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Post by DerekH on Mar 24, 2005 12:09:29 GMT
Does anyone know if Winston Churchill's funeral was shown simultaniously on both channels? Or was the BBC the only channel to show the whole ceremony?
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Post by Laurence Piper on Mar 24, 2005 13:38:46 GMT
No, Rediffusion also transmitted their own version. A repeated highlights edition of this is with the NFTVA (although i'm not sure if the whole of the original broadcast still exists - possibly not).
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Post by DerekH on Mar 24, 2005 13:56:58 GMT
Would be interesting to see the differences between the BBC's and Rediffusions.
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Post by LF Barfe on Mar 24, 2005 14:36:34 GMT
No, Rediffusion also transmitted their own version. A repeated highlights edition of this is with the NFTVA (although i'm not sure if the whole of the original broadcast still exists - possibly not). It does - in the BBC archive. They telerecorded it for comparison/evaluation purposes, and somehow, it was kept. I gather that there is one small problem with the recording. The first few minutes or so has Dimbleby's BBC commentary rather than the ITV team's effort. A routing error, methinks. |
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Post by Laurence Piper on Mar 24, 2005 16:57:28 GMT
Really? Fascinating!
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Post by William Martin on Mar 24, 2005 17:28:54 GMT
how common was this sort of thing I wonder? these are the sort of thing that would have no place in the BBC archive and may have been taken away by a produce/director.
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Post by LF Barfe on Mar 24, 2005 18:29:48 GMT
Yep, no word of a lie. Indeed. I think that this sort of mild industrial espionage was quite common at the BBC and other places like it. For example, EMI has extensive files of material on Decca, which were invaluable to me when I was researching my book on the record industry. In the case of telerecordings like this, I'd imagine that most of them were junked once they'd been watched and notes made, because of the copyright implications. I'm not sure why this one still survives there, but I have it on very good authority that it does. |
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Post by H Hartley on Mar 24, 2005 21:13:55 GMT
Legend has it, when an early BBC2 transmission went up in smoke, good old Rediffusion offered to re-route it through their system to get them back on air. Of course the BBC was too far up its backside in those days, to accept an offer like that from those grubby commercial stations. So BBC2 remained off air till fixed.
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Post by Laurence Piper on Mar 24, 2005 22:29:34 GMT
[quote author=Guest-LF Barfe
I'm not sure why this one still survives there, but I have it on very good authority that it does. [/quote]
I hope that eventually it finds it's way to the NFTVA - a valuable recording.
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Post by LF Barfe on Mar 24, 2005 23:43:03 GMT
Legend has it, when an early BBC2 transmission went up in smoke, good old Rediffusion offered to re-route it through their system to get them back on air. Of course the BBC was too far up its backside in those days, to accept an offer like that from those grubby commercial stations. So BBC2 remained off air till fixed. Could this have been the opening night? |
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Post by LF Barfe on Mar 24, 2005 23:45:02 GMT
I hope that eventually it finds it's way to the NFTVA - a valuable recording. I wonder if the missing audio portion is intact on the existing NFTVA copy? I'm sure some of it will be there, but if, as you say, it's edited, the relevant section might not be complete. |
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Post by H Hartley on Mar 25, 2005 12:48:28 GMT
Could this have been the opening night? Could well be Louis. be interesting to hear the sound off the funeral copy, as if it sounds a bit hissy and ghostly it was probably recorded straight off air (as you know 405 line TV had AM sound) |
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Post by LFBarfe on Mar 26, 2005 13:20:52 GMT
be interesting to hear the sound off the funeral copy, as if it sounds a bit hissy and ghostly it was probably recorded straight off air (as you know 405 line TV had AM sound) I wouldn't imagine that the BBC had a clean feed of ITV, so it must have been off-air. |
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Post by Wright Blan on Mar 27, 2005 4:32:33 GMT
Hmmm...mabye we Dr. Who fans been going at this all wrong all of these years. Mabye we should be checking ITV for "Marca", "Space Pirates," etc. instead of New Zealand or Australia! 
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Post by Peter Morley on Mar 30, 2005 11:48:41 GMT
On behalf of Independent Television I produced and was the overall director of the Churchill Funeral. . Rediffusion was in charge of the operation. I was not aware that the BBC had a technical problem at the start of their transmission, and I would have known if they had a feed from my coverage. I believe that they would have been too proud even to attempt it.
I was on the air with 45 cameras for 5 hours and five minutes. I believe the BBC’s tx time must have been about the same. The BBC broadcast was narrated by Richard Dimbleby and the ITV broadcast by Brian Connell. with the voices of Sir Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield and Churchill’s own voice. Both broadcasts were telerecorded.
The ITV version and the BBC’s were condensed to sixty minutes in order to qualify for the 1965 International Outside Broadcast Festival in Cannes. There were entries from seventeen countries competing for the Cannes Grand Prix. The ITV version won the Grand Prix and also that year’s Guild of Television Producers and Directors award (the BAFTA mask).
The NFTVA holds my one-hour version. It was repeated and shown by Thames TV in 1990 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the event, under the title of ‘The Valiant Man’. I have presented it to a variety of audiences including a screening at the Imperial War Museum.
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