John Wyver writes: Thirty months into the high definition service Mary Adams' Talks programmes were becoming increasingly ambitious, with an increasing number of broadcasts featuring multiple guests. Perhaps the most ambitious was the 50-minute Salute to America on the evening more
John Wyver writes: On Sunday 7 May 1939 the critic 'E.H.R.' contributed his usual television review column to The Observer. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill filing, but it gives us occasion to take a brief look at the state of more
John Wyver writes: Saturday 6 May 1939 saw an exceptional morning broadcast from midday covering the departure from Waterloo of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, along with the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret (both only going as far as Portsmouth), more
Daily Telegraph, 6 May 1938, with a picture (and apologies for the quality of the reproduction) taken in the studio during the previous evening's Picture Page.
John Wyver writes: 'One of the big television occasions of the year,' was how Radio Times (above) trailed the live outside broadcast of the musical comedy Me and My Girl from the Victoria Palace on the evening of Monday more
John Wyver writes: Sports punditry on television starts here, with the first edition of Sports Review on the afternoon and evening of Friday 30 April 1937. Billed as 'a survey of the outstanding sports events in the month of April', more
John Wyver writes: Saturday 29 April 1939 was some way off the heady days of my youth when FA Cup Final day was one of those rare and much-anticipated occasions when television began early on a Saturday morning. But already more
John Wyver writes: The schedule from Alexandra Palace on Wednesday 28 April 1937 was unremarkable. As was the schedule two years later on Friday 28 April 1939. Which is more or less the point of this post, prompted in part more
John Wyver writes: 'There were three, large, hearty failures in the television programmes last week and I propose to discuss them.' That was how the splendid television critic for The Listener, Grace Wyndham Goldie, began her 27 April 1939 column more
John Wyver writes: We take for granted live coverage and analysis of Budget speeches today, but television had to learn how to make such broadcasts, a process that began on Tuesday 26 April 1938. That evening from more