to be the first to express the feelings of the industry as a whole in welcoming the Rt. Hon. Dr. Charles Hill, now Lord Hill of Luton, as the new Chairman of the Authority. In doing so most warmly I will take this opportunity of thanking Sir John Carmichael who has acted Chairman since the retirement last November of Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick. Independent Television has never felt that it has had a wiser counsellor than Sir John. Once again I would like to express the appreciation of ATV to the Director-General of the ITA, Sir Robert Fraser, and to his colleagues within the Authority.

And now a word of tribute to our staff in London, Birmingham and elsewhere the world over. Despite the cloud of political uncertainties which has hung over the industry every member of ATV’s staff has worked most loyally throughout the year and the Board wishes to express its keen appreciation.

The post ATV financial results: 1963 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

POLICY OF “REAL COMPETITION” ADVOCATED THROUGH ADDITIONAL COMMERCIAL T.V. CHANNEL

LOWER PROFIT FROM REDUCED REVENUE, GREATLY INCREASED COSTS AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENDITURE ON NEW SUBSIDIARIES

SIR ROBERT RENWICK CRITICIZES ATTACK ON ADVERTISING

The Seventh Annual General Meeting of Associated Television Limited will be held on September 26 at ATV House, Great Cumberland Place, London, W.

The following is the statement by Sir Robert Renwick, Bt, K.B.E., the chairman, circulated with the report and accounts for the year ended April 30, 1962:—

You will see from the consolidated profit and loss account that the profit of the Group before taxation is £5,038,204 [£89.4m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] as compared with £6,411,899 [£113.8m] for the previous year. This profit is after charging all expenses including depreciation. The provision for depreciation of £439,986 [£7.8m] shows an increase of £157,463 [£2.8m] as compared with the previous year, due to the fact that this is the first year in which is charged a full year’s depreciation on new equipment at our Elstree Studios.

After making allowance for taxation of £2,658,935 [£47.2m] and the interests of outside shareholders, there is left a profit of £2,387,884 [£42.4m] attributable to ATV.

The amount retained in subsidiary companies is £113,708 [£2m] and the balance brought forward from last year is £1,859,608 [£33m], making £4,133,784 [£73.3m] available for appropriation.

An interim dividend of 20 per cent has already been paid and your directors now recommend that a final dividend of 40 per cent be paid again this year. If this recommendation is approved, there will be left a balance of £2,424,909 [£43m] to be carried forward in the accounts of the parent company.

Consolidated Balance-Sheet

Turning to the consolidated balance-sheet it will be noted that under the heading of fixed assets there have been increases both in land and buildings and in plant, equipment and motor vehicles. These are attributable to our new studios at Elstree which are now completed and fully equipped. Whereas the total of trade investments has not altered materially, it will be noted that quoted shares have increased and debentures and loan stock have decreased. This is mainly due to the conversion into shares of the £500,000 [£8.9m] convertible loan stock in British Relay Wireless and Television Limited.

We already have in our balance-sheet an investment reserve of £500,000. Taking our trade investments and investments in subsidiary companies together, your directors are satisfied that the present investment reserve is adequate.

The reduction in Group profit for the year is due to three main causes — greatly increased cost of operations, reduction in advertisement revenue and losses made by subsidiaries in early stages of development

We believe that in time our subsidiaries will make a very useful contribution to the income of your Company. We have never stated, as I have seen reported, that our Company could maintain its present dividend from sources other than the profit which we make as television programme contractors. Our profit at present comes mainly from our operations as contractors for Saturday and Sunday in London and for the five weekdays in Birmingham and the Midlands. These two broken periods are, economically far from ideal.

We advocate a policy of real competition in Commercial television through an additional commercial channel. If we were to have a seven-day operation, not only would there then be real competition, but we would be able to use to the fullest degree, both at home and through our export subsidiaries, the new studios which we have constructed at Elstree, which are the equal of any in the world.

Efforts to Improve Television

Our purpose is to provide good television, and by ploughing back profits into the studios at Elstree we have supplied concrete evidence that we are making in the field of television production the sort of contribution which the Government must have believed in when we were appointed. Nevertheless, it must be appreciated that though we have been able to improve programme standards by bringing into operation the new studios at Elstree with their complex and up-to-date equipment, this has not been achieved without at the same time increasing production costs. Similarly the awards which have been made as a settlement of the Equity strike are also contributing to increased day-to-day costs of putting programmes on the air.

Last year my predecessor in his statement said: “We confirmed to the Pilkington Committee that we accepted the recommendations of the Television Advisory Committee for the adoption of 625 lines as the British standard. In order to give effect to this we offered, on the days we were not broadcasting in London, to put out a new programme on 625 lines in the UHF band which would carry in addition one hour a day of 625 line colour broadcasting — all at our own expense. Surely this would be a great contribution, and something that would give encouragement to the scientists, the technicians, the script writers, the producers and all the many people who will benefit from an expansion of television broadcasting.”

There has been a great deal written about the profits which contractors have made. It is surprising to me that, when a contractor offers to divert a large slice of its profit and to plough it back into advancing the art of television broadcasting, as we proposed, this should not have been mentioned in the Pilkington Report. It seems to me that to use profits to expand the art of broadcasting and to make new programmes available is a better alternative than to force companies, by penal taxation, to pass money to the Exchequer to spend on providing the public, not necessarily with what the public enjoys, but with with what the Pilkington Committee thinks it ought to have.

I am not one to believe that we are called on to make any defence because of the profits we have made in recent years but I think it is a good thing to repeat what the Hankey Committee on television stated in 1945:—

“It is quite clear that, until the television service is well developed, commercial interests would not be willing to incur large expenditure for this purpose, owing, for example, to the limited audience served. In the early stages, therefore, we could not expect sponsored programmes to provide a substantial contribution towards the cost of the television service. In these circumstances and without prejudicing the matter for the future, we feel it would be premature to come to a conclusion on this question.”

I can say that, for several years before and after the war, the people concerned in promoting commercial television lost a considerable amount of money in financing the pioneering work and when eventually the Government agreed to set up a commercial television service it was far from easy to find sufficient sources of capital. This only confirmed the conclusions of the Hankey Committee.

No sooner had the independent television operation started than the rate at which money was being lost became so alarming that it was extremely hard to get any new money. In our own company almost the entire original capital was lost in the first year, so that, far from having “a licence to print money”, we found that we had a licence to lose money in millions. Yet a substantial number of the people who were original shareholders put their hands back into their pockets and produced further capital. Even so, it proved necessary to go outside the group for still further backing. It is easy to be wise after the event, but when one considers the risk involved in putting up money for what, on the best authority, was a very long-odds chance, I cannot agree that the criticisms of large profits are warranted.

It should not be forgotten, that, if risk capital had not been put up six years ago, we would not have had commercial television. We would still have the low standard of television broadcasting which existed at that time. Occasions are bound to arise when it may be necessary to depend on voluntary risk capital if the many projects and services of the future are to be developed. If the Government undermines the confidence of the investor it will make it impossible to get the financial support which will be required if we are to bring many new inventions to the light of day.

The most important objective in the day-to-day existence of your Company is the creation and production of programmes. In London we have Saturday and Sunday. These are the two days when the great mass of our people have time off from work and look forward to relaxation and pleasure. The daily drudgery of any worker can be lightened considerably if great care is given to filling periods of relaxation during the weekend by presenting the right sort of entertainment for ordinary people. We have tried to achieve this by giving pleasure while at the same time maintaining balance in our programmes.

The Pilkington Report

I do not intend in this statement to deal with the Pilkington Report in any detail. I feel that the ordinary people will decide the answer and not the extraordinary people. I would only point out the many references, often of an offensive character, about advertising which have been made in discussions about the report. Advertising is an honourable profession. Its standards in this country are recognized as high throughout the world. The Government is constantly calling for more and more exports. Now there is no weapon in this job of selling so important and vital to its success as advertising. Is it a crime to advertise? — it cannot be right to do it in one place and wrong to do it somewhere else. It is certainly wrong to attack advertising in the way it has been attacked and then to say “but it will be all right as long as the advertising is sold and handled by a state enterprise”.

Many shareholders have written to me about the effect of the Pilkington Report and I can only say to every one of them “You have made an investment in an undertaking which was permitted and promoted by the Government, and you have all the rights and all the freedom to take any legitimate steps you wish to protect your investment”. In the same way, I say to any and all of our viewers — “We are an adult people and each one of us individually has been entrusted with taking political and national decisions of enormous importance, but the Pilkington Committee has made it quite clear that there is one issue we are apparently not mentally capable of deciding, and that is the sort of programmes the majority of people want to see on their television screens”.

Successes Abroad

One of our more important subsidiaries, Incorporated Television Company Limited, continues to be the biggest producer and exporter of British television programmes. Following the network success in the United States and Canada of the “Danger Man” series, a further series “Sir Francis Drake” is being transmitted this summer on the NBC network. During the year, the “Supercar” series, using new techniques with animated puppets, was completed and has been equally successful both here and on the American continent.

Four film series, “Man of the World”, “The Saint”, “Fireball XL5” and “Broadway Goes Latin”, were about to go into production when the strike commenced and as a result of this over six months were lost. However, production is now in progress and we can only hope that there will be no interruption during the coming year; but of course the interruption in our production will affect our sales throughout the world during the present year.

Incorporated Television Company distributes the Group’s products in the eastern hemisphere and supplies these programmes to our American subsidiary, the Independent Television Corporation, for distribution in the western hemisphere. To date over 10,000 hours of programmes have been sold to 32 countries in the eastern hemisphere, covering Australasia. Scandinavia, Western Europe Eastern Europe. Middle East, Far East, India and Africa.

Very few British series have achieved a network showing in the United States of America and our American management have to be congratulated on their achievement.

Australia

Last year we referred to our investment in Australia where we have holdings in seven commercial radio stations including stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra, and we are partners in the Australia-wide McQuarrie Radio Network. In commercial television we have interests in eight stations, including Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane, which are firmly established and are now showing satisfactory returns. Of the remaining five stations, one is in Canberra and four are in important country centres but these stations only commenced transmission in 1962. In addition, we operate a radio programme production company which has a large market for its programmes overseas as well as in Australia.

Last year Australia suffered a severe income recession. I am glad to say we now see definite signs of recovery and look forward to much improved results in the future.

Canada

We continue to sell a substantial amount of material in Canada through the Independent Television Corporation. In addition, we have a capital investment in two Canadian television stations, one in Halifax and one in Vancouver. We were reconciled to the fact that it would take some time before these companies had expanded to the stage of income being able to carry the expenditure. One of the companies has already got into a profit position and the other is now likely to achieve profits ai an earlier date than we originally expected.

Planned Music Limited

Our subsidiary, Planned Music Limited, which promotes the distribution of suitable background music programmes in public buildings, offices, factories, &c., is gradually approaching a period of consolidation. In the last few years the expenses incurred in preparing the groundwork in this particular business were heavier than we had anticipated. During the build-up period the time taken to get G.P.O. lines laid down and contracts completed is a much longer operation than one would expect, and the shortage of certain Post Office lines has, to some degree, continued. A policy of developing in the known profitable areas, with good administration, will, I believe, bring us to a profit-making stage within the next two or three years.

Pye Records Limited, in which we have a substantial interest, progresses according to plan and, although large sums of money are required to establish a records business. We have been making profits for the last three years.

British Relay Wireless and Television Limited

Shareholders will know that for a considerable time we have had a substantial holding in British Relay Wireless & Television Limited. This is one of the leading line networks for bringing programmes into people’s homes and has been in existence for many years. In fact, the original company, Link Sound & Vision Services Ltd., was the first company in this country to operate successfully a system of transmitting television programmes by wire, and consequently doing away with the difficulties of interference and weak signal strength.

Because of the lack of public demand for new television sets, caused by the state of uncertainty while everyone waited for the Pilkington Report, the company has undoubtedly suffered during the last two years. It has nonetheless continued to build and extend its networks, confident that the added complexities of ultra high frequency broadcasting and colour would lead to a greatly increased demand for wire reception. British Relay’s networks are worth many millions of pounds and we know that, if the maximum effect is given to the White Paper recommendations on the number of channels, well over 80 per cent of the company’s existing cables will be able to take all these new programmes, including colour, with practically no capital cost. The future of British Relay is extremely bright and we will do everything possible to help it to become a great success.

In addition, in the field of pay vision, British Relay Wireless & Television Ltd. has a system which in my opinion is technically equal to any other, and certainly from the economic point of view has a great many advantages. 1 believe that pay vision is one of the certainties of things to come and in due course will be available to viewers in this country.

Tribute to Staff

I would like to bring a personal note into my concluding remarks. The strike put a great strain on your company. A large number of our employees had to spend some months in comparative idleness; this not only cost a great deal of money but was a soul-destroying period for everyone concerned. Yet, in spite of the frustration caused by enforced inactivity among staff who love their work, our people supported us wonderfully in that difficult time and were a great encouragement to my fellow directors who are responsible for the day-to-day management of the business.

With the strike at last settled, but almost before we could get back into our production stride, the Pilkington Report was published and more unsettlement was created.

Broadcasting depends on creative people — script writers, producers, directors, actors and technicians — and all of these were thrown into a well of doubt and despondency. It is quite clear to your board that, if we have to go through a long period of uncertainty about the future, this will do irreparable harm to British broadcasting.

We can only say to our staff that we appreciate their great loyalty and we shall do everything in our power to restore a sense of sanity and stability into the commercial side of British broadcasting which is recognized as being unequalled throughout the world.

The post ATV financial results: 1962 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

MR. PRINCE LITTLER REVIEWS YEAR OF ACHIEVEMENT AND EXPANSION

The Sixth Annual General Meeting of Associated Television Limited will be held on September 28 at ATV House, Great Cumberland Place, London, W.

The following is the statement by Mr. Prince Littler, C.B.E., the chairman, which has been circulated with the report and accounts:—

As shareholders will doubtless have seen, a notice appeared in the national Press on July 21 which read as follows:—

“Associated Television Results

The Directors of Associated Television, for the year ending April 30, 1961, announce a profit of £6,411,899 [£118.4m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed], against a profit for the previous year of £5,388,330 [£99.5m].

The Directors propose recommending the payment of a final dividend of 40 per cent against the payment for the previous year of 30 per cent”

I think that you will agree that this brief but highly satisfactory notice covers the first essential that our shareholders will want to know about their investment in this company, which holds the I.T.A. licence to operate commercial television in London at the weekends and in the Midlands during the weekdays.

There are, however, various sides to the company’s interests and at the end of this address I propose to deal in detail with the more important subsidiary activities of your company.

I think this is a suitable year in which to use our annual report to review what has happened in this company since its foundation, and also to bring our shareholders, as it were, into our board room atmosphere so that they will understand the thinking which has been behind the policies adopted by your directors and appreciate the very able way your executives have put these policies into operation.

In a review of this nature I think there is no better way to start than with an examination of the people who are responsible for running the business.

The Board of Directors supporting me so ably at this moment have all been with the company during its formative years and they are drawn from the learned professions, trade, show business, the Press, state broadcasting, the City, and the great engineering industries. This cross-section of British life at our monthly Board Meetings, on a great number of committees, and at many informal gatherings, literally “lives” television broadcasting and feels the great responsibility we bear in building this organization. In our work we have all been inspired by the adventurous spirit of pioneering in this, the most powerful form of mass communication.

Our Board has become a team where each member, retaining his individuality, has made his own contribution to the eventual unity of both opinion and decision which has marked the history of this company. This team spirit has permeated right down through the organization, and our executives who sit on the Board and those executives who do not, all have a feeling of enormous strength because of the single-minded support and understanding which they get around the board room table.

Many people in many places have argued at great length about who were and who were not responsible for starting commercial television. The point at issue surely is not who started it, but who were the people who have made it the enormous success that it is. I remember many of the arguments which were used on the floor of the House of Commons to show why commercial television would be a bad thing. Above all the arguments one stood out — the oft-quoted Gresham’s law that evil drives out good. A picture was painted showing commercial television as an evil thing likely to force the B.B.C. to lower its standards in order to compete. Looking back now, it is universally acknowledged that, from the moment commercial television started, the B.B.C. programmes became more diversified and the general standard improved, so that not only did the “evil” not drive out the “good”, but the good became better. We in this company recognize that there is a place for both the B.B.C. and companies like our own, and I trust that the feeling of toleration, and often of mutual admiration, will long continue.

When this company started, very few people had any clear idea of how the operation would expand or what the difficulties would be. I have told you at our previous annual meetings that the most prominent feature in those first three years was the rate at which it was possible to lose money. We also learned something else — how difficult it was to get financial support to replace the money we had lost, and therefore, at this stage, it is some gratification to all of us that the shareholders who had the courage to invest in difficult times, and who have gone on investing in this company, sometimes at what might appear to be very high prices, still placed their confidence in our ability to make commercial television broadcasting a success.

Our company has always believed in competition and the decision of the I.T.A. to limit our London broadcasting to weekends is far from our idea of true competition, but, at the time that broadcasting licences were given, we had no alternative but to accept. We believe we should have a competitive seven-day-a-week operation in London where there would be true competition between two commercial stations.

The Pilkington Committee

This brings me to the subject of the Pilkington Committee. This committee was set up by the Government to review the whole broadcasting position and to lay down recommendations for the future.

When the announcement of the formation of the Pilkington Committee was made, we immediately set up a study group to give expression to our own point of view and to give any help we could to the Committee, particularly with regard to the changes which had taken place from the technical and political points of view. Our study group reported that there would not be enough space in the existing television broadcasting bands to enable two competing commercial broadcasting stations to operate in all areas. This fact emerged without any regard to the claims the B.B.C., might make.

We therefore were at a loss to reconcile our belief in the necessity for the competition of a seven-day operation with the incontestable conclusion that there was not sufficient space in Bands I and III.

Your Board, ably supported by our technicians, has always held the point of view that broadcasting companies, commercial or otherwise, must give a lead in all matters of technical television progress. When we first obtained our concession we recognized that it was under technical standards which might have been satisfactory when Britain established the first television service in the world in 1936 but which today had become obsolete, and gradually we, together with others, would have to encourage scientific progress and the adoption of higher broadcasting standards. Our endeavours to deal with the dilemma of creating competition in the London area became the starting point of the proposals which we made to the Pilkington Committee on May 2.

The policy we put forward meant making considerable sacrifices and I am convinced that whether our proposals are actually adopted or not, something on their lines will figure in the recommendations of the Pilkington Committee:—

1. because our proposals are scientifically progressive;
2. our proposals demonstrate a progressive attitude on the part of a commercial television contractor offering to undertake a substantial material, technical and cultural responsibility at his own expense;
3. we offer a method of creating a spirit of competition between contractors;
4. we propose the adoption of new technical standards in line with the development in countries associated with the Eurovision system;
5. we would explore the use of equipment in a new part of the ether in order to make way for colour television and other services.

We confirmed to the Pilkington Committee that we accepted the recommendations of the Television Advisory Committee for the adoption of 625 lines as the British standard. In order to give effect to this we offered, on the days we were not broadcasting in London, to put out a new programme on 625 lines in the UHF band which would carry in addition one hour a day of 625 line colour broadcasting — all at our own expense. Surely this would be a great contribution, and something that would give encouragement to the scientists, the technicians, the script writers, the producers and all the many people who will benefit from an expansion of television broadcasting.

Six Years of Independent Television

When a completely new industry comes into being virtually overnight with the suddenness of commercial television, one of the great problems is that of staff.

Some people came over to us from the B.B.C. — by now some have gone back, this is a healthy interchange — and some, on the technical side, came from the electronics industry. Writers came to us from the newspaper and magazine worlds, and directors and producers joined us from the stage and the films. Thus we gathered together a body of experts in related activities, but, by and large, everybody had to make a fresh start and find the answers to a new set of problems in a new medium.

I remember an executive describing his excitement at joining commercial television and finding a desk with a sheet of blank paper on it — that was all — the rest was up to him.

It should be put on record that the efforts of the staff of our company have made the success of the business possible. Their intelligence, enthusiasm and long hours of gruelling work, often after the ordinary day’s work was done, were factors which not only gave great support to the Board but became the basis of our continuing progress.

I now come to the most important interest both to your Board of Directors and to the company as a whole.

When a television broadcasting station is started, everything centres around your audience. More than ever this was vitally important in the case of the establishment of the British commercial system.

A great battle had raged in the House of Commons about how commercial television would handle a potential audience. Everyone knew that Britain had established one of the finest broadcasting machines in the world — the B.B.C. — with enormous wealth, subsidized by licences, not answerable to the House of Commons, and with all the privileges which accrue to a state service. It was for the audience that had hitherto been served by the B.B.C. that commercial television had to compete, and this was the challenge which we took up. And now after six years of television broadcasting I say with confidence that we have discharged our responsibilities and we have given a service which can stand the most detailed examination.

And what else have we as a broadcasting company done? We have endeavoured, and to a great degree succeeded, in giving our public good entertainment. We all know that there is a small sector of intelligent people who think our programmes are bad because they give the public what they want to see and not what the intelligentsia think they ought to see. Television broadcasting is meant to be entertainment, and while we recognize that the standard of taste ot a great number of the viewers in this country could be higher, we feel it is essential not to get too far ahead of our public, but rather to lift, gradually, the quality of our programmes on a progressive basis.

Television in the Midlands

It is right to refer with emphasis to the importance of that half of our business which stands independently on its own feet as the Midland Television Broadcasting Station for five days a week.

Your Board from the outset has always considered the Midlands a self-contained organization and not an offshoot of a big operation based in London and has therefore appointed a Midlands Controller responsible for its operation.

The Midlands is a country all on its own, and with the new power from the Lichfield transmitter, 2,366,000 homes are covered nightly. Great towns like Leicester, Gloucester, Hereford, Shrewsbury, Stoke, Birmingham, Coventry, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Burton, Nottingham, Northampton, Worcester, West Bromwich, Dudley and many others are spread around in this independent-minded area.

In the South, viewers think of ATV as one of the two London Companies. In the Midlands, they regard ATV as one of the two Midland Companies. ATV is responsible for all the weekday programmes and to 5.4 million viewers in the Midlands, ATV is much more than a symbol on the television screen — it is an important and accepted feature of the Midland scene.

The Midlands programmes include many not seen on the London screen. Lunch Box, Britain’s first regular midday television programme, has now had an unbroken run of well over 1,000 performances. Each weekday in Midlands News (the first regional news programme on British television), the ATV News Unit brings to viewers an up-to-date account of local news and events in the Midlands, while the weekly events are reflected in Midland Montage. The documentary series Look Around features topics of interest ranging from the Severn Story to an investigation of witchcraft in the Cotswolds. The weekly programme Midland Farming not only informs farmers of the newest trends and techniques but instils in the town dweller a new respect for the countryman. New records in late-night viewing have been established by the weekly Midland Profile in which Midlanders tell their life stories. Other regular programmes include the highly popular Hook, Line and Sinker for anglers, features of interest to gardeners and special outside broadcasts of many kinds. A notable series of afternoon programmes has been presented from the famous Cordon Bleu Cookery School.

Last year ATV set up a special department for the development of its television service for Midlands schools, under the guidance of a distinguished education advisory committee. The first two series, French from France and Ici La France were produced by ATV entirely in France. They were first shown in the Midlands from January this year. From September these two series will be seen throughout the country, together with a new ATV series in mathematics. A further ATV schools series on chemistry will also be presented in the Midlands from the same date. These are just a few of the ways in which ATV is serving the Midlands of England.

The profits from this area have been most satisfactory. The standard of programmes has been high. The public has been enthusiastic about the entertainment; and our engineers have seen, by the establishment of a two-way television micro-wave link operating all through the day and night, that we have the closest communication between our two stations.

Profit and Loss Account

Now I will refer back to my opening remarks in this review and tell you about the profits for the year. You will see from the Consolidated Profit and Loss Account that the profit of the Group before taxation is £6,411,899 [£118.4m] as compared with £5,388,330 [£99.5m] for the previous year, an increase in excess of £1m [£18.5m]. This profit is after charging all expenses including depreciation. The provision for depreciation of £282,523 [£5.2m] shows an increase of £27,481 [£507,000] as compared with the previous year. It should be noted that directors’ fees and directors’ other emoluments are lower than in the previous year. Income from Trade Investments which forms part of your company’s profits, is £32,933 [£608,000] higher than last year.

From the profit mentioned above taxation absorbs £3,239,810 [£59.8m] and the profit attributable to outside shareholders in subsidiary companies is £25,037 [£462,000], leaving £3,147,052 [£58m] profit attributable to ATV.

After deducting the amounts retained in subsidiary companies of £84,348 [£1.6m] and adding the previous year’s unappropriated profit of £505,779 [£9.3m] there is £3,568,483 [£65.9m] available for appropriation.

From this figure has to be deducted the interim dividend of 20 per cent paid on January 24, 1961, leaving £2,998,858 [£55.4m] for disposal. In view of the results achieved during this period your directors recommend a final dividend of 40 per cent making 60 per cent for the year as compared with 50 per cent for the previous year. This increased dividend, if approved, will absorb £1,139,250 [£21m], leaving £1,859,608 [£34.3m] to be carried forward in the accounts of the parent company.

Consolidated Balance Sheet

Turning to the Consolidated Balance Sheet it should be noted that the accounts of our American subsidiary, Independent Television Corporation, have been included for the first time. This is reflected in the increase in goodwill, film rights, debtors, creditors and advances from bankers. The considerable increase in fixed assets is mainly due to the building of our new television centre at Elstree.

I feel that the item Trade Investments requires some explanation. Trade Investments have increased on account of additional investments in British Relay Wireless & Television Ltd. (mentioned elsewhere in the report) and in Canadian television and because of a revaluation of certain of our Australian assets. However, these increases have to a certain extent been offset by the removal of the investment in Independent Television Corporation, which has now become a subsidiary company.

The reduction in bank balances, deposits and cash in hand has been caused mainly by the construction of the Elstree Studios and by additional investment.

Bricks and Mortar

“Bricks and mortar” is the descriptive phrase the bankers use when they talk about the buildings on the asset side of a balance sheet. In a broadcasting service bricks and mortar come into your calculations at practically every turn.

In broadcasting you need big buildings and small buildings, buildings in this location and that location, and they are all part and parcel of your work.

If you try to centralize, too much time is wasted by important people travelling. Again, actors may be wanted for rehearsal at a moment’s notice and it is quite impossible to take them far from the location where they are appearing. Therefore, many buildings are necessary in many different places. Some, for instance, are wanted for quick rehearsals, some for storage for special materials, some for administrative offices near the seat of a particular operation. All of these buildings together with our centrepiece for production — Elstree — make up the pattern of our efficient ATV organization.

The Head Office building at ATV House, Great Cumberland Place, of 120,000sq. ft. houses the main administration, our sales organization, and also our subsidiary ITC. In the basement are recording studios for our associated company Pye Records, and a West End TV studio for special presentations and interviews with V.I.P.s.

When Elstree is fully completed the Wood Green Theatre, an ex live-variety theatre of 20,000 sq. ft. will still remain operational. There, shows like Startime and Saturday Spectacular, requiring audience participation are being produced.

Foley Street, in the West End of London of some 11,000 sq. ft. is the home of master control and is the switching centre.

With the growing importance of the Midlands we have outgrown our premises at Herbert House, Birmingham, and have taken a lease of the entire ground floor at Rutland House, a handsome new building in Edmund Street, Birmingham. Also in Birmingham we own and jointly operate with ABC the Aston Studios of some 22,500 sq. ft, where such popular shows as Lunch Box and all other local programmes are produced.

In Manchester we maintain an outpost so that our sales force can keep in contact there with agents and advertisers.

Finally, we have small but most important premises located at Hillcrest, Highgate, overlooking London, and a similar place in Birmingham where the signals are picked up and relayed to our master control centres.

Elstree Studios and our Technical Story

Many of the great television programmes of the future, not only on British screens but on screens all over the world, will show what will become a famous caption, “An Elstree Programme”.

We always planned, from the beginning of our contract with the Independent Television Authority, to have an imaginative yet highly functional group of buildings which would give the greatest possible scope to free enterprise television to create programmes of the highest quality.

Now, here at Elstree, on 31 acres, one can see this conception taking shape and, down to the last detail, the organization has been undertaken by our own executives. A team of experts has worked and striven for the last 18 months to take Elstree through its first stages, and engineers and production people have all contributed to achieve an outstanding result. Only people with great faith in the future of commercial television would have undertaken this vast operation. Now we are ready to give the best programmes to an expanding British television service; to give scope for their abilities to script-writers; to give producers and directors the last word in service, and to actors the best possible facilities.

Some of the techniques already developed by our engineers are being used by broadcasters as the basis for their operations in North America and the Commonwealth as well as in this country, and our new studios incorporate many new and valuable devices. In deciding the types of equipment to be used there were two major considerations — the need to allow for a probable change in line standard and the speed of technical advance. The electronics industry is developing new devices and components at such a rate that considerable imagination is needed to design equipment that will not be out-dated before it is built.

The new A.T.V. studios of 9,500 and 6,000 sq. ft. will accommodate not only the 625-line system but also the 525-line system of the United States and Canada. This is in keeping with our policy of creating a programme production centre, where the aim is to produce complete programmes which go out on wire, microwave links, video-tape or any other recording medium which may become available.

As far as equipment is concerned, ATV, here working closely with the Pye Group, has not only incorporated equipment which is unique and in advance of that used in any other studio but has adopted modular or “building brick” construction so that when improved components become available the “ building bricks ” can be replaced by pulling out a unit and plugging in a new and better one. Great emphasis has been placed on the use of transistors wherever possible and alt synchronizing signal generation, picture selection and switching is done by transistors. Transistors are commonly used in everyday devices such as portable radios, but their application to television transmission equipment and to apparatus that can accommodate 405, 525 and 625-line signals is quite new.

There are many significant new components being developed which permit the improvement and widen the scope of technical equipment. ATV’s development department, which is responsible for the design and construction of a large quantity of the new gear now installed has many developments to be introduced when the studio project has passed phase two at the end of this year. For example, the miniature transistorized microphone, used to very great effect on outside broadcasts such as the perenially popular Sunday Night at the London Palladium, is to be redesigned to give even better performance and a completely transistorized microwave equipment of small size and light weight is well advanced.

Developments are in hand on new methods of filming our programmes. While the bulk of recording being done in this country and in America is on video-tape, ATV engineers believe that the future for the interchange of programmes is in the use of a compatible medium such as 16mm film. The limitations on this system are being probed and new and radical techniques are being sought to improve the technical quality of recording.

The second pair of studios is well ahead and will go into operation this autumn. These two studios were planned to be identical with the first two, but within the the short space of time between the installations it has been possible to introduce even newer devices. These will make the studios even more efficient than the first Vauxhall site the company should have been forced to expand elsewhere.

In early 1962, the central technical area will be complete. It will contain all the switching and distribution equipment necessary to coordinate the activities of the first four studios — telecine, video-tape and film recording—and adequate space is being reserved for new developments.

It should be realized what an enormous apparatus, apart from the equipment and the manpower to operate it, is required to produce regularly the programmes which feed the 17in. and 21 in. TV screens of our viewers. At Elstree alone, some 350,000 sq. ft of built-up area are needed by ATV for this purpose.

In the television industry at least ten times the space is required for auxiliary and ancillary purposes as for the actual studio floor space. In consequence, each studio has technical and general control areas of between 12,000 and 15,000 sq. ft., and a technical facilities building exists of some 20,000 sq. ft. Also, we have a production facilities building of some 76,000 sq. ft. housing the carpenters’ shops which make our scenery, the painters who paint the backcloths and flats, and in the props department enormous quantities of used props that are stored for future use. At this moment a producers’ building is going up covering an area of some 82,000 sq. ft., which will house the producers, directors, production assistants, libraries, and provide 10 rehearsal rooms with a floor space of 17,000 sq. ft. So far we have been using 17 different rehearsal rooms spread all over London with a total floor area of some 20,000 sq. ft.

Wardrobe, make-up and dressing rooms take up another 20,000 sq. ft., and ATV is particularly proud of the dressing rooms provided for artists appearing at Elstree — there is even a separate “dressing room” for the performing animals which are often used.

In the transport building of some 41,000 sq. ft. are garaging facilities for ATV’s fleet of transport and outside broadcast vans, also modern workshops as well, where ATV manufactures a great deal of the equipment used in its studios. Finally, so that nobody has to go hungry, there is a canteen geared to serve food to 700 people at one sitting.

The fulfilment of the Elstree project has relieved one of the most pressing needs which had been facing the company. For its future needs the company had already obtained an option on a site at Vauxhall on the South Bank. Owing, however, to planning delays inherent in so centrally situated a site, the company was compelled to make immediate arrangements for the development of its own Elstree studio site. It is a significant indication of the growth of this industry that, while retaining the Vauxhall site the company should have been forced to expand elsewhere.

An Eye to the Future

Three factors condition our attitude towards trainees in the production and technical fields. The need to keep pace with a medium which is hungry for new blood, new ideas, new techniques. The need to train enough talent to provide a “bank” upon which we can draw for replacement. The need to look to the future and provide for the time when the creation of a new network or networks will inevitably result in a serious drain upon the existing talent and experience.

The pattern of training in both the production and technical fields is the same. Once the trainee has been chosen by the selection board, he is immediately put under the wing of a senior member, or members, of the department concerned. The method and length of his training varies from department to department; but, assuming that the right man is chosen, his initial training is designed to expose him as fully as possible to all facets of the business of mounting a television programme. Because this must be the end product it emphasizes an interesting feature in the selection of trainees. It would be safe to assume that the production department would be most concerned with the creative talent of a trainee, and the technical departments with his technical know-how. This is broadly true, of course, but television has had to breed a new body — the engineer with a creative and artistic flair and the creative artist with technical knowhow, and the ability to be aware of and use the facilities available to maximum effect

All training processes vary with the individual and, inevitably, the selection of trainees is much like taking a chance in a lottery. We cut down the odds as much as possible by ensuring that the selection boards comprise the most experienced men in the company. The training, however, can never be the same for each trainee. Some are slow starters and, in the early stages, do not fulfil the promise shown; some leap ahead and, much like the hare in the fable, outstrip their contemporaries. Some never make it at all. But all need patience, perseverance and understanding and in this business more than most others, temperament must be considered and foresight exercized if the full potential of a trainee is to be realized.

Initiative and ideas are the life-blood of television. To get the best out of those who work for us, a great deal of freedom of expression must be granted. Freedom here does not mean licence. It does mean discipline; a need for the individual to learn the rules, the grammar of his job, and to use all his creative and technical ability to express himself within those rules. Every facility open to his seniors is open to the trainee. The only limit to his acquisition of the necessary knowledge is the limit of his own ability to absorb and learn. We are proud of our trainees, and the system we use to train them. Our percentage of success is high, and there is ample evidence that this company, which started in 1955 with the cream of talent and experience available, is passing that know-how down to those who join us along the way.

Incorporated Television

Your wholly-owned subsidiary, ITC—Incorporated Television Company Ltd., is the biggest exporter of British television programmes. ITC is responsible for the production of films which are distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere, including the Iron Curtain countries, and supplies these films to our American subsidiary in the Western Hemisphere. ITC is already a familiar name on the network screens of the United States and Canada, not least through the conspicuous success of the series Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan. ITC has produced over 1,600 half-hour programmes which have been sold throughout the world. Notable successes have included Robin Hood, Sir Lancelot, Buccaneers and The Invisible Man. It is not too much to say that ITC has contributed in large part to the country’s export drive and the earning of vital foreign currencies. ITC is currently engaged in the production of the series Sir Francis Drake, already sold to CBC in Canada and to the Australian Broadcasting Commission. This is being produced in association with ABC television. Also ITC is producing in conjunction with the Rank Organisation a new one-hour film series, Ghost Squad, already in release and the series has already been sold in the Canadian and Australian markets.

Australia

Every year we have further confirmation of how right was our judgment when we bought our interest in Australia a few years ago.

We have always realized the potential market of the television industry in Australia, and we had this in mind right from the first. Not only are we identified with one of the great radio networks in the Commonwealth, but we are partners in its expansion and in the extension of its reputation in Eastern and Southern Australia.

In addition to that, in so far as the Australian law permits us, we have entered the commercial television field in a substantial way through our organizations there.

Today, we have an investment in the following television broadcasting stations in Australia: Amalgamated Television, Sydney; Southern Television, Adelaide; Queensland Television, Brisbane; Canberra Television; Wollongong Television; Richmond-Tweed Television; Ballarat Television; and Country Television Services. We have no doubt that during the years to come, the same substantial development which our radio stations have achieved in the last 25 years lies in front of our television broadcasting operation.

In addition to ail this, Australia continues to expand as a market for our programmes from this country, and gradually the care and thought we have taken in sending to Australia the right programmes, is being reflected in the size of business we are doing.

Our North American Venture

One of the first plans our management had when we started to create programmes for our British audiences was to provide entertainment of a standard which would have a ready market overseas and particularly in the North American continent.

Here, we were conscious of the fact that the history of selling British entertainment in America has been fraught with difficulties, and in the case of the film industry – many failures. But we felt that to produce programmes of the quality that would sell to an American audience was a further spur to the competitive spirit which we believe is the basis of good broadcasting. We very quickly learnt that just to send somebody to the United States to sell programmes, without having an efficient and well-directed organization was merely a waste of time. For this reason, therefore, we decided some years ago to buy a half interest in a substantial American corporation — Independent Television Corporation.

In the light of experience we decided that if the operation of the American company was to be truly effective in your company’s interests nothing less than complete control would suffice. For that reason, as we reported last year, we bought the other half of the Independent Television Corporation. Having acquired control, we took steps to strengthen the management and reduce the overheads. We are now able to report that these steps have been successful and the operational period to April 30, 1961, has been a profitable one. We would congratulate our American management on their success.

The success of our American company depends on the quality and the amount of the films which the Incorporated Television company is able to make available. In the past, this vital supply was Insufficient, The measures which are being taken and which I have described to you should assure the supply for the future.

This will include Whiplash, Sir Francis Drake, Ghost Squad and Supercar with three more film series being prepared for production before the end of 1961.

Also on the American continent, we have continued to develop our interests in Canada by investing iq radio and television. Our Canadian subsidiary is Canastel Broadcasting Corporation Ltd. and this company now has interests in CJCH, the Halifax, Nova Scotia, commercial radio and television station, and in Vantel Broadcasting Company Ltd., the Vancouver commercial television station. Your board has other plans for developing the company’s interests both in the networking of programmes and in local stations.

The Link with Moscow

This year your company was responsible for providing “live” programme exchanges with the Soviet Union, and was the first to send back coverage of events in Moscow produced jointly between ATV’s production personnel and Soviet Union crews and technicians. The opening of the British Trade Fair in Moscow, at which Mr. Krushchev and many members of the Soviet Praesidium were present, was transmitted live from Moscow; the video-tape recording of the first programme from the Bolshoi Theatre to be seen outside Russia, and an outside broadcast video-tape recorded documentary on the Moscow scene have already been seen by our viewers.

Talks have taken place in Moscow with the USSR television organization and many more programme exchanges are planned for the future.

Gorki Street, USSR, a series of six programmes showing life in the Soviet Union, a programme series similar to the successful Main Street, USA, is in the planning stage, and in this series we will go to all parts of Russia, into the agricultural lands, into the industrial areas, as well as seeing life in the smaller towns.

An exchange of language programmes is being discussed similar to those already being produced in France for schools, and a joint production with Soviet television on the peaceful use of the atom involving both British and Soviet scientists is also in the early stages of planning.

Future plans covering programme exchanges with the Soviet Union include song and dance festivals and broadcasts from the Bolshoi and other famous Russian theatres.

British Relay Wireless & Television

Three years ago we took up half a million pounds worth of convertible loan stock in this company and, as this stock is on the point of being converted into ordinary shares, it is right that reference should now be made to this investment. Since we took up the loan stock, we have taken advantage of our rights to take up shares as if we had been ordinary shareholders in the company. The situation is that, when our stock is converted, we will hold 2,216,025 ordinary shares in the company.

This investment is very closely allied to our interests as television contractors to the Independent Television Authority. BRW & T is a company which was originally started as a radio relay organization and, some 10 years ago, it was amalgamated with the first television relay company in the country, the Link Sound and Vision company, who had an operation working in Gloucester. Gradually the field of operations of the company has expanded and, today, serves 17 metropolitan boroughs in London, has networks covering extensive areas of the West Midlands and Yorkshire and has recently extended its activities into Scotland.

Among the towns served are Ipswich, Peterborough and Corby; Smethwick and Oldbury and adjacent places; Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and intervening and neighbouring townships.

In Scotland networks have already been established in the principal border towns and in Dundee, while concessions have recently been secured for the operation of relay services in Ayr, Kilmarnock, Cumnock and Irvine in the west.

We recognize that, in a relay business, a substantial amount of capital has to be spent in putting down miles and miles of cable to cover the areas where valuable concessions have been secured. These cables, the terminal units and the station equipment which are concerned with the installation, have to be depreciated; and it is only when the bulk of the depreciation has been written off that the profitability of the undertaking becomes apparent. We believe this is the case with BRW & T. In addition, we are confident that the system, on which both sound and vision services are provided, is the best system that has yet been put into use.

With the possibility of a Pay-as-You-View television service becoming available in Great Britain, we are convinced that it is networks like BRW & T which stand in a most prominent position to derive the greatest advantage from such a service.

In addition, as we have said earlier in our Report, British television has technically to advance, and the networks controlled by BRW & T, with the minimum amount of alteration, can take the 625-line system which is generally anticipated and provide subscribers with the benefits of colour television as well.

Planned Music Ltd.

It is now over three years since we started this important subsidiary operation with the purpose of exploiting in the British Isles and certain other countries in the world the American form of background music called Muzak.

The essential difference between the use of normally recorded music and Muzak is that music as usually performed relies for part of its effect upon great changes of amplitude, or loudness, but in the case of Muzak, the character of the original work is preserved by suitable transcription in a form which is performed without great changes of amplitude, and this results in the music being conveyed to the listener without him suffering or being inconvenienced by very loud or very soft passages.

At first there was resistance to this new amenity in business and commercial life. With so many opportunities nowadays of demonstrating Muzak in operation this resistance is vanishing. There has remained, however, the difficulty of the shortage of certain Post Office lines. In consequence, rather than stand still, Muzak has gone into some territories before the development of the service has made them, in an economic sense, fully ripe.

In America, the market for background music is enormous. Muzak is a multimillion dollar business, and has more than 60 per cent of the market. Background music has become part of life practically everywhere — in offices, factories, banks, shops, restaurants, airport lounges, trains, hospitals, and many other places. Characteristically, this development has not been so early or so rapid in this country. We now estimate, however, that over one million people are regular listeners to a Muzak service in England which shows a good rate of growth in a steadily expanding market.

The aim of Muzak is to make life more pleasant; the influence of music is subtle, it relaxes tensions, helps people to be cheerful, imparts a rhythm and a swing to a task and an interest to an enforced wait.

Over the years, a library of many thousands of recordings for Muzak has been built up. This is a priceless asset as it enables us to give a very much wider choice and scope for endless variation to users of the service. This library is constantly growing as new music becomes available.

During this year, the extension of the services of the Muzak organization on a regional basis has continued and national coverage has now been attained in England. Regional offices exist in London, Reading, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle. Local and intensified development of the service continues in the main provincial centres. In addition, Travel Muzak is a new service now being supplied to airline operators and shipping companies.

A new company. Planned Equipment Ltd., has also been set up to handle public address and sound engineering services, including Audiomatic equipment. This is a machine which provides information in a number of different languages for foreign visitors to exhibitions. Our machines were a success at the British Trade Fair in Moscow and shareholders will be able to try one for themselves at this year’s Motor Show, where several wiil be installed.

Golden Guinea — and other Discs

In 1960-61 Pye Records Ltd., of which we own 50 per cent, had a year of continued expansion.

The record industry throughout the world has been passing through a period of change and experimentation. On the technical side we have seen the change from the old 78 r.p.m. shellac record to the modern long-player and more recently the development of the stereophonic record. Exciting as these changes have been, they have led to even more exciting developments in marketing techniques.

It was with the introduction of microgroove records 12 years ago that the “repertoire explosion” began. Suddenly, performances could be recorded and heard as never before. The parallel development of gramophone equipment which could do justice to these new recording techniques helped to accelerate the growth of public interest and new recordings were made and issued in ever increasing numbers. For a time the size of the market increased faster than the rate of increase in available recordings, but over the last few years it has become apparent that the industry is overproducing new products, resulting in a smaller sale of each production and a downwards squeeze on profits.

This has led the major companies, principally in the United States, to seek new and better ways of marketing their labels. We have seen there the development of low-priced mass-market labels as a means of producing business which places little reliance on the star quality of individual artists. We have seen in America, too, the sale of records through drug stores, supermarkets, and other outlets, and the development of record clubs run on similar lines to the book clubs.

This is not to say that our record business discounts in any way the value of and need for the established distribution pattern in this country. This is, after all, the backbone of the business; but if the industry is not to stagnate in the next few years new techniques must come, to be used intelligently and in such a way that all levels, i.e., manufacturer, distributor, and retailer, benefit from the overall increase in activity.

Last year was the first full year of direct to dealer trading, now developed so far that every important record retailer in the country is regularly visited, helped, and advised by our records van-man. The light blue vans with the Golden Guinea lettering are a familiar sight in every city and major town of the country.

Golden Guinea family-priced long playing records too are nationally known as the only range of records that give entertainment to all the family. One outstanding issue during the year on this label was the special presentation set of Handel’s Messiah on three records issued for Christmas.

In pops too our artists topped the popularity polls. Sales of their records continued to climb and this label now boasts one of the strongest line-ups of British recording artists in the country.

In Conclusion

In the foregoing I have sought to set out in more detail than in previous years the manifold nature of your company’s activities. In doing so I have paid tribute to the services rendered by the Directors and by our immensely able and devoted staff. I look forward to another year of progress in programme achievement, technical achievement and export achievement.

The post ATV financial results: 1961 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

A Memorable Year Yielding Eminently Satisfactory Financial Results

SUCCESS OF BOARD’S DIVERSIFICATION POLICY

The Industry’s Growth Continues

MR. PRINCE LITTLER’S REVIEW OF ACTIVITIES

The Fifth Annual General Meeting of Associated Television Limited will be held at A.T.V. House, Great Cumberland Place. London, W.1, on 28th September 1960.

The following is the statement by the chairman, Mr. Prince Littler, C.B.E.. which has been circulated with the report and accounts:-

The year under review has proved to be a memorable one and has yielded eminently satisfactory financial results.

The proposed dividend means that the Company will have maintained its dividend at the equivalent of 100%, bearing in mind that the capital of the Company was doubled during the course of the past financial year.

Board’s Policy

The principal business of your Company is that of a Programme Contractor licensed by the Independent Television Authority to trade in London and the Midlands, and it is primarily upon this trading that these excellent results have been achieved. It has, however, from the inception of the Company, been the policy of the Board to make investments in allied fields both at home and abroad and, in consequence of this policy, the resources of your Company are now more strongly diversified than any time since it commenced trading.

Developments overseas have proved particularly gratifying in Australia and in Canada. It should, moreover, be noted that in the USA, your Company has recently acquired full control of the Independent Television Corporation of America.

The diversified interests at home are highly encouraging and include the operation of the Muzak franchise, a 50% interest in Pye Records and a substantial and most profitable investment in British Relay Wireless. All these developments will be reported in detail later in this statement.

Success of Consolidation Policy

Your Company has been actively trading for some years. The period of licence from the Independent Television Authority extends until July 1964 and your Board has, with conspicuous success, sought to consolidate the Company’s position as the only major seven-day-a-week Company operating under licence from the Authority.

At the outset of operations your Managing Director, Mr. Val Parnell, and his Deputy Managing Director, Mr. Lew Grade, resisted the pressures put upon them to equip large studios and to build large offices. The volume of programming both for ATV’s own domestic purposes and for the Independent Network as a whole has, however, necessitated a plan of expansion, carefully phased over the past and current years. Your Company has therefore purchased the important riverside site at Vauxhall. Moreover, the Company has proceeded to enlarge its Elstree Studios in order to meet the steadily increasing commitments of live, tape and film production for home and overseas television as a whole.

New Headquarters

During the past year the headquarters of Associated Television Limited have been moved from Television House, Kingsway, to an island site office block in Great Cumberland Place, W.1. The effect of this move has been beneficial to the Staff, and has resulted in a marked increase in inter-departmental efficiency.

The financial results reflect the confidence expressed by your Board in December 1959 when an interim dividend of 8s. per share, less income tax, was declared on the Ordinary Shares of £1 each, and 2s, per share, less income tax, on the ‘A’ Ordinary Stock Units of 5s. each.

Bonus Issue Approved

At an Extraordinary General Meeting held on the 21st January 1960 the shareholders passed a resolution, submitted by your Directors, for the capitalisation of £2,325,000 [£44.3m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] of reserves by the issue of 9,300,000 ‘A’ Ordinary Shares of 5s, each, credited as fully paid, to the holders of the then existing issued share capital in the proportion of four new shares for each existing Ordinary Share of £1 each and one new share for every existing ‘A’ Ordinary Stock Unit of 5s, each. The new shares, on issue, were converted into ‘A’ Ordinary Stock Units of 5s, each.

Profits & Dividends

The Group profit before taxation for the year ended 30th April 1960 amounted to £5,388,330 [£102.6m] as compared with £5,316,493 [£101.3m] in the previous year. Taxation takes £2,711,820 [£51.65m] as against £2,715,076 [£51.72m]. The Group net profit is £2,676,510 [£51m] of which £1,031 [£19,600] is attributable to outside shareholders of subsidiaries leaving a profit attributable to the Parent Company of £2,675,479 [£50.96m] as against £2,601,048 [£49.54m] last year. The subsidiary companies retain £76,852 [£1.5m] leaving £2,598,627 [£49.5m] to be dealt with in the accounts of the Parent Company. To this amount must be added £1,711,215 [£32.6m], the balance brought forward from the previous year, and £445,000 [£8.5m] transferred from General Reserve – making a total of £4,754,842 [£90.6m] before appropriations. Your Directors propose recommend a final dividend of 6/- per share on the Ordinary Shares of £1 each and 1/6 per share on the ‘A’ Ordinary Stock Units of 5/- each. The interim dividend already paid and the proposed final dividend absorb £1,424,063 [£27m]. After deducting this amount, together with the sum of £2,325,000 [£44.3m] involved in the capitalisation effected in January and a transfer of £500,000 [£9.5m] to Investment Reserve, there is a balance of £505,779 [£9.6m] to be carried forward in the accounts of the Parent Company.

The accounts include provision for the distribution of £264,171 [£5m] for the Staff Profit-Sharing Scheme.

Home Investments

In the field of your Company’s home investments, it should be recorded that during the year British Relay Wireless and Television Limited made a bonus issue of one 5/- Ordinary Share for two 5/- Ordinary Shares. From this issue you Company obtained 134,000 new 5/- Ordinary Shares by way of capitalisation and the Conversion Right attached to your Company’s holding of £500,000 [£9.5m] 7% Convertible Unsecured Loan Stock 1967-1968 was increased from 184 to 201 shares for each £100 of stock. In March 1960 British Relay Wireless and Television Limited made a rights issue of two new 5/- Ordinary Shares for five 5/- Ordinary Shares and your Company subscribed for 562,800 new Ordinary Shares of 5 at 19/- each, which was its entitlement in respect of its shareholding and under the terms of the Loan Stock Trust Deed. The Stock is convertible on the 30th September 1961. The shares to which your Company would become entitled on conversion would, if there is no change in the present market price, have a value of approximately £1,100,000 [£21m]. British Relay Wireless and Television Limited has recently made a major extension in the Glasgow area and your Board remains confident that this investment will continue to grow.

New Franchise Acquisition

The subsidiary company which handles the sale of Muzak is developing most satisfactorily and a wide range of customers, including Banks, Hospitals, Hotels and Factories as well as Supermarkets, Restaurants and Shops, are installing this service. In the course of the current year operations have been extended to Birmingham and will shortly be followed by similar expansion in Manchester. In this connection shareholders will be interested to learn that we have acquired the Muzak franchise for Australia and New Zealand and it is felt that there is great opportunity for development of a background music service in this area.

Pye Records, in which your Company has a 50% interest, has been largely reorganised and the new plan of direct distribution to retailers has proved an outstanding success. This, together with the excellent reception given to the ‘Golden Guinea’ records, has had a marked effect upon the gramophone industry as a whole.

Your Group’s British production subsidiary ITC-Incorporated Television Company Limited continues to make good progress, During the past year the number of commercial television stations throughout the world has more than doubled and we are now actively selling programmes in a continually expanding market. The series ‘Danger Man,’ which is still under production Elstree, has been sold over the full Canadian network at a price higher than that previously paid for any similar series. Further series and pilot films are in the planning stage and will shortly commence production.

Overseas Investments

As regards investments overseas in the USA, Independent Television Corporation Inc., which, as at 30th April 1960, we held a 50% participation, has continued to handle the distribution of your Company’s film productions and has achieved a turnover of close to $10,000,000 [$103m]. During most of the period under review conditions have been particularly difficult, largely because of the increasing tendency by the three major television networks to assume an attitude of inflexibility towards programmes proposed by the independent producing companies. Recently, however, there have been signs of a slight improvement in business generally and your Board remains of the opinion that it is vital for the Group to have a direct outlet to the American market.

Since the end of the financial period under review we have purchased the balance of the share capital of Independent Television Corporation Inc. at a price which your Board regards as satisfactory. Having acquired control of the company we have taken steps to strengthen the management and to reduce the overheads of the operation and are confident that in time, and with adequate product available for distribution, this company should prove profitable to the Group. Nevertheless, in view of present uncertainties, you will see that your Board, as a measure of prudence, has set aside in the accounts before you a sum of £500,000 [£9.5m] to Investment Reserve.

In Canada your Company has purchased 25% (the maximum permitted under Canadian law for non-Canadian investors) of CJCH – the Halifax, Nova Scotia, radio station which has been awarded the licence for independent commercial television in that area.

The diversified interests of your wholly owned Australian subsidiary continue to prosper. Commercial radio in general is maintaining its level of profit and commercial television is expanding rapidly. The Sydney Commercial Television Station showing increasing profits and the Queensland and Adelaide Stations are rapidly advancing to profit-making stage. Altogether the Group’s television investments in Australia, which have a book value of nearly £250,000 [£4.8m], have grown in value to a sum greatly in excess of the amount invested. Since the end of the financial period under review ATV (Australia) Pty. Limited has sold the Artransa studios and the film production side of the business to Station ATN, the Sydney Commercial Television Company, in which we hold 9.7% of the share capital. We have retained the profitable radio transcription side of the business.

Level of Acceptability

All these investments business at home and it should ancillary to the Company’s main be recognised that the success of forward in the accounts of the any independent television company must depend upon the degree of popular acceptance of its those programmes by those members of the British public whom it serves. Here, it is noteworthy to add that during the calendar year January to December 1959 the level of acceptability in London (where the weekday programmes are provided by another company) has been 69% against the BBC’s 31%, whereas in the Midlands (where Associated Television Limited has the five-day operation) during the same period the level of acceptability has been 74%, against the BBC’s 26%.

Documentary and Religious Programmes

Despite the fact that such popular productions as Mr. Val Parnell’s ‘Sunday Night at the London Palladium’ have continued to occupy a high place in the ‘Top Ten,’ your Company has been responsible also for such serious documentary programmes as ‘We Dissent’; ‘The Western’ – an enquiry into the popularity of Western films; a medical programme, ‘Fear Begins at 40’: ‘The Art of Architecture’; the series of five lectures by Sir Kenneth Clark on ‘Revolutionary Painters’; the lectures on British Prime Ministers by Dr. A. J. P. Taylor; and the ‘Right to Reply’ series in which Mr. William Clark interviewed among others, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, the late Aneurin Bevan, Father Trevor Huddleston, M. Jacques Soustelle, M. Hammarskjöld, the late John Foster Dulles, Mr. Krishna Menon, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, Mr. Paul Hoffman, and Mr. Norman Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica.

It will be remembered that Associated Television Limited was the first company to introduce regular religious programmes in Sunday television and those who took part during the past year included their Graces the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of Kensington, Lincoln, Manchester, Woolwich and Bedford, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr. Heenan, Dr. Donald Soper and Lord Woolton.

Notable Achievements

Notable also have been those series which, while serious in content, have nevertheless secured maximum audiences. The series ‘Emergency – Ward 10’ has throughout the greater part of the year played to a weekly audience in excess of 20 million viewers. The new series ‘Probation Officer’ has proved equally successful and has earned wide praise from social workers and the Church alike.

Among British companies, your own Company has maintained its lead in the field of international television film production. In addition to such series as ‘Four Just Men’ and ‘Danger Man,’ produced in this country, the Company is just completing a series, ‘Whiplash,’ in Australia.

Company’s Major Role

Your Company has continued to play a major part in the independent television industry itself. Your Deputy Chairman, Mr. Norman Collins, has for the past year acted as Chairman of the Independent Television Companies Association and is currently also the Chairman of Independent Television News Limited, the company which provides the news bulletins for all stations. Mr. James Drummond, the Financial Director of your Company has for the past year acted Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the Independent Television Companies Association. Mr. Bill Ward, Productions Controller of your Company, is the current Chairman of the Society of Film and Television Arts and I am pleased to place on record that he is the recipient of the Award of the Guild of Television Producers and Screenwriters for the best Light Entertainment Producer of 1959.

The Industry’s Growth

The television industry as a whole continues to grow and it is pleasing to note that during the year under review the ITA has appointed new companies to serve East Anglia and Northern Ireland and has erected a satellite station to give coverage to the Dover area.

By April 1960, 47,578,000 viewers were within reach of programmes broadcast from the ITA transmitters and the average total peak viewing audience for independent television is now over 13,000,000, compared with the BBC’s 5,500,000, as measured by TAM in homes with a choice of programmes.

Your Company’s operations have from the outset been divided between London and the English Midlands and the proportion of locally produced programmes in the Midlands is higher than that of any other independent company.

Your Company, nevertheless, continues to feel that an uninterrupted seven-day-a-week operation in any one area is calculated to provide the most satisfactory service to viewers, and your Company again places on record the fact that, in the public interest, it would welcome the introduction of new stations providing alternative services, so that genuine competition could be assured.

Relations with the Independent Television Authority, under its Chairman Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., have been most closely maintained and I would like to express the gratitude of your Board and more particularly of the Executive Directors for the unfailing service rendered by the officers of the Authority at all levels

Tribute to Management and Staff

As in other years I would, as Chairman, like to pay tribute to the services rendered by the Management. Your Company’s Managing Director, Mr. Val Parnell, and your Deputy Managing Director, Mr. Lew Grade, have continued not only to shoulder the heavy responsibility of the manifold interests of the Company but have added to their other duties by arduous business missions abroad. In addition, non-Executive Directors have continued to render most valuable services to the Company. They have given generously of their time and I would like to express my thanks to them.

Finally, I am happy to report that the Staff in all departments continue to reveal all those characteristics of enthusiasm which have served to build up the Company and I am sure the shareholders will wish to join me in thanking them for their loyal services rendered during the past year. It is gratifying that the Staff Profit-Sharing Scheme again enables the Company to show its appreciation of their efforts.

The post ATV financial results: 1960 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

YEAR OF CONTINUED PROGRESS AND EXPANSION

OVER TWENTY-FOUR MILLION VIEWERS ON I.T.V.

SIGNIFICANT WIDENING OF PROGRAMME RANGE

MR. PRINCE LITTLER’S REVIEW OF ACTIVITIES

The fourth annual general meeting of Associated Television Limited will be held at the Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, London, W.C.2., on Thursday, September 3rd, 1959, at 3 p.m.

The following is the statement by the chairman, Mr. Prince Littler, C.B.E. which has been circulated with the report and accounts:–

The year under review has shown continued progress and expansion both for your Company and for Independent Television as a whole. New programme companies have been appointed for southern and north-eastern England, and the number of viewers able to receive Independent Television has risen to a total of more than 24 millions. Apart from the natural growth of the television audience through the purchase of new receivers, an entirely new Independent Television audience will arise from the opening of three new transmitters which will be on the air by the end of the year, thereby bringing Independent Television to an additional four million viewers in East Anglia. Northern Ireland and south-eastern England. All Independent Television companies, the pioneer companies as well as the newcomers, benefit from this expansion because network arrangements between the various companies enable basic production costs to be spread.

Planned Expenditure by Advertisers

With the nation-wide growth of Independent Television, advertisers are now able to be more selective in their buying of time, and the industry is entering into a new phase of overall planned expenditure on the part of the advertisers and their agencies. This is a thoroughly healthy development and it is supported by increased budgets which amply demonstrate the faith that advertisers have in the television medium.

While advertising revenue increased in the period under review as against the previous year, it must be recognized that saturation point may soon be reached. On the other hand programme costs continue to rise, both as a result of our confirmed policy of improving programme standards and as a result of wage increases arising from negotiations with the various trade unions concerned in the industry. Continuous watch is kept on expenditure and, although various substantial economies have been effected, the present extremely high level of profitability may become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Capital Structure

In the past 12 months there have been considerable changes in the capital structure of your Company. On September 30, 1958, the remaining £207,120 [£3.9m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] of the 6 per cent. Convertible Unsecured Loan stock, 1960/63, was converted into “A” Ordinary shares of £1 each, but with a reduced right to dividends in respect of the year ended April 30, 1959, and the Company’s 6 per cent. Unsecured Loan stock, 1960/63, was redeemed at 102½ per cent.

On December 11, 1958, the authorized capital of the Company was increased to £5,000,000 [£94m] by the creation of 2,980,000 additional “A” Ordinary shares of £1 each, and 305,000 new “A” Ordinary shares of £1 each were issued credited as fully paid by way of capitalization of reserves and distributed to the holders of the Deferred shares and the 400,000 Deferred shares of 1s. each were converted into 20,000 “A” Ordinary shares of £1 each. On the same date each of the Company’s 4,850,000 “A” Ordinary shares of £1 was sub-divided into four “A” Ordinary shares of 5s. each.

On March 19, 1959, 7,871,520 fully paid “A” Ordinary shares of 5s. each numbered 1 to 7,871,520 inclusive were converted into stock transferable in amounts and multiples of 5s. The 828,480 “A” Ordinary shares of 5s. each, arising from the conversion of the Loan stock on September 30, 1958, will be converted into stock after the payment of the final dividend in respect of file year ended

April 30, 1959, at which time these shares will rank pari passu with the remaining “A” Ordinary stock.

Group Profit and Dividend

The Group profit before taxation, for the year ended April 30, 1959, amounted to £5,316,493 [£100m]. Taxation takes £2,715,076 [£51.2m] and there remains a Group profit of £2,601,417 [£49m], of which £369 [£7,000] is attributable to outside shareholders of a subsidiary company, leaving a profit attributable to the parent company of £2,601,048. Of this amount £38,373 [£724,000] was retained by the subsidiary companies and there remains £2,562,675 [£48.3m] to be dealt with in the accounts of the parent company. To this must be added £333,040 [£6.3m], the balance brought forward from the previous year, and £153,123 [£2.9m] in respect of taxation provisions no longer required due to the reduction in the rate of income tax, producing a balance of £3,048,838 [£57.5m] available for appropriation.

Your directors propose to recommend a final dividend of 12s. per share on the Ordinary shares of £1 each and 3s. per share on the “A” Ordinary stock units of 5s. each. “A” Ordinary shares numbered 7,871,521 to 8,700.000 inclusive rank for dividend of ⁷⁄₁₂ths of that payable on the “A” Ordinary stock. The interim dividend already paid and the proposed final dividend absorb £1,337,623 [£25.2m], leaving £1,711,215 [£32.3m] to be carried forward in the accounts of the parent company.

The accounts include provision for the distribution of £213,897 [£4m] for the staff profit-sharing scheme.

The balance of the mortgage on National Studios was repaid in September, 1958.

Proposed Capitalization of Reserves

On February 5, 1959, your Company applied to the London Stock Exchange for a quotation of its “A” Ordinary share capital which was granted. In the statement submitted with the application your directors indicated their intention of recommending in December, 1959, the capitalization of £2,325,000 [£43.9m] of reserves by the issue of 9,300,000 “A” Ordinary shares of 5s. each credited as fully paid to the holders of the present issued share capital in the proportions of four new shares for each existing Ordinary share of £1 each and for every four existing “A” Ordinary stock units of 5s. each. It is still their intention to make this recommendation.

Last year you were notified of the acquisition at par by your Company of £500,000 [£9.4m] 7 per cent. Convertible Unsecured Loan stock, 1967/68, in British Relay Wireless and Television Limited under the terms of issue of which the Company has options, exercisable on September 30, 1961, or September 30, 1962, to convert the whole or part of the stock into fully paid Ordinary shares of 5s. at the rate of 134 shares for each £100 stock converted. In February, 1959, British Relay Wireless and Television Limited made a rights issue and your Company subscribed for 268,000 new Ordinary shares of 5s. at 20s. which was its entitlement under the terms of the Loan Stock Trust Deed. The operations of British Relay Wireless and Television Limited continue to expand and your board is confident that this investment will prove profitable.

Recent and Proposed Acquisitions

In September, 1958, your Company received the consent of the Australian Federal Government to the acquisition of file commercial radio and television interests of the Daily Mirror Group in Australia. In March, 1959, the wholly owned Australian holding company, formed by your Company to control its Australian interests, subscribed for 75,000 shares of £A.1 each in the company operating the new Brisbane commercial television station.

It is anticipated that this station will go on the air in August, 1959. The Sydney commercial television station in which your company has a 9.36 per cent interest, is now operating on increasingly profitable terms.

As I reported in my statement last year, your board was then negotiating for file acquisition of a prominent United Kingdom production company engaged in the production of films for television. These negotiations were successfully concluded last autumn when the share capital of Incorporated Television Programme Company Limited, which has since changed its name to ITC—Incorporated Television Company Limited, was acquired. This company owns a 50 per cent interest in the voting equity of one of the three most important television film distribution companies in the United States. Preparatory work for the production of television film series is in hand and will be carried out in your Company’s studios in the United Kingdom and also in its studios in Australia.

Agreement with Pye Records

As indicated in the statement accompanying the application for quotation to the London Stock Exchange, your Company has completed an agreement to buy for a nominal consideration, half of the issued share capital of Pye Records Limited, a gramophone record manufacturing company, and has undertaken to advance to Pye Records Limited up to £300,000 [£5.7m] by way of loan. Although it is anticipated that certain initial losses will be incurred, your directors are confident that this will prove a profitable venture.

The Company has also concluded its negotiations with Muzak Corporation. Subsidiary companies have now been formed to operate the concession acquired on a royalty basis in the United Kingdom and Ireland for the distribution of background music on the lines developed by Muzak Corporation in North America.

Preparatory development work is now in hand and a sales force is being built up to develop this franchise commencing in August of this year. An encouraging number of inquiries for the use of this service has been received and it is hoped that there will be a steady growth in demand once the operation is established.

New Head Office and Studios

The first stage of the transfer of the Company’s head office to its new office building at ATV House, 17, Great Cumberland Place, W.1, was.completed on June 29, 1959, and it is anticipated that the transfer of the second stage will be completed in the spring of 1960. These offices are among the most modem and efficiently planned in London and your Company has been able to set an example in providing such agreeable working conditions for its staff. The amenities include a Muzak service throughout the building.

Plans are currently under review for the Company’s permanent studios. From the outset the staff has been working under considerable difficulties in temporary accommodation converted to television production purposes and it is remarkable that programmes of such excellence should have been produced in the existing studios. The consolidation of the London production facilities has been consistently postponed until the Company’s financial position warranted the considerable expenditure involved. Plans have already been approved for the rebuilding of the Midlands centre, Alpha Studios, which are shared and jointly financed by ABC Television and ourselves.

Distinguished Artists and Public Figures

The range of ATV’s programming has significantly widened. During the past year not only have such distinguished artists as Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud and, more recently. Sir Michael Redgrave and Miss Leslie Caron, made their world debuts in major TV drama, but a succession of public figures, politicians, philosophers, scientists, educationalists, and the clergy of the main denominations, have all appeared in ATV’s various topical series. Thus, in “Right to Reply,” the speakers have included the late John Foster Dulles, the Right Hon. Selwyn Lloyd, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Russell, General Norstad, M. Soustelle and Mr. Aneurin Bevan. In “Free Speech,” Lord Boothby, Mr. Michael Foot, Mr. A. J. P. Taylor, Mr. W. J. Brown, to name four of the regular debaters, have kept the conduct of current controversy not merely balanced but also bold. Sir Kenneth Clark’s series “Is Art Necessary?” has now reached its eleventh programme and, in the field of documentary studies, ATV’s treatment of such subjects as Polio and World Population have achieved audiences in excess of five and a half million. The Religious programmes, moreover, have grown in audience from an average of under three million in 1958 to an average of nearly four and a half million in 1959. Among the many outstanding religious figures who have taken part in the “About Religion” series are the Reverend Father Trevor Huddleston, the Most Reverend Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr. John C. Heenan, and, more recently. Dr. Billy Graham, the American evangelist.

Popular science has been most successfully presented by Mr. Gerald Leach, a 26-year-old Cambridge scientist, who, in the series “It Can Happen Tomorrow” now addresses the largest home schoolroom audience of children and adults in British television.

A Notable Outside Broadcast

Notable among the many outside broadcasts was the first coverage in Independent Television of polo, with H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh playing at Windsor Great Park. Not less notable in another context is “Emergency – Ward 10” which has now entered its third year of twice-weekly series, with more than 10 million viewers for each episode.

Undoubtedly, however, the outstanding ATV record belongs to “Sunday Night at the London Palladium,” which on March 29, 1959, celebrated its 139th performance, having appeared no less than 130 times among the Top Ten most popular programmes in this country. “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” has brought into the homes of nearly 12 million viewers the best in light entertainment and, together with “Saturday Spectacular” has presented such internationally famous stars as Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves, Margot Fonteyn, Bruce Forsyth, Benny Hill, Bob Hope, Sally Ann Howes, Jewell and Warriss, Dave King, Liberace, Johnny Ray, Harry Secombe, Jo Stafford, Sophie Tucker and Norman Wisdom.

Recognizing the importance of maintaining the highest standards in children’s programmes your Company, in association with ABC Television, has appointed Miss Mary Field as Childrens Adviser. The work that Miss Field has already done as chairman of the Children’s Film Foundation earned her unique authority in this field.

The Midlands

Your Company is unique among the main Programme Companies in having responsibility not only for week-end broadcasting in the Metropolis but also for providing the week-day Independent Television for some six million inhabitants in the Midlands. In this important Midlands operation not only do we broadcast regular programmes for the farming community but, in the series “Where Are You Going?’ the Midland teenagers are helped by Midland educationalists and by the large industrial organizations in arriving at the right choice of career. The Midlands programmes include the popular “Lunch Box” programme of Noele Gordon’s and many programmes not seen on the London screens. The latter include the daily “Midlands News”; “Midland Montage,” the weekly magazine-type programme which presents news, views and comment about the Midland scene; daily religious programmes; “Paper Talk,” the regular discussion programme which had the longest run of any weekly television senes in Britain; and “Cover Girl,” a new type of teenage show produced in ATV’s Midland studios.

Your Company has continued with its policy of publishing in pamphlet and booklet form various of its outstanding television programmes. Particularly notable is the fact that by adopting new techniques we were able to place the text of the broadcasts of Mr. Dulles. Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, General Norstad and M. Soustelle in the hands of Members of the House of Lords, M.P.s and newspaper editors on the morning following the broadcast.

Your Company during the past year contributed £26,000 [£491,000] out of the total of £100,000 [£1.9m] from the four main companies by way of grants to the arts and sciences. Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, chairman of the Independent Television Authority, said of these grants: “The money will rescue many a valuable enterprise from extinction and will help others to improve their standards.”

Competition Welcomed

In my last statement I referred to the fact that this Company would welcome competition by another Independent Company seeking to attract viewers on the same days of the week and in the same areas. I reaffirm this view. Indeed, I feel that the competitive requirements of the Act call for such a second service. Moreover, your Company feels that the present restrictions on broadcasting hours are unrealistic and should be reviewed. The Company is at the moment precluded, solely by lack of opportunity, from scheduling many new programmes which it would like to be able to present to the British public. Furthermore, your Company has always been in the forefront of those which have supported the view that British television should progressively adopt the 625-line Continental standard and should not be permanently shackled to the outmoded standard of 405-lines to which this country reverted after the close of World War II.

The problems confronting any Programme Company are many and various and, once again, I should express our sincere appreciation for the invaluable guidance and advice always made readily available to us by Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick himself and by his two chief officers, the Director-General, Sir Robert Fraser, and the Deputy Director-General, Mr. Bernard Sendall.

The thanks of this Company, as of the other Independent Television Companies, are due also to Mr. Paul Adorian, managing director of Associated-Rediffusion, who for the past year has acted as chairman of the Independent Television Companies Association, an office in which he has from July 1 been succeeded by Mr. Norman Collins, deputy chairman of your own Company.

I have to report the resignation as executive director of Mr. Richard L. Meyer, whose wide experience of sound broadcasting matters proved so valuable to the Company during its initial stages. Mr. Meyer has been succeeded as an executive director by Mr. J. A. L. Drummond, whose City background and knowledge of financial matters has already proved of the greatest possible benefit to the board.

Tribute to Management

It is customary for the chairman to pay a tribute to the services rendered by the management. This I am most happy to do. I would like to thank all the directors, not least the non-executive directors, who have so generously given of their time and services.

No tribute to management would, however, be complete without a specific reference to the unique services rendered by your Company’s managing director, Mr. Val Parnell, thanks to whom the Company has not only become highly profitable but has laid sound foundations for the future. Moreover, Mr. Parnell, no less than I, would, I am sure, wish to include a special mention of your deputy managing director. Mr. Lew Grade, on whose shoulders fall so much of the detail of the day to day running of the business.

In conclusion, as regards the staff of your own Company, it will be apparent that such excellent results could not have been achieved without arduous and unflagging efforts on the part of all concerned. I therefore extend to them our heartiest thanks, and I am glad that the staff profit-sharing scheme enables our appreciation to take a tangible form.

The post ATV financial results: 1959 appeared first on THIS IS ATV NETWORK from Transdiffusion.

WIDENED FIELD OF PROGRAMMES

INCREASING VOLUME OF ADVERTISING

MR. PRINCE LITTLER ON EXPANSION PLANS

The annual general meeting of Associated Television, Ltd., will be held on July 29 at Television House, Kingsway, London, W.C.

The following is the statement by the chairman, Mr. Prince Littler, C.B.E. which has been circulated with the report and accounts:–

When I addressed you at the last Annual General Meeting the Company was only just emerging from the financial shadows of the the opening period when every week of operation meant an additional heavy loss to your Company. It is not too much to say that your Company, the first to come forward ready to take the challenge of operating an independent service, was more heavily penalized by events than any of its competitors. The unavoidable delay in opening the Midlands transmitter meant that for a period of five months the Company was burdened by full overheads while forced to forgo approximately 50% of its legitimate market.

Those days are now past. In the result your Company has taken its full share in the expansion of the television broadcasting industry. Advertising revenue has continued to build up with the growth of the Independent Television network. New stations have come into operation in Scotland and Wales the past year – and the number of viewers able to receive Independent Television programmes is now approximately 20,000,000. The continued increase in the volume of advertisement bookings confirms the growing confidence of advertisers in the value of television as the best means of reaching and holding the public. On the other hand, programme costs have also risen despite increased networking, but this is unavoidable if we are to pursue our policy of improving on past standards.

Profit and Dividend

The profit after taxation for the year ended 30th April, 1958, amounted to £1,997,909 [£38m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed], eliminating the debit balance of £483,794 [£9.2m] brought forward on the Profit and Loss Account and providing for the arrears of dividend paid on 16th December, 1957, amounting to £125,832 [£2.4m], and the interim dividend of 10% paid on the 25th April, 1958, amounting to £91,786 [£1.8m], there remains a credit balance on Profit and Loss Account of £1,296,497 [£24.6m]. From this your Directors have recommended payment of a final dividend of 20% on the “A” Ordinary and Ordinary Shares, absorbing £183,573 [£3.5m], to which must be added a Deferred Share dividend of £29,884 [£568,000], in accordance with the Articles of Association. The Directors also recommend that the sum of £750,000 [£14.3m] be transferred to General Reserve, leaving £333,040 [£6.3m] to be carried forward on Profit & Loss Account.

During the year, a staff profit-sharing scheme was introduced, and provision has been made for a distribution of £146,562 [£2.8m]. For the first time since inception of the Company, provision has been made for the payment of Directors’ fees amounting to £29,000 [£551,000]. You are accordingly asked to pass the necessary resolution for this purpose.

Balance Sheet Items

Turning to the Balance Sheet, you will see that the amount of “A” Ordinary Shares issued and fully paid has increased by £292,880 [£5.6m], as a result of conversion of a similar amount of 6% Convertible Unsecured Loan Stock 1960-63. Fixed assets after provision for depreciation have risen by £77,977 [£1.5m]. The principal addition to fixed assets comprises a freehold property and buildings which are being adapted for urgently needed storage and studio space. The liquid position of the Company again shows marked improvement in the Bank Balances, Sums on deposit and Cash in hand standing at £8,203,732 [£156m]. The balance of the mortgage on the Company’s studios at Elstree has been called for repayment on the 31st January, 1959.

With the Company’s increased trading and with the large number of programmes produced for the I.T.A. network as a whole, the Company has experienced a grave shortage of essential office and studio accommodation. Accordingly, the lease has now been negotiated for new office premises, adequate to the expanding needs of the Company in a centrally situated block which is being designed to meet the Company’s requirements. Moreover, a suitable studio site within easy reach of the West End has now been selected and negotiations for its acquisition are currently proceeding.

Improvement in Liquid Position

With the improvement in the liquid position of the Company, the Board has given its attention to investing in the United Kingdom in allied and ancillary fields. As a first step in this direction your Company acquired on the 9th May, 1958, £500,000 [£9.5m] 7% Convertible Unsecured Loan Stock in British Relay Wireless & Television Limited with attractive conversion rights into ordinary shares in 3 and 4 years’ time. British Relay Wireless & Television operates television and radio relay services over parts of London and in many other urban areas, as well as a television and radio rental business, and by the extension of its operations creates new television viewers for our own programmes.

Your Board, moreover, is currently seeking to negotiate the purchase of one of the major producing companies specialising in the production of films for television. The company question has an outstandingly successful record, notably in the American market. Your Board feel that, in the acquisition of this company, your own Company’s position in the production field would be greatly strengthened.

Development Overseas

During the year the Board has given considerable attention to opportunities for participation in the development of commercial television and radio broadcasting in English-speaking territories overseas, including the U.S.A. Two of your Directors, Mr. Norman Collins, the Deputy Chairman, and Mr. Richard L. Meyer, have made a number of visits overseas to carry out on-the-spot investigations. One major project to which the Company has signified its assent is at the moment before a Commonwealth Government for their approval; and, in readiness for anticipated developments elsewhere within English-speaking world, the Company either has registered, or is in process of registering, Companies in Canada, East Africa, the West Indies and Bermuda.

Position Notably Maintained

The Company’s pioneer position in providing programmes of wide appeal has been notably maintained and, at the same time, the range of productions has significantly expanded. Since my last report, the Company has embarked on a widening field of programmes dealing with Religion, the Arts, public affairs and matters of general sociological interest. Notable among the religious contributions have been “Christ in Jeans” (as the modern dress Passion Play was entitled by the Press) and a specially filmed documentary record of the British Pilgrimage to Lourdes in the Centenary year; among the outstanding individual contributors have been Dr. George MacLeod, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, 1957-1958, and such leading Nonconformists as Dr. Leslie Weatherhead and Dr. Donald Soper. Moreover, a series of six programmes, introduced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been arranged to cover the major issues raised at the 1958 Lambeth Conference.

As regards the Arts, Sir Kenneth Clark, the ex-Chairman of the Independent Television Authority, recently agreed to become Adviser to the Company and initiated a series of widely-acclaimed programmes on which he personally appeared. In the field of public affairs, the series of balanced but still highly controversial programmes, “Free Speech,” continued under the Chairmanship of Mr. Edgar Lustgarten, and the lectures of Mr. A. J. P. Taylor helped still further to widen the scope of Independent Television. The Company has, moreover, recognised its responsibility as a public service by the creation of a special programme unit equipped to deal at short notice with such important and emergent issues as Polio and the Cult of Tranquillizers. Meanwhile, in the general field of programming, Mr. Val Parnell’s “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” continues to maintain its place as a national institution and, to cite another example at random, the dramatic serial, “Emergency – Ward 10,” now enjoys an audience of some ten million viewers twice a week.

Future of British Television

Your Board has considered the Company’s future position in the field of British television as a whole and is firmly of the opinion that in television, as in other fields of life, competition is not only desirable but necessary. Accordingly, I am happy to place the Company on records as saying that it would welcome the introduction of a third television service – in competition with your Company’s own operations – and I feel that it would be in the best interests of the country if it were run on commercial lines. The fact that competition leads to better programmes has already been sufficiently proved. Television entertainment from all sources – including the British Broadcasting Corporation – has improved beyond all measure. New opportunities have been offered to artists, writers and technicians, and British television is, in consequence, richer in talent than it has ever been before. Moreover, in the result, the export business of British television programmes has, for the first time, been established on a substantial basis.

Your Company is at the moment unfortunately handicapped by the fact that its licence from the Independent Television Authority provides for no more than part-time working on two different transmitters, i.e. London and the Midlands. With a third television network run on commercial lines this unsatisfactory state of affairs could be remedied. It is your Company’s firm desire to provide the public of the Metropolis – and through the new network such parts of the country as wish to take the programmes – with an unbroken seven-day-a-week service, exhibiting to the full the potentialities of independent and truly competitive television.

Independent Television Authority

I would like also to refer to the Independent Television Authority, the statutory body set up by Parliament to administer the affairs of Independent Television as a whole. Under the able and experienced Chairmanship of Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, as under the Chairmanship of his predecessor, Sir Kenneth Clark, the Authority continues to act in the fullest degree as guardian to Parliament and public alike. Moreover, the untiring efforts of the Authority’s Director-General, Sir Robert Fraser, have done more than the viewing public will ever realise to make a practical reality of the provisions of the Television Act of 1954.

In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues on the Board for their unfailing assistance and advice and also to pay tribute to the loyal service rendered to the Company by the Executives and the Staff in both London and Birmingham.

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