Television: nothing brings us together more than the small screen in the corner of the living room. It’s entertained us, made us smarter, and to my mind brought us some of the most potent music of our times. It’s given us a lifetime of golden tunes … TV composers are unsung heroes. The Sound of TV with Neil Brand I, BBC 2020
The Persuaders [1971]: Instantly draws you into a playboy world of glamour and suspense … plucked harps and futuristic synthesizers. ibid.
The Prisoner [1967] … Doctor Who [1962] … Game of Thrones [2011] … Blue Planet II [2017] … The Grove Family [1954] … Coronation Street [1960] … Eastenders [1985] … The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [1955] … Robin Hood [1955] … Magic Roundabout [1965] … The Heck Harper Show [1964 US] … Bagpuss [1974 UK] … Dixon of Dock Green [1969] … Z Cars [1962] … Danger Man [1960] … Department S [1970] … The Saint [1969] … Screen Test [1975] … Farmhouse Kitchen [1977] … Thunderbirds [1964] … The Young Ones [1982] … The Simpsons [1989] … The Jetsons [US 1962] … ibid.
Musical scores brought musical scale to TV dramas and documentaries. ibid.
Music written for television is a very particular art form: it needs to grab you, be immediate, stop you from switching over or switching off, and none more so than the musical high-cues that have ushered in the programmes we treasure so deeply and planted themselves indelibly in our heads – the theme tune. ibid.
Biographic memory: it’s the same for all of us. ibid.
Particularly in the 1960s and ’70s the themes of the day would often be plucked from the sleeves of one of these – Themes – It’s a library record, stock music, sent speculatively to radio and TV stations, the product of an entire industry … Library music is incredibly collectable. ibid.
We collect TV themes like family photographs throughout our lives, they become part of our memories defining who we are and who we once were. ibid.
‘I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love’ … That in the early 1970s was one of the best-known pieces of music on television, not just here in Britain but on screens all around the world. To a certain generation it immediately conjures up memories of the young, collective appeal and a certain sugary drink. The Sound of TV with Neil Bland II: Advertising & Jingles, Coca-Cola Hilltop song, 1971
Shake n Vac 1981 … Cadbury’s Smith & the Martians 1973 … Channel 4 theme tune … ibid.
BBC: Most programmes were shot live in a studio on big Emitron cameras that cost £10,000 each … The BBC could only afford four of them … To ensure audiences weren’t subjected to blank silent screens, they were instead treated to Interludes: comfortingly sedate short films made simply to fill time, accompanied by quintessentially English divertimenti, with swishing harps and cascading violins that recalled the pastoral warmth of Vaughan Williams. Top of the Interlude charts was The Potter’s Wheel. ibid.
Test card tunes have become a potent memory for a whole new generation. ibid.
Allowing commercials to be shown on television for the first time: but the Act’s passing was not without controversy: both parliament and the press hotly debated whether adverts would have a detrimental affect on British culture. ibid.
US: The Chiquita Banana Song hit the airwaves in 1944 and aimed to teach consumers how to eat and store bananas which hadn’t been imported into America during the war. ibid.
Meow Mix 1984 US … Sugar Puffs 1976 UK … R White’s Lemonade 1973 … Hamlet cigars 1974 … Hoover’s bike ride 1973 … Channel 4 ident 1982 … ibid.
But when it came to the score, the music that drives the narrative of drama and documentary, it took a while to get there … Music escaped the confines of the box in the living-room corner to take us deeper and with greater scale and impact into the fictional and real-life dramas that played out on our screens. The Sound of TV with Neil Brand III
The Forsythe Saga 1967 … Game of Thrones 2011-2019 … The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau 1968-76 … The World at War 1973 … Brideshead Revisited 1981 … Life on Earth 1979 … Trials of Life 1990 … Blue Planet 2001 … Real Housewives of Beverly Hills 2019 … Rock Follies 1976 … Gold Diggers 1933 … The Singing Detective 1986 … The Sopranos 1999-2007 … ibid.
A brilliant score can add emotion and tension to documentary story-telling. ibid.
Have we entered an era where perhaps music is doing too much on TV, manipulating rather than gently guiding us? ibid.
For over 50 years he was a constant presence on Britain’s television screens. A reassuring host, the perfect master of ceremonies, the man whose face was so familiar he felt like the nation’s uncle. But he was also one of our finest stand-up comedians, a performer whose love of words and the crafting of a gag made him the most accomplished comic of his generation. Bob Monkhouse, Master of Laughter, Channel 5 2020
His was a stellar career that including writing comedy for some of the biggest stars in the world, appearing in movies, starring in radio shows, hosting game shows, but more than anything he was a world-class stand-up comedian. ibid.
Jokes were what Bob Monkhouse lived for. He would spend his days writing jokes, his evenings telling jokes … He once worked out he’d written and told well over a million jokes in his career. ibid.
Before long, they [with Denis Goodwin] were performing together too. In the early 50s Bob and Denis were in such demand to appear in the top radio shows of the time that they set up their own business: The Monkhouse & Goodwin Agency … In 1962 their partnership ended. ibid.
In 1967 he was invited to become host of the biggest entertainment show of the time, The London Palladium Show … That same year Bob learned that ATV had acquired the rights to a hot new game show which had been a huge hit in Germany. The name of the show: The Golden Shot. ibid.
To entice Bob back to ATV the company had agreed that after 12 months he could host a new game show that his management had spotted in America: that show was Celebrity Squares. ibid.
Long long ago in the days before digital, when television closed down at night, and didn’t even run all day, there was an idea. The idea was that children should have, deserved to have, their own television programmes just for them. From Andy Pandy to Zebedee: The Golden Age of Children’s Television, BBC 2021
Little by little they built whole afternoons full of wonder just for children to enjoy. ibid.
Muffin the Mule … Andy Pandy … Crackerjack … Treasure Island … Tales of the Riverbank … Play School … Play Away … Jackanory … Top Cat … Vision On … The jewel in the crown was always Blue Peter. ibid.
ITV went all out to entertain ... Robin Hood … Lone Ranger … and lured away 75% of the audience. ibid.
As the department proved themselves and budgets were negotiated, adaptations of classic English novels were made for the afternoon audiences … Carrie’s War … The Swish of the Curtain … The Phoenix & the Carpet … The Box of Delights … ibid.
By the end of Vladimir Putin’s second term in 2008, all Russian television was under state control. Storyville: Tango with Putin, BBC 2022
The top executive of a Moscow music radio station Natasha [Sindeeva] was a dancing queen of the city. ibid. Vera Krichevskaya’s commentary
A crazy idea: so Natasha had one: to build her very own TV empire. ibid.
Dozhd TV goes live: the Optimistic Channel: the first broadcasts looked hideous, totally DIY. ibid.
We are being taken off the air. About an hour ago Dozhd TV was dropped from the NTV+ cable package. ibid. news
We all started to hate each other. That was it. When we met at briefings it was impossible. ibid. employee
In a country of 140 million people only 60,000 are willing to pay for independent news … You cannot change the world with such a small audience. ibid.
You can see it live. Police have entered our offices. ibid.
We contacted people whose lives were affected by the Jeremy Kyle Show. Some of the show’s guests agreed to be filmed. We also approached over 200 people who worked on the show. Four team members agreed to be interviewed anonymously on the condition their words were spoken by actors. Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime I, captions, Channel 4 2022
The number of secrets we’ve kept is frightening. ibid. worker
The talk show which has run for fourteen years was permanently cancelled earlier today following the death of a participant. ibid. Sky News
He’s so condescending. He’s so disrespectful … She [heroin addict daughter] opened herself up and he bullied her. ibid. guest
The lie came when we were in the studio. We would go into corridors and that’s when the lie would come. Tell their addicts and their families that there’s three other families going on that stage, and fight for that one bed. Jeremy’s going to pick who he wants so you need to get out there and you need to say what you need to say. It was to get more emotion on the stage. ibid. worker
You’re always acting and you’re always winding people up. ibid.
Jeremy was incredibly nasty, really just demeaning. ibid.
You just get the sense that he didn’t care about these people. ibid.