The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

December 1955 CINE TECHNICIAN 181 We are indebted to A. E. Jeakins for this report of the October Technical Lecture by Captain T. M. BROWNRIGG, C.B.E., D.S.O., R.N. (Retired) Organising A Television CAPTAIN T. M. BROWNRIGG, General Manager of Associated Rediffusion, was the speaker at the second lecture of the current series organised by the Technical Committee of A.C.T. A.C.T.'s President, Anthony Asquith, who took the chair, expressed the pleasure it gave him to welcome Captain Brownrigg, who, rather appropriately, after many years' distinguished service in the Royal Navy, had now succeeded where Canute had failed, in ruling the waves! A.C.T. were appreciative of the sympathy and courtesy Captain Brownrigg had always shown when they approached him. Tonight they were eager and anxious to hear from him about the broader aspects of the television service. Mr. Asquith added that he was sorry that they had failed to provide a bottle of champagne with which to launch the lecture ! Captain Brownrigg said that though he had been asked to speak on Organising a Television Service, he would prefer to tell his audience how he tried to organise a television service. Start in Empty Office The problem here was different to what it would have been in America. His company, Associated Rediffusion, were one of the Programme Contractors under the Independent Television Authority, and he would try to explain how he organised Associated Rediffusion. Last November he was peacefully engaged in building one of the new towns when he was offered the job of organising Associated Rediffusion. He was given an empty office in Piccadilly just before Christmas and told to get a service going by September. He had to start from first principles and decide what was needed. First he engaged a Secretary and a Chief Accountant — that was easy. Then, not so easy, he had to find a Programme Organiser. Next, as their revenue had to come from advertisers, they had to have a department to sell time. So far. then, he had four departments, and Service he had to think hard about what came next. He felt there was a danger in having a lot of departments, so he decided to lump all the rest of the activities in the General Business Department, with the exception of Engineering. The three P's, Press, Publicity and Public Relations he decided to keep under his own control. The Departments Captain Brownrigg then went on to explain about the working of the departments, starting with the advertisements department. Though very important this was quite a small department for the reason that in the whole country there were only about 200 to 250 potential clients who have the money to pay for TV advertising rates, and these two hundred odd clients are represented by 50 to 60 advertising agents. The department employs five or six representatives who go round talking to clients, and four or five people in the office who deal with bookings and other matter. Another function of the department is censorship — though it is not called that. Television comes into the home, and an advertisement which might be quite acceptable say, on an Underground poster, might be quite unsuitable in the drawing room. They also followed the newspaper advertising code, e.g., in ' knocking ' — a product couldn't be described as the ' best,' only ' better ' than its competitors, and patent medicines couldn't claim to be a complete cure, only that they ' help.' So one of the jobs of the department was to view every advertisement sent in. Associated Rediffusion had 35 hours' programme time a week, with 6 minutes' advertising an hour, this added up to 210 minutes a week, and much of it in the form of quarter and halfminute films, so they had about 400 films, which had to be joined up for censorship viewing, then re-cut and put in right order for transmission, and finally cut up and returned to the advertisers. Compared with other industries Commercial TV was peculiar in that they knew what their revenue was in advance. It averaged about £3,000 per hour, which gave them the maximum figure they could spend on programmes. Accounts Next came the Accounts department, which dealt with costing. In TV programmes are planned in series of thirteen. The producer is given an allocation of money for each quarter or half-hour programme and, for the reasons mentioned above, the cost of the programme has to be within that sum. The accounts department has to make available the figures of what the programme has actually cost within a week after transmission. As they got more experience, Captain Brownrigg said, he hoped they would know the costs in advance; at the moment their estimates were usually wide of the mark. Average cost of programmes was £3,000, though some cost more and some less. The one-hour films they made at Shepperton cost £5,000 each, which meant shooting had to be completed in a week — 15 minutes screen time a day. Occasional prestige films cost much more, so other programmes, women's and children's for instance, had to cost less. Live Programmes If they found they could not make a film for £5,000 they would have to do the programme live, which was much cheaper. He felt there were advantages in filming, residual value, for example the programme could be sold abroad. The next department was the Secretary's. He was a very important man with one specific responsibility. Associated Rediffusion employed over 1,000 men, all men of inspiration and zeal, but not all experienced in business procedure; they were liable to write off letters which might be interpreted as contracts, etc. It was the Secretary's job to see every letter than went out — a great responsibility. (Continued on page 182)