Once upon a time, community television in Britain was considered an exciting experiment, something that hadn’t been done before and could unite communities while fostering creativity. In hindsight, local television endeavours often faced ridicule and operated on shoestring budgets. But, back in the early 1970s, there was a real buzz about showcasing the community and providing a voice for the locals.
In 1972, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Christopher Chataway, announced an ambitious project aimed at evaluating the logistics and appeal of local television services provided through a cable service. Cable television wasn't new in Britain; the BBC's earliest cable broadcasts date back to 1936. However, independently operated cable television stations were rare. Pay-TV, an innovative pay-per-view service, had been launched at the start of 1966, but by the end of 1968 they had ceased transmissions.
Now, though, there would be five community cable channels launched in Greenwich, Sheffield, Swindon, Wellingborough and Bristol. Greenwich Cablevision was first out of the blocks in July 1972, and, for 10 months, was the UK's sole community cable channel. And then it was joined by Bristol Channel.
Bristol Channel was the brainchild of Rediffusion, a company already operating cable services in 200 UK towns. Following a shortlisting exercise, 18 towns were chosen as potential carriers of a community cable service. After a prolonged selection process, it was decided that Bristol, with its diverse cultural landscape and strong traditions of commerce, was the perfect candidate to give its community a voice.
And community was going to be central to the project. Members of the Bristol community were expected to handle production duties and star in the homegrown programming Initially, 15 hours a week of programming had been approved, and it was hoped that this content would go on to represent a topical local diary.
Launching a new television station is never straightforward, but progress for Bristol Channel was relatively swift, likely helped by its lo-fi credentials. In March 1973, it was announced that Sir John Eden, the new Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, would be opening Bristol Channel on 17th May 1973. At first, Bristol Channel would be concentrating on a weekend schedule and, whilst a limited experiment, excitement was in the air with Hugh Dundas, managing director of Rediffusion, claiming “We regard it as an important step in the development of cable television.”
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| Attendees at the Bristol Channel launch night |
Bristol Channel, as planned, launched on 17th May 1973, with an opening reception held at the Grand Hotel in Bristol. Along with Sir John Eden, other attendees at the event included the Bristol Cine Club, Hugh Dundas and, proudly donning his gold chains, the Lord Mayor of Bristol. Notable by his absence for most of the reception, though, was Peter Lewis, the manager of Bristol Channel. However, far from displaying a lack of interest, Lewis was simply too busy preparing the channel’s premiere for the following day.
The first broadcast came at 7.30am on 18th May 1973 with an edition of Friday Breakfast. Presented by husband and wife duo Colin and Mavis Banks, Friday Breakfast was billed as Britain’s first ever regular breakfast television programme. Several years later, in 1981, Greenwich Cablevision would claim that their new programme Greenwich AM was the country’s inaugural breakfast television strand, but Bristol Channel were indeed the true owners of this crown.
Colin and Mavis were the epitome of what Bristol Channel would represent. Far from experienced television presenters, Colin’s background was a dog handler for the Bristol police force, whilst Mavis manned the switchboards at Rediffusion’s Bristol Office. Buying into the concept of community television from the off, Colin summed up the value and importance of Bristol Channel ahead of its launch in Broadcast magazine:
“Now we have a new opportunity - a new means of communication, not one which is large, nor one which can be impersonal. It can be the new “village pump”; by its very nature it can and no doubt will, adopt a parochial attitude. It will have the people it serves working for it and with it. Every family has its own story, its own problems and a community is no different because it is made up of families. This new service can make people aware that the individual is still important for his own sake.”
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| A test recording of Friday Breakfast |
The premiere of Friday Breakfast, which was filmed in a studio at the Bristol headquarters of Rediffusion, was available to the 23,000 homes who were subscribed to the Rediffusion cable network in Bristol. But with close to 37,000 more homes available to the network, there was a potential audience of over 200,000 viewers. However, a key stipulation of the experimental licence was that there was to be no advertising on Bristol Channel, and public funds were also ruled out as a means of financial support. Money, as we will see, would continue to be a major hindrance.
But, for now, let’s celebrate the early days of Bristol Channel. Friday Breakfast was joined by an intriguing array of programmes in the schedule. Clubnight was, as the name says on the tin, a Saturday evening series which found various clubs and societies demonstrating their activities for the night. Video Playground, which was due to launch in July, promised to hand over the station to local children who would have full control over the contents of the programme. The Bristol Cine Club, naturally, were keen to produce local films for the channel, whilst there was to be a Citizen’s Advice Bureau programme and one looking at the world of pets.
Six months later, and Bristol Channel had changed from a Friday - Sunday schedule to a Monday - Friday affair, with each nightly broadcast running to an hour. It was difficult to estimate the number of viewers tuning it, and the estimates that were produced amounted to around a rather disappointing 2,500 viewers. And, unfortunately, the volunteer-led approach was also resulting in the production of material which was classed untransmittable.
Nonetheless, an exciting strand of programming had emerged from Bristol Channel in the form of the Knowle West project. With the help of portable recording equipment, the residents of the Knowle West neighbourhood would suddenly be given a voice. Peter Lewis explained more about the project in Television Mail in November 1973:
“Many of those who live in Knowle West, a pre-war housing estate is South Bristol, would be the first to admit that the area has a bad reputation, and many would say that it is unjustified: there is a strong local spirit which has, over the years, fought successfully for amenities which were not present in the original planning of the estate. Nevertheless, there are enough unsolved problems in the area to concern many local residents, various corporation and government departments and a number of other voluntary agencies.
Bristol Channel was interested in finding an area where the use of portable television by ordinary people might lead, as it has done in cities in Britain and North America, to greater social cohesion and more effective communication between groups and the responsible authorities.
We wanted to see what would happen if a portapak was made continuously available on terms decided by local people. Tapes made would be replayed locally and transmitted on the cable only if local people wanted. Regular training would spread the relatively simple skill of portable television to people whom it might never have occurred to appear on television, let alone use it. Hopefully its use would bring bring results sufficient to encourage involvement where for years it had not seemed worth getting involved - nobody was listening, so why bother?”
It’s an excellent argument for community cable, and one which outlines why the government had committed to this experiment. To suddenly grant a voice to the disenfranchised and provide them with a platform for change sounds like an idealistic, almost revolutionary, dream, but it was happening in Bristol. Albeit on a tiny scale.
Best of all, for us in the 21st century, significant footage of Bristol Channel, especially the Knowle West project is available online. After its closure, around 100 hours of Bristol Channel footage was donated to the National Film Archive. By 2014, some of this material had been digitised and archived by the Knowle West Media Centre. Luckily, they uploaded 30 generous clips to YouTube for the wider world to see.
So, what does this footage tell us about Bristol Channel? For starters, the lo-fi aesthetic stands out, alongside the gloriously strong Bristolian accents. The black-and-white visuals feel dated, especially in an era when color TV had been around since the late 1960s. Even so, there’s a clear effort to mimic professional television, with title cards, theme tunes, and simple sets. While the production is basic, it’s undeniably television. Sure, some presenters lack polish - although this fellow, who I suspect may be Geoffrey Serle, on Pastime shows hints of experience - but their enthusiasm shines through.
The Knowle West segments are even more more amateur in appearance, an aesthetic produced by the portapak equipment used to film them. To modern eyes, they resemble home recordings made by budding camcorder owners in the 1980s and 90s, but it’s the content which is most striking.
Take, for example, the above footage from the opening night at the Fighting Cocks pub. It offers more than a snapshot of a community - it's a glimpse into British culture in the early 1970s, where men wore their suits to the pub, the Hammond organ reigned supreme and, uh, bagpipers barely raised an eyebrow when wheeled out as backing musicians.
In early 1974, Peter Lewis announced a £6,000 advertising campaign to boost Bristol Channel's viewership. It’s aim would be to promote the current schedules of the channel which, by this point, had settled on a format which commenced with the evening news - read by Geoffrey Serle - before two programmes, such as Made in Bristol and Dial-a-Programme, which appeared to allow viewers to request repeats from the diminutive Bristol Channel archive.
But this £6,000 would be coming directly out of the finances of Bristol Channel, an account which was receiving little income due to the ban on advertising. And it was indicative of the problems facing not just Bristol Channel, but all community cable stations. The BBC had the licence fee and ITV had advertising revenue to strengthen their product, but community cable channels had to rely on the purse strings of their owners. And these purse strings appeared to be getting tighter and tighter as time went on.
Despite the financial uncertainty surrounding Bristol Channel, there was positive news in terms of audience engagement. Whilst a survey in March 1974 revealed that only a third of Rediffusion customers had watched Bristol Channel in the previous fortnight, this figure had raised to half of all customers by June. In particular the Knowle West features and the news had stood out to these viewers, so it seemed as though Bristol Channel was starting to build some strength into its baby steps.
However, trouble was on the horizon for Bristol Channel. With the government announcing that the community cable experiment would be extended to 1979, rather than ending in 1976, the cable stations were faced with the prospect of little to no return on their investment. This was frustrating for Bristol Channel as Peter Lewis felt they were making real progress, going as far as to describe the Knowle West project as a “social phenomenon.”
At the end of 1974, Greenwich Cablevision made its final broadcast, although it would continue for several years on a part-time basis as a volunteer project. Bristol Channel wasn’t far behind and, on March 14th 1975, its final transmission was piped into the homes of those still watching. With the estimated annual cost of running the station standing at £100,000, it was impossible to keep the station afloat with the minuscule funds afforded by local advertising.
Comically, the press announcement by Rediffusion, held at the Cafe Royal in London, to close the service was recorded by Bristol Channel staff on their portapak equipment. It was a wry end for the channel and one which led to the majority of the staff heading straight to the dole queue. In many ways it was inevitable, few experiments prove to be successful. And the crippling financial restrictions in place saw off all of the channels aside from Swindon Viewpoint, who were effectively bankrolled by their local authority.
Bristol Channel was never going to compete with the BBC or ITV, certainly in terms of production values or star talent, but they were more than capable of providing a social diary of a community at a specific moment in time. Looking back, it’s fascinating to watch the reality of life in Bristol in the early to mid 1970s. Bristol Channel may not have succeeded in the long term, but its contribution towards archiving British culture for future generations deserves to be remembered.
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