|
Howard Thomas (c 1909—6 November 1986) was a Welsh-born British radio producer and television executive. 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...
November 6 is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 55 days remaining. ...
1986 (MCMLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
For an explanation of often confusing terms such as Great Britain, Britain, United Kingdom and England, see British Isles (terminology). ...
Early career Thomas began his career typing invoices for a firm of wire-drawers in Manchester. Whilst doing that job, he taught himself to write newspaper articles and short plays. When some of these articles were published, he managed to get a job in the firm's advertising department. Manchester is a city in the North West of England, UK. The place is named from the old British name Mamucium plus ceaster, derived from the old Latin Castra. Manchester is a metropolitan borough with city status. ...
That job enabled Thomas to mix with advertising agents and through networking he obtained a position with F John Roe, one of Manchester's advertising agencies.
From there he moved to the London agency F C Prichard Wood and Partners. Afterward he continued to write articles, having a London entertainment column in the Manchester Evening Chronicle. This column was spotted by the London Press Exchange and he was hired by them as a copywriter. London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ...
Commercial radio At London Press Exchange, Thomas worked in the commercial radio section, at first writing, then producing commercial packages for companies including Cadbury's. These packages, usually of music or variety acts interspersed with subtle commercials for the sponsor, were then placed on Radio Luxembourg and similar longwave broadcasters who could be heard in the UK. Cadbury Schweppes plc (Cadbury Trebor Bassett), (NYSE: CSG) is a confectionery and beverage company with its headquarters in London. ...
Radio Luxembourg (1933-1992) was an important forerunner of pirate radio and modern commercial radio in Europe. ...
Longwave radio frequencies are those below 500 kHz, which correspond to wavelengths longer than 600 meters. ...
In this position he came to the attention of the BBC, officially the monopoly (and non-commercial) broadcaster in the UK, and he began to submit scripts and programme ideas to them whilst continuing to work for the unofficial international commercial broadcasters. Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation. ...
However, at the outbreak of World War II, the commercial broadcasters closed and the advertising market contracted. Thomas kept his post at London Press Exchange, but effectively had no work to do. He attempted to fill time by producing books about the blackout and producing more articles for newspapers, and also worked for Publicity Films Limited producing public information films. Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War II, also known as the Second World War (sometimes WW2 or WWII or World War Two), was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the...
Public Information Films (aka PIFs) are a series of government commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the UK. The US equivalent is the Public Service Announcement (PSAs). ...
BBC radio On the outbreak of war, the BBC had closed its existing two Regional Programme and National Programme stations and replaced them with a single national station, the Home Service (now BBC Radio 4). BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ...
This move was criticised as it led to boredom amongst the listeners during the Phony War, who were also faced with cinemas and sporting events being closed "for the duration" and the loss of the competition to the BBC. The Phony War, or in Winston Churchills words the Twilight War, was the phase of World War II marked by no military operations in Continental Europe, that followed the collapse of Poland. ...
As the Phony War ended, the BBC decided to introduce an entertainment-based national radio station, primarily for the men under arms. The new service, the Forces Programme, required popular programming that the BBC had not, until that point, generally produced. The BBC hired many new producers from the former commercial agencies, including Howard Thomas.
Ack Ack Beer Beer Thomas's first assignment was to produce the programme "Ack Ack Beer Beer", an entertainment and variety programme for anti-aircraft and barrage balloon emplacements. Both jobs featured very little action and therefore the BBC felt that 'lively' entertainment had to be provided for the crews. American troops man an anti-aircraft gun near the Algerian coastline in 1943 Anti-aircraft warfare, or air defense, is any method of engaging military aircraft in combat from the ground. ...
US Marine Corps barrage balloon, Parris Island, May 1942 A barrage balloon is a large balloon used as a defence against aircraft. ...
Under Thomas, the programme developed into a miscellany of variety, talk, music and comedy, using whatever talent was available near the evacuated Variety Department's studios in Bristol. On occasion this was no talent at all, and Thomas later told of an edition made up of him and his co-producer playing "Shove ha'penny", which had the side effect of reintroducing the game to the population. Bristol is a unitary authority with city and ceremonial county status in South West England. ...
Shove hapenny (or shove halfpenny) is a traditional game with historic links to coinarama. ...
Sincerely Yours, Vera Lynn With Bristol now a victim of the Blitz, the Variety Department moved to Bangor in north Wales. However, feeling that opportunities for variety would be limited there, Thomas engineered a move back to London. German bomber over the Surrey Docks, London The Blitz was the sustained and intensive bombing of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during 1940–1941. ...
Places Called Bangor Bangor is the name of several places: In the United Kingdom: Bangor, a town in County Down, Northern Ireland Bangor, a city in Gwynedd, Wales (and home of the University of Wales, Bangor) Bangor-on-Dee (a. ...
A variety show is a show with a variety of acts, often including music and comedy skits, especially on television. ...
In London he spotted singer Vera Lynn in a stage show. He created a radio programme for her called "Sincerely Yours, Vera Lynn" where she sang popular tunes of the time, read out letters from servicemen and introduced entertainers. Vera Lynn has written two autobiographies. ...
The show was a hit, both with the forces and the country at large, although the senior officers of both the British Army and the Royal Navy strongly objected to the sentimental and "soppy" music and presentation. Nevertheless, the show made the song "We'll Meet Again" famous and kept it as one of the best selling pieces of music throughout the war. The show also cemented Vera Lynn's title of "forces' sweetheart" and ensured that she would remain, as of 2006, something akin to a national treasure in the UK. The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ...
The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ...
Well Meet Again is a 1943 song performed by British singer Vera Lynn and written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles. ...
To assuage critics of "Sincerely Yours", Thomas introduced the programme "I Am John Bull", featuring military marches and "strong" music. The programme was not successful.
Shipmates Ashore The BBC Forces Programme provided distinct programming for each of the armed services. However, the Merchant Navy, not being classed as an armed service and under the patronage of the Ministry of Labour, was not included. In most seafaring countries, the merchant marine (or merchant navy) is a fleet of ships used for commerce that sometimes complements the navy. ...
Howard Thomas began a programme named "Shipmates Ashore" aimed at this audience. The programme was set in a Merchant Navy club and quickly became an effectively real club, with free beer and "companionship" for visiting merchant seamen. The show featured a mixture of music, singing, comedy and information (in the form of a "ship's newspaper") as well as providing a platform for discussion of issues of interest to the sailors. The programme was presented by Doris Hare.
The Brains Trust No history of the UK "home front" experience during World War II is complete without "The Brains Trust". As conceived by Howard Thomas and Douglas Cleverdon, the programme was a simple mixture of light panel game entertainment and heavier discussion of items of scientific, legal, medical and social importance. At that time, there was much discussion in the UK about the shape of the world and the country after the war, which reached the peak of the crescendo with the Beveridge Report and a climax with the 1945 landslide election of Attlee's Labour government. Home front is the informal term commonly used to describe the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system of its military. ...
A game show involves members of the public or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, playing a game, perhaps involving answering quiz questions, for points or prizes. ...
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge of Tuggal (March 5, 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and social reformer. ...
The United Kingdom General Election of 1945 held on 5 July 1945 but not counted and declared until 26 July 1945 (due to the time it took to transport the votes of those serving overseas) was one of the most significant general elections of the 20th century. ...
The Right Honourable Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951. ...
The Labour Party is the principal centre-left political party in the United Kingdom (see British politics). ...
The programme featured the learned Professor Cyril E. M. Joad, previously rejected for radio for his strange speaking voice; the writer and zoologist Julian Huxley; and the loud and entertaining Archibald Bruce Campbell. The programme first aired under the title "Any Questions?" and drew a small audience and few questions. However, within a few weeks it had caught the zeitgeist of the nation, gaining an audience of 11.5million. The series was extended from a run of 12 episodes into an open-ended series that eventually ran into the 1950s. Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad (August 12, 1891 - April 9, 1953) was a British philosopher and broadcasting personality. ...
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, FRS (June 22, 1887 – February 14, 1975) was a British biologist, author, humanist and internationalist, known for his popularisations of science in books and lectures. ...
However, the popularity of the programme, dealing as it did with matters of controversy and politics, caused complaints of left-wing bias from within the BBC and from commentators outside. The BBC attempted to modify the format of the programme to avoid this but also sought to avoid damaging the shows popularity. With military criticism of "Sincerely Yours", general complaints about the bawdy humour in "Shipmates Ashore" and political criticism of "The Brains Trust", the BBC sought a scapegoat and pressured Howard Thomas to leave. In 1944, he resigned. The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view. ...
1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...
British Pathé On leaving the BBC, Howard Thomas joined the Associated British Picture Corporation as head of British Pathé, the newsreel and film company. Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France. ...
A Newsreel is a documentary film that is regularly released in a public presentation place containing filmed news stories. ...
Thomas relaunched the ailing Pathé Gazette as Pathé News, began hiring new camera operators and pioneered the switch to colour film. He also arranged for the Pathé archives, then of little or no intrinsic value to the company, to be indexed and properly preserved for future use. An undated color photograph from 1905 to 1915 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Color photography was explored throughout the 1800s. ...
ABC Weekend TV By the 1950s, it was becoming clear that television was eating into the audiences for cinema. Frustrated at his inability to convince the Associated British Picture Corporation that it should either expand into production of popular feature films or bid for one of the new commercial broadcasting licences offered under the Television Act 1954 by the Independent Television Authority (ITA), Howard Thomas began to look for roles in the new ITV companies that were being started. A reel of film, which predates digital cinematography. ...
The Television Act 1954 was a British law which permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom, ITV. Royal Assent was given to the Act on 30 July 1954. ...
The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was a body created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of Independent Television (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. ...
Current ITV logo. ...
He was offered the job of General Manager of Kemsley-Winnick Television, the new weekend contractor for the midlands and north of England. However, before he could take up the job, Lord Kemsley pulled out of the company and the contract lapsed. Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK...
The ITA made a last-ditch attempt to get the Associated British Picture Corporation involved in commercial television as a replacement for Kemsley-Winnick. The board of the company was finally convinced to try, and signed a contract with the ITA on 21 September 1955 to form Associated British Cinemas (Television) Limited to take over the contract. September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ...
1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
ABC logo, 1960s ABC Television or ABC Weekend TV was the British Independent Television (ITV) (commercial television) contractor on Saturdays and Sundays in the Midlands and North of England between 1956 and 1968. ...
Howard Thomas was appointed as managing director of the company and hired Sydney Newman and Brian Tesler as his controllers of drama and light entertainment respectively. Sydney Cecil Newman OC (April 1, 1917—October 30, 1997) was a Canadian film and television producer, best remembered for the pioneering work he undertook in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. ...
Thames Television In 1966, the ITA had announced that the pattern of broadcasting for Independent Television was to change from 1968. All contractors would be required to reapply for their contracts, and, whilst there would be one more contract available than before (for Yorkshire), the previous weekend splits in the three central regions of London, the midlands and the north of England would be altered. The London split would change to Friday evenings (rather than the self-contained weekend it had previously been) whilst the midlands and the north would be redivided into three whole-week regions. ABC's contract area would therefore cease to exist. 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ...
The White Yorkshire rose. ...
Howard Thomas had planned for ABC Television to apply for the extended London weekends contract. However, the appearance of a consortium of major figures from the BBC and Rediffusion under the leadership of David Frost made this impossible. The London Television Consortium (later London Weekend Television) won the contract, and the ITA was left with no place for ABC. Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion London, was the British Independent Television (commercial television) contractor for London, on weekdays between 1954 (transmissions started on September 22, 1955) and July 29, 1968. ...
Frost interviewing Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE (born 17 April 1939) is a British television presenter. ...
Now known as ITV London (Weekends) London Weekend Television logo, 1978-1996 London Weekend Television logo, 1996-2004 London Weekend Television Limited (LWT) is the ITV contractor for London, Friday 5:15pm to Monday, 5:59am. ...
The ITA's solution was to ask ABC and Rediffusion to merge to form a new company. They specified at ABC would have a slim majority of the shares, and that the managing director would be Howard Thomas. In practice, the merger proved impossible due to outside interests held by both parent companies. Instead, the parent companies formed a joint company called Thames Television, which took over the staff of ABC in Teddington and a minority of staff from Rediffusion. Management and on-screen talent was mainly provided by ABC. The classic Thames Television logo (1969 - 1989), featuring a geographically incorrect montage of London landmarks. ...
Teddington is a place in Middlesex, England in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. ...
A continuity announcer is a broadcaster whose voice (and, in some cases, face) appears between radio or television programmes. ...
Thames retained the London weekdays licence until 31 December 1992. December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...
Retirement The ITA set a limit on the age of managing directors of ITV companies, specifying that they retire at the age of 75.
When Howard Thomas reached this age, Thames Television Holdings (the company that held the shares in Thames formerly held by the now-defunct Associated British Picture Corporation) promoted him from Thames Television to become chairman of Thames Television International - then a subsidiary of Thames but previously known as EMI Films and, before that, the remains of the former ABC owner Associated British Picture Corporation. EMI Films is a motion picture production arm of The EMI Group, and its films were released between 1939 and 1990. ...
Family Howard Thomas married Hilda in 1934 and they had two daughters, Rosemary and Carol. 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
See also The most famous incarnation of The Avengers, John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) appear on the cover of a 1994 reprint of an Avengers novel co-written by Macnee. ...
Armchair Theatre was a British television drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV network from 1956 until 1968 in its original form, and was intermittently resurrected at various points during the 1970s. ...
Eamonn Andrews Eamonn Andrews (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was a Irish born television presenter in the United Kingdom. ...
References - Thomas, Howard With An Independent Air London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1977 ISBN 0297772783
- Sendall, Bernard Independent Television in Britain: Volume 1 - Origin and Foundation 1946-62 London: The Macmillan Press Ltd 1982 (reprinted 1984) ISBN 0333309413 pp68, 82-84, 312, 359
- Graham, Russ J Howard Thomas: Independent broadcaster TVHeroes from Electromusications by Transdiffusion 2005, accessed 3 February 2006
- Bowden-Smith, Chris (Ed.) ABC at Large Telemusications from Transdiffusion 2002, accessed 3 February 2006
- Elen, Richard G British Film Institute Screenonline - ABC undated, accessed 3 February 2006
- Elen, Richard G British Film Institute Screenonline - Thames undated, accessed 3 February 2006
External links |
Feeds |
Contact