ITV Opening Night Film

On 22 September 1955, ITV, which then consisted of just two on-air programme companies - Associated-Rediffusion (London, weekdays) and ABC (London, weekends, subsequently known as "ATV"), launched with this film. Presumably it was preceded by some sort of identification / start-up and was followed by switching live to the Guildhall, London for speeches from the great and the the good, followed by a meal of watery greens, over-cooked beef and small sherries in very large glasses.

[@gemini802]

very nice history in the making what a lovely accent wish they spoke like that now ! miss all the locol logos of itv that we don't see now !

[@gemini802]

yes well its gone downhill how was he to know we give out crap reality tv!

[@antster1983]

Voiceover was Cecil Lewis who worked for A-R.

[@davidgibbs7232]

A world gone with the wind.

[@MultiVince95]

Great video

[@whatamalike]

They would be horrified to see what ITV has become...

[@ThatHideousMan]

"High quality" of transmission and content! They promised so much, yet gave us Simon Cowell...

[@gemini802]

oh how lovely is that accent!

[@RobinCarmody]

This whole film is very much a sign of how unprepared most of the British elite were for the cultural and political earthquakes of the following year (in which ITV itself, once it had found its feet and started making money, was obviously to play a major part). It's as if they're explicitly venerating, and identifying themselves with, the *idea* of this country which - within a very short time - they would do so much to erode.

[@heisntdoctorwho]

... and meanwhile, the Beeb were upstaging their new rival by killing off Grace Archer!

[@RobinCarmody]

I note with particular interest the use of the phrase "New Elizabethan". This false promise could never have survived Suez, Elvis and the growth of ITV, and while far more traditionalist than the vision of the Festival of Britain, it was nevertheless based around a high-mindedness that ITV, in its early years, arguably opposed more explicitly than it was ever able to do between 1964 and 1990. So many conflicting currents here, as is inevitable in any end-of-empire place and time.

[@didiask4485]

2 days later

[@RobinCarmody]

@RAX118G The queasiest element of all this early entryism is the near-certainty that some of the people ITV were trying to appease would have resented the Grades and the Bernsteins at least partially because of their Jewishness.

[@AnonymousMultimedia]

What’s the music used here, I presume it was used on the first Pearl And Dean logo first.

[@Stringbean421]

I believe the title of the music was called, Grand Vista, written by Trevor Duncan. Pearl and Dean.