1950s - 1960s Miscellaneous
BBC One National News
Coverage of BBC news presentation during the 1950s and 1960s.
Above: 'BBC News And Newsreel' opening sequence [1954]. Here we see the familiar transmitter mast opening sequence that heralded the start of news programmes on the BBC in the early-1950s.
Above: prior to 1955, news readers were always out-of-vision. The news was read over still captions. The news readers of the day were Richard Baker and Kenneth Kendall.
In-vision news readers were introduced by the BBC around a fortnight or so before the on-air launch of ITN (September 22 1955). The BBC presenting team consisted of Kenneth Kendall, Richard Baker and Robert Dougall.
Above: BBC News opening sequence [left]. Kenneth Kendall fronting a news bulletin in February 1958 [middle and right].
Above: examples of graphics and stills.
Above: a BBC news report on November 22 1963, to announce the assassination of US president John F Kennedy.
Above: Robert Dougall with a 'Special News Report' on the Aberfan disaster on October 21 1966.
Above: 1960s opening headlines/title sequence [1]. This example dates from February 24 1966.
Above: Michael Aspel presenting an early-1966 news programme.
Above: 1960s opening headlines/title sequence [2]. This recording dates from November 20 1967.
Above: Richard Baker with a late-1967 news programme.
Television weather broadcasts were introduced in the UK on July 29 1949. There were no in-vision presenters though - just maps. We had to wait until May 11 1954 before we had on-screen forecasters.
Above: weather presentation from the late-1960s. Presenter: Bert Foord.

LINKS  BBC UK Presentation  •  Five Presentation  •  Sky Presentation

If you wish to contribute video material for use on the site, please contact the site editor.  We currently require help in sourcing a number of items - please refer to the Help Needed page for full details.  The TV Room Plus is supported by Promax UK - specialists in design, promotion and marketing.  The site is hosted by Fido.net.
This site contains images and video clips of idents and promotional material from many of the main UK and Irish television channels.  Copyright on all such material remains with the respective broadcasting organisations.  A list of acknowledgements can be found on the About This Site page.  A full copyright statement is available on the Copyright Notice page.