OTD in early British television: 26 July 1937
John Wyver writes: On Monday 26 July 1937 the television service from Alexandra Palace started a three-week shutdown. There had been broadcasts each afternoon and evening (except Sundays) since 2 November, with test transmissions and programmes for Radiolympia before then, and the under-resourced and over-used facilities and the staff needed to make repairs and take stock.
Trade dealers, however, deeply concerned about how few sets had been sold, a total that was probably less than one thousand, needed something to demonstrate to potential buyers. So until 16 August, and around daily newsreels, for an hour each morning AP transmitted a shot of Alexandra Park from a balcony, accompanied by records. The recently completed BBC Television Demonstration Film was also shown once a day.
For just two days, this Monday and Tuesday 27 July, viewers were also offered an OB from the Centre Court of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon of matches in the Davis Cup Challenge Round. As the monthly Television reported:
As before [for the championships a month earlier], two cameras were used at Wimbledon, one near the southwest corner of the court to give near and panoramic views, and the other in a fixed position at the other end of the court to give a general view of the play and the spectators. The mobile television unit at Wimbledon employed a radio link to Alexandra Palace.
Up on the hill, Studio A at AP was dark and silent, while the adjacent Studio B had in any case been out of action since the ending of the Baird system transmissions nearly six months before. Television again:
Up to the present practically no use has been made of the space rendered available by the removal of the Baird apparatus from the Palace, so in order that certain re -adjustments can be carried out and an overhaul made to the transmitting gear, it has been decided, with the concurrence of the Television Advisory Committee and the approval of the Postmaster-General, that transmissions will be suspended for a period of three weeks commencing on Monday, July 26.
The following month, however, in the same magazine K.P. Hunt reported:
No startling changes, I hear, are to be made in the studios at Ally Pally during the holiday. So far as I can gather there is going to be a general clear up, and that is all.
Image: Author’s photograph of the Marconi-EMI Studio A at Alexandra Palace, November 2022; no further substantive work has been carried out in the space since then.
[OTD post no. 221; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain in January 2026.]
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