Early television in South Africa

[Brian Denton]

I can remember as a kid being astonished when I heard that South Africa was finally going to have television - in about 1973!! However, it raises an interesting question. Elites being what they are, it is unlikely that rich white South Africans went without television, so does that mean there were video recorders and tapes galore floating around? Possible area to mine?

[Simon Smith]

Jul 12, 2013 10:27:27 GMT Brian Denton said:

I can remember as a kid being astonished when I heard that South Africa was finally going to have television - in about 1973!! However, it raises an interesting question. Elites being what they are, it is unlikely that rich white South Africans went without television, so does that mean there were video recorders and tapes galore floating around? Possible area to mine?

Apparently television began in South Africa in 1975. Prior to that the main entertainment in the home was radio(many popular tv shows were rewritten for radio, such as The Avengers). Where things get interesting is I spoke to one chap from Johannesburg who said that just as there are DVD rental places today, in the 60's and 70's there were places that rented out film prints for a 24-hour period, and these included UK shows. Whether that's true, what shows these were, and whatever happened to these prints are things I can't say however.

[richardwoods]

Interesting thought for you, from the mid 60s to 1975 when SA got television, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was a pariah state since declaring UDI from Britain and white minority rule. At that time SA maintained links with Rhodesia which I believe had received many bicycled prints of various program's from the UK. If what you are saying is correct about films for rent including UK programming then this does present some interesting possibilities of film cans migrating across borders from Rhodesia, particularly as the Rhodesian governing class felt no loyalty towards the UK since UDI. What chance of potential finds in SA on this basis I wonder?

[garyfreeman]

Many moons ago I used to play cricket with a guy from South Africa (Good pace bowler). During the course of a converstaion he stated that tv was just starting in South Africa. This would have been around 1976 ish. I remember commenting that he would have missed all of the kids tv series from the 60's like thunderbirds, doctor who etc. He replied that he used to go to a small cinema on a saturday morning to watch these ? . maybe there is some yardage in lost tv still being in S.A

[Richard Marple]

I've heard of shows like Yes Minister been bootlegged in SA in the 1980s, at least when home video was available it was fairly easy to do.

[richardwoods]

Does anyone think that there is any mileage in copies of prints from Rhodesia being made and passed to SA to feed the Cinema trade in this sort of programming? Can't imagine it will have been through official channels at the time?

[John Wall]

There have been worse avenues proposed here. Is there any way of finding out what was shown ?

[richardwoods]

Will contact an ex pat South African friend and ask him if he watched anything this way or has any ideas how we could chase this.

[Deleted]

I grew up in South Africa at that time. However prior to television starting up in 1975/76, one could always rent movies and a projector. I do
remember seeing an Avengers episode at a friends party one year. From what I can recall, most of the stuff to hire in the shops was american
tv shows and films. You also need to bear in mind that in South Africa at that time, there was very strict censorship laws and shops could be
raided by the police and heavily fined if found to be carrying titles not covered by a "censor board certificate".

Also as television took over and video cassettes came in, a lot of those stores went out of business. It is therefore highly unlikely that lost
episodes might turn up there and if they did, condition might not be good because of the climate.

[richardwoods]

Reply from my mate,

Sorry I've taken a while to get back to you.

Yes, I do remember watching British TV at the local bughouses, things like " Candid Camera ", " The Sweeny ", " The Persauders ", " The Saint " etc..
We never had cinema chains then, but independent cinemas , like " His Majesty's ", " The Empire ", " The Cinerama ",
" The Coloseum ", " The 20th Century ", " The Rialto ", " The Roxy " & many, many more including all the drive-in cinemas .
We only got movie chains in the '80's like " SterCity " etc..

You could Google : " Springbok Radio archives " & also find out more about all the British radio plays & comedies
like: " The Men From The Ministry "etc..

I hope this can help you ?.
Lemme know what you find.

Some scope here I think.

[richardwoods]

Is there any one on the forum with contacts in Joburg or elsewhere in SA who could look in to this. My friend has named some cinemas in the Joburg area but in reality there will no doubt have been cinemas like this across the country in the 60s and 70s? Someone on the ground would be really helpful on this?

[Alan Hayes]

When I was putting together the Avengers on the Radio website, I discussed with Donald Monat (the actor who played Steed in the SA radio adaptations) and he did recall having seen episodes of The Avengers via the 'film hire' route before he began playing the role. He reckoned that due to the films being played on a variety of different equipment, by projectionists with little or no training, often once every night or two, most prints had a very short life expectancy and many he hired were in a very poor state. If any do survive from this source, they are almost certain to be damaged and missing sections of film.

[richardwoods]

Interesting, "exists damaged" is obviously potentially better than "does not exist" so it would be good if it was possible to follow this up in some way. Do we have any forum members living in SA?

[Alan Hayes]

A little more, from the interview I did with Donald Monat a few years back:

"Yes, we did have the pleasure of seeing many of the [Avengers] TV episodes, long before the idea of doing the radio series came up, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. They weren't shown in cinemas in South Africa, but you could rent 16mm prints of the films – in fact, we saw many British and American TV series that way. We, like many of our friends, owned a 16mm projector and, at the time, there were film rental libraries in every suburb [of Johannesburg] – much like the video stores of today."

[richardwoods]

Did he remember if he saw any of series 1 in SA this way? Doubtful I guess.