Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

INTERNATIONAL BRITAIN'S SOLD ON COMMERCIAL TV It reaches half of England's tv homes; 75% favor it over BBC programs Make no mistake about it, commercial television in Great Britain is a fully-fledged, thoroughly matured, extremely successful and productive advertising medium of national proportions. It is, in fact, a sophisticated and largely self-sufficient business. Inaugurated a little more than two years ago, in September 1955, British television advertising was off to a running start and it no longer is ten years or even six years behind the American variety. In its own way it is running along in high gear, has a fine record of sales successes and has created a tremendous effect upon the whole merchandising and advertising scene in Great Britain. Before the end of this year at least half of the homes in England will be within reach of commercial television and those homes will spend at least three-quarters of their time looking at the commercial shows rather than at the non-commercial BBC competition. Advertisers on television in England now include a large proportion of the leading and most enterprising firms in England. The hold-outs — -in those consumer industries which are best able to make use of television ■ — are few and far between. The expenditures of the leaders have been increased progressively and show no sign of a "morning after" retrenchment, confounding the fears and predictions of those who shook their heads at the innovation. Doing It Themselves There is no gainsaying that a large part of all of commercial television's success is distinctly home grown. While there is a certain amount of American programming on British commercial television, it does not come to more than 15% of the time. The majority of these American programs are naturally those which have already proved themselves to be most successful at home. They are the sort of programs which have a very broad and even worldwide appeal, similar in nature to that of so many American motion pictures around the world. Most British "independent" programs and commercials are produced locally, and even though in some cases they've made use of U. vS. experience they are evidently in no crying need of more help at this stage. Commercial television in England is well served by enterprising film producers, package houses, and specialists in spot commercials. Even in the last category — the commercials — while a few Americans (or Britishers with American experience) may be found in key spots here and there, the majority of the workers in the vineyard are British. Audience research services in Great Britain give advertisers and agencies rating and audience data fully as good as the figures they are accustomed to in the U. S. Costsper-thousand already are down to levels By E. P. H. JAMES which any advertiser can contemplate with equanimity — in fact the medium is distinctly competitive in costs-per-thousand with any figures we have seen in the U. S. While the total audience is not large by our standard — and even the best network show will be doing well to reach three million families — it must be remembered that all of this can be done with a mere handful of stations. An advertiser using every available commercial network station in England at the present time would be sending his program out on only five transmitters. Time costs, therefore, are relatively low since there is a pretty dense population crowded into the service area of these five transmitters. (See box, page 84.) Moneywise, too, commercial tv has made its mark. The table on page 83 shows the CENTRAL SCOTLAND: Scottish Television Ltd. LANCASHIRE: Granada Television Network Ltd. and ABC Television Ltd. YORKSHIRE: Granada Television Network Ltd. and ABC Television Ltd. MIDLANDS: Associated Television Ltd. and ABC Television Ltd. LONDON: Associated-Rediffusion Ltd. and Associated Television Ltd. Page 82 • December 2, 1957 Broadcasting