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. 

Guildhall Business Library Part. 1

To be frank for a moment, this blog doesn't have any real direction as such, other than to try to be interesting - note the word “try”. One thing I did not want it to be was a dry blow by blow account of the mundanities of my attempts at researching the kind of things I set out in the introduction. So, here is a blow by blow account of the mundanities of my half-arsed and haphazard attempts at research which I conducted yesterday. My reason for posting this is that I thought it might be helpful to anyone wishing to do some sort of historical business research in the UK.

As some of you may know I have been spending quite a bit of time down the National Archives, which is where I spent the first half of my day trying to gather up a few loose ends to finish my research there. This left me with 6000+ Images/photos over the course of my time there and I still have to sift through and make notes for a lot of it. Ultimately, this has been time consuming but an overall very rewarding process.

Yesterday, I finished with just enough time spare that I was able to go to Guildhall business library in the centre of London. At Guildhall you can find research aids for historical business research as such as a complete set of London Trade directories (which you are not allowed to photograph, although, you can photo other books), a complete set of Stock Exchange Yearbooks, access to a database for the complete Times and Financial Times newspapers up until 1985 and some very helpful research assistants/librarians.

The first thing I did was to use the trade directories to ascertain what addresses were listed and for what periods. Being a bit pushed for time and only really concerned about TIE (Programmes) Ltd as they seem the hardest part of TIE to get details on I decided to start there. Although, I do know from some documents I saw in the NA (National Archives) that they were operational as early as 1964. Unfortunately, the trade directories for 1965 and 1966 only had listings for TIE and its sales division both registered at the address 21 Sloane Street. From this, I think it’s reasonable to infer that the Programmes subsidiary would have operated from 21 Sloane Street. I know this may seem blindingly obvious to some but if I were happy with guessing I wouldn’t have travelled all that way to view dusty documents in order to gains answers and hopefully some hard facts.

Next I tried looking at the stock exchange yearbook for the same period and drew a blank. So neither TIE nor any of its subsidiaries was floated on the stock market, meaning that they are harder to trace. If I had had more time I would have checked the year 1989 to make absolutely sure as David Stirling died in 1990 and the main body of TIE was dissolved the same year, although, official dissolution came in 1994. TIE (Sales) Ltd was dissolved in 1999 and official dissolution didn't come until as late as 2007. Which meant that they spent a limbo period under the care of the Colin Turner Group who were International Media Representatives and Marketing Consultants. I know this because I was able to acquire the company records from companies’ house as TIE (Sales) Ltd were dissolved in the last 20 years. Those, of course, are not working records but do show us the abbreviated accounts, the name of directors and dissolution dates, as well as the law firm who handled the legal proceedings. Any working records would have been left in the care of the current director at the time of dissolution and probably disposed of.

I believe I am correct in saying that The Public Records Office at the NA does accept the records of certain types of companies but often these documents are simply thrown out or have to find another home. Historically important companies (such as BP or the ITA - Independent Television Authority) may end up in a university library. Since Microfilm became the preferred format of record keeping in 1974 more has been kept but that combined with the fact that TIE doesn't appear to have been floated on the stock market at any point does leave them in a bit of a black hole.

However back at Guildhall, there were also other reference books there I could have used to see who was a director of whatever company and any other directorships over other companies they may have had. Pushed for time, I decided not to take this option and instead elected to access their newspaper database. The Financial times yielded nothing, but the Times offered me six different articles that mentioned ‘Television International Enterprises Ltd’. So thankfully the day wasn't a total wipe-out.

Well if that hasn't cured your insomnia then get ready for another narcoleptic assault as I detail my findings in Part 2 of this post.

Sources:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/guildhall-library/Pages/default.aspx

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/

Introduction

Well, here it is then, the first page of my new blog and I suppose I should tell you what it is all about then.

It is many things to many people for instance to me it's a space where I can dazzle you all whilst laying out my uniquely original and insightful thoughts on my interests with razor sharp wit and grace.

To others, it is the frothing, gibbering, incoherent nonsensical ramblings of somebody who is old enough to know better. It definitely isn't big and it definitely isn't funny!

"But what is it about?"

It's about my attempts to make sense of the Omnirumour and attempt to understand what missing (or previously missing if you prefer) episodes of vintage sixties and seventies TV series may have been recovered by the founder of TIEA Philip Morris. So there will be rumours, research, analysis and inference - expect lots of inference.

This blog does expect some familiarity with the Omnirumour itself and will no doubt veer off into surrounding areas which may not seem whole relevant but will hopefully redeem themselves.

A couple of sites I am sure you are familiar with but are worth mentioning to the uninitiated are:

http://www.broadwcast.org

For all things Doctor Who and television distribution related: http://marsanditscanals.blogspot.co.uk/ 

The blog of the indomitable J O'Donnell who describes his blog as "A journal of pointless and suspect research into television history. Mainly about Doctor Who."

Enjoy,
Steve