TIE Advertising

Advertising was a large part of TIE's business and this recording industry year book from 1979 shows how active in terms of advertising TIE were in the late seventies. This has no bearing on supplying programmes as far as I am aware but does show they were still in contact with various TV stations at the time. I have several of these but it is awkward getting the blog to show a larger amount of photos cleanly so will only show one for now.

Other companies mentioned are Richard Meyer Associates Ltd, Richard Jobs Ltd (an ABC subsidiary) and of course Rediffusion and a few others.

There is also a WRTH advert at the end.

 

  

 

WRTV Handbook Advert 1971

Odds and Sods

 I should start by saying some of these have appeared on Broadwcast at some point and some where alluded to by Ford on PMF sometime ago so none of this is new or exclusive to this site. These clipping I obtained from the Proquest database at the British Library. My reason for doing so was just out of curiosity about TIE's later years. I am posting this for reference purposes.

 

Variety in either 1982 or 1984

From Variety in the 1980's

An advert for TIE's HK station - Nothing to do with DW

Here is a document that details how long Thomson was contracted to manage each station - Sorry if these aren't in the right order. It's a real shit trying to arrange these:

 

About Bermuda

TIE and 'The Avengers'

More bicycled fun with TIE

From FCO 953/2247 at the National Archives. Thomson's acquisition of a stake in the Lebanon station from ABC indicates an important turning point for TIE as dubbing and subtitling had been a major logistical problem for TIE.

This page: http://marsanditscanals.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/dubbing-arabian-adventure.html talks in great depth about Doctor Who and dubbing.

Also you can get this rather interesting book on kindle for £2.94:

The Strange Case of the Missing Episodes - The Lost Stories of the Avengers Series 1 by Alan Hayes.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Case-Missing-Episodes-Avengers/dp/1326018221/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1431295130&sr=8-2&keywords=alan+hayes+avengers

Lots of good stuff in it.

And as a bonus clipping here for you:

You lucky bastards!

Kenya see what I did there? (Updated)

In 1959, David Stirling resigned as chairman of the Capricorn Society and formed Television International Enterprises. As the Director of the TIE, the responsibility fell to him to bid for the contract to set up Rhodesian TV. This failed. Richard Hughes, in his book, Capricorn: David Stirling’s African Campaign, suggests the reason for this was “Probably because the government, not unreasonably from their perspective, thought he would use it to further his radical politics”.

Success arrived with the opening of the television station in Nairobi, October 1962. The first transmitting station, set on a farmhouse in Limuru, transmitted with a 15 mile range. This, however, was no unmitigated success. Upon winning the Rhodesian contract, RTV bid to open the new station in Kenya. The bid failed due to the tactics employed during negotiations.

J.C.R. Proud, television adviser to the secretary for technical cooperation, had this to say in a letter to Alan Bates the Financial Secretary of Mauritius in November 1961:

J.C.R Proud also had this to say of TIE to P R Noakes of the Colonial Office:

TIE’s ability to bicycle film prints quickly and cheaply was a major factor in winning the contract to set up the television service in Mauritius. This became a significant selling point for TIE and Thomson. Possibly, even vital when competing against governments offering free television stations to developing countries, usually so that companies in their countries would acquire turnkey leases and contracts to supply equipment.

Paying advertisers are one of the main sources of income for a television broadcaster. And the maximum amount of revenue requires the biggest audience that you can attract with as many of the best quality programmes that you can at least afford. It’s an ongoing cost. Whereas a TV station is one lump sum that the Stirling consortium was prepared to help with by training staff, obtaining and setting up equipment, drafting legislation, securing loans and manufacturer credit. Programmes are what prompts people to buy a television set that requires a license which at least in part helps with the running cost of the station. In the end, it was TIE’s ability to provide cheap programmes from the world’s leading lights of television at a lower price than they could afford to get by themselves coupled with the ability to sell advertising spots that won the contract to install  Ethiopian television. In theory, this all sounds fine and well but in practice, it wasn't without its share of problems.

In the top image, Interlude films are mentioned this is another term for COI (Central Office of Information) films which were distributed by CETO (The Centre for Educational Television Overseas). On average 40-50 of these films were made a year and produced by the BBC or sometimes independent television companies. Mainly for educational purposes and were often distributed for free or at very little cost.

The following extract is from 'Broadcasting in Kenya: Policy and Politics 1928 - 1984' by Carla Wilson Heath:

During the sixties, Kenya bought in about 60% of its television programmes as their facilities had not been designed for extensive local production and mostly stuck to a diet of light entertainment with Tom Jones, Rolf Harris, the Andy Stewart show, the Planemakers and Not in Front of the Children from the UK, plus selected episodes of Peyton Place and Disneyland. The reason for this being that the censors in Kenya took the power of television as propaganda very seriously.

Here is a quote by James M. Coltart - Managing Director of the Thomson Organisation - in 1963:

"Recently in Britain an organisation was set up by the Nuffield Foundationin conjunction with independent television companies, the B.B.C. the Governmentand others, a Centre for Educational Television Overseas and thisorganisation has been operating now for a year in the preparation of educationalprogrammes for overseas television. Some of those programmes are on filmand some as package deals for local production. They also have their programmedirectors visiting country after country arranging seminars witheducationalists and assisting the local television stations with live educationalproductions."

Unfortunately, these well-meaning directors and engineers would often pick up various illnesses, helping to spread them from one local population to another as they passed through one African nation to another.

So that is one problem solved. I would also like to point out that we can see that TIE planned to bicycle the prints round, at least, four countries. Not out the woods yet, though ...

Sources:

Capricorn: David Stirling’s African Campaign by Richard Hughes

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=186064919X

Broadcasting in Kenya: Policy and Politics 1928 - 1984 by Carla Wilson Heath

The Universal Eye: World Television in the Seventies by Timothy Green (May 1972)  Available on Amazon

James M. Coltart - African Affairs, Vol. 62, No. 248 (Jul., 1963), pp. 202-210Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society

http://www.kbc.co.ke/the-history-of-kenya-broadcasting-corporation/

Files from the National archives: CO 1027/312, CO 1027/498, CO 1027/513, FCO 141/12179, FO 953/2155

http://marsanditscanals.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/aden-to-bermuda-and-beyond-part-3.html

Guildhall Business Library Part. 2

"Oh, for fuck sake!" Is not a good way to start a blog post but it did express my exasperation at what was looking like a fruitless day. The very last and as it turns out most productive item on my itinerary was to search the newspaper databases for the Times and Financial Times newspapers at the Guildhall Library. As I mentioned in my last post the Financial Times yielded nothing, whereas the Times brought up six items. One of which was a TIE advert for the Voice of Kenya which may feature in a later article I am planning for Kenya and TIE's involvement there. The first clipping I would like to bring to your attention though should appear below if I have any idea what I am doing.

Edward Petry & Co were television station representatives in a similar fashion to TIE. As is shown in this link: http://americanradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1957/1957-11-04-BC.pdf

I will leave it up to the reader as to how they interpret this particular clipping as I can't quite get my head around the wording of this one but I felt it was worth showing as it may become more relevant later. The next offering is far more interesting. At least, I think it is anyway.

Now, this may just be my memory failing me but I think the number of stations it was thought TIE was acting on behalf of at the time was 12. Although it is also highly possible that this was a mistake by the reporter, but either way, I think this is significant as it shows that TIE (Programmes) Ltd was flying the prints out and still highly active as late as 1970.

The other clippings aren't all that interesting or relevant to this post but I will hope to try and work them into later posts. So small pickings overall but still very worthwhile for me. I must be easily pleased.