TV-AM (1968-1982)

With the relaxation of broadcasting hours introduced in the early to mid 1960s, it was only a matter of time before contractors would be allowed to broadcast breakfast television. Rediffusion tried it in London in 1967, with a half-hour morning regional news broadcast from 7.30 to 8 in the morning, which proved very popular.

But in 1968, at the last minute, the ITA decided to open tenders for a national early-morning broadcaster, to provide services between, at first, six and nine-fifteen in the morning. TV-AM, a joint venture between the London Television Consortium and ATV, were successful, and the service finally launched in November of that year.

TV-AM 1968
This slide was shown between 6:00 and 9:15am, nationally, in the two months leading up to the launch of TV-AM. The form of ident shown was never actually used on the channel.

TV-AM 1968


The first ident. It was really designed for colour and didn't suit black and white screens all that well. For example, there is a third line between the two white ones, but since, on the actual slide, it is printed in yellow it doesn't contrast enough with the background to be visible by black and white viewers. The choice of an circle-shaped egg as the logo was initially thought a little frivolous, but TV-AM wanted to distinguish themselves from traditional broadcasters. However, it did look a little amateurish, like the whole channel in the early days. It operated on a skeleton staff, and the newsreaders doubled up a continuity announcers. The slogan "The National Breakfast" (not seen in the picture on the right) disappeared from screens when colour arrived, but continued to be used in promotions and by annos until the late 70s.

TV-AM 1968
The opening montage, shown at six every morning. The camera would sweep down over London and finally alight on TV-AM's Old Ford Lock studios in Camden - it was made to look like it was filmed in a single take, but in fact this was just clever editing. A camera was hung from the fuselage of plane which received special dispensation to execute a low dive over north London - six separate flight passes were made.

TV-AM 1968
Here is the menu for the first day's programming on TV-AM. Good Morning Britain was, at first, a magazine-style news and current affairs programme which attempted to interview politicians on important issues of the day. The quality of the interviews, and the fact that few politicians wanted to be one of the subjects at such an ungodly hour, made this format less than successful.

TV-AM 1968
The black and white closedown slide.

TV-AM 1969
Colour, of course, came to ITV over a staggered period, so viewers needed rather more detail on that ident.

TV-AM 1972
Programme titles were all TV-AM branded, and not very exciting. Here's the endboard for the opening titles of Daybreak. It did allow an easy merge in from the ident though.

TV-AM 1972
Another example of a slightly altered and now more uncluttered ident. TV-AM were never quite sure whether to put the "am" in their name in upper or lower case, and changed it around quite often.

TV-AM 1974
Production endboard. Note that "am" is in capitals here.

TV-AM 1974
The 1974 closedown slide.

TV-AM 1975
The colours on the ident were toned down, and the font changed, in 1975.

TV-AM 1975
TV-AM News Headlines from 1975.

TV-AM 1976
Naturally, TV-AM had to have a proper startup sequence, including the TX in Service slide - showing every UHF and VHF transmitter in the country! (The picture seen on the left is incomplete, but will update as the months progress).

TV-AM 1976
In 1976, the novel step was taken of incorporating an in-vision clock. It appeared on all TV-AM programming - although, over the next years it appeared in every different corner of the screen, being switched from side to side because the presentation department couldn't quite decide where the best place for it was. And it tended to get bigger and shrink at regular intervals as well. Before the in-vision clock was introduced, this ordinary station clock was used. Naturally, it was withdrawn in 1976. It wasn't updated when the ident was changed in 1975.

TV-AM 1976
In 1976, TV-AM's broadcasting hours extended to 6am to 9.25, meaning that there could be a handover from TV-AM to regional ITV contractors. This always happened out-of-vision, of course, since regional IBA slides would always follow TV-AM's closedown. Closedown was expanded to two slides in 1975, as the number of eggs on the original slide precluded any other text. A normal closedown slide would appear, stay on screen for twenty seconds, and then be replaced for three or four seconds by the egg slide, which now took the form of a production endboard with copyright information.

TV-AM 1976
Note that the colour on the stripes on the eggcups are now in the wrong order.

TV-AM 1976
An unexpected interruption in service.

TV-AM 1977
1977 programme menu.

TV-AM 1977
When TV-AM technicians went on strike in 1976, as they would do again in 1977, 1979, 1983 and 1987, a pared-down service was introduced, regularly interspersed with this slide.

TV-AM 1978
London Weekend production slide for TV-AM. Of course, the name of the contractor broadcasting the service wouldn't normally be credited, but since TV-AM was a national service it decided that this wouldn't present too many problems. The IBA saw things differently and ordered that TV-AM dual-branded production captions be removed. London Weekend produced the Saturday morning Wide Awake Club for TV-AM until 1983 when production shifted to being in-house.

TV-AM 1978
A significant change in presentation in 1978, with an alteration of the ident. The egg was done away with (it hadn't featured anywhere in TV-AM's presentation apart from the ident and the final endboard since the early 1970s) and replaced by what may or may not have been an abstract depiction of the sun.

TV-AM 1978
Good Morning Britain from December 1978. Different picture slides were used at different times of year - this is the winter version.

TV-AM 1978
And a new IBA slide.

TV-AM 1978
And a little change to the programme menu as well, this from a weekend in November 1978. Programmes started at 7.00am on weekends - startup began at 6.55.

TV-AM 1979
The 1979 closedown slide, as seen in March 1979.

TV-AM 1979
The 1979 Eggs endboard.

TV-AM 1980
Next on TV-AM, Morning Surgery. By 1980, TV-AM were experimenting with "lifestyle" television, and Morning Surgery, broadcast at 8:30, encouraged viewers to call in with details of their maladies for a "diagnosis" by their resident doctor.

TV-AM 1981
The 1981 eggs endboard

TV-AM 1981
The "Colour" strap finally disappears from the ident in 1981 (unlike a breif disappearance between 1972 and 1978), and, once again, it is altered. The clock shifted to the bottom right sometime in late 1981, but went back to the left hand side by the end of 1982.

TV-AM 1981
A TV-AM presentation - this time, for a series of imported cartoons, which would normally be shown at 9.00.

TV-AM 1981
The 1981 closedown slide. This was shown for twenty seconds before the eggs endboard appeared. Since 1974, TV-AM experimented with providing regional slides at the end of broadcasting. Arrangements were made with regional broadcasters to show this kind of endboard, designed to test the possibility of regional opts for news throughout TV-AM - an idea which was unfortunately shelved.

TV-AM 1981
The runup to Christmas allowed TV-AM to broadcast plenty of cheap in-house programming.

TV-AM 1982
Having renewed their contract, TV-AM wasted no time ingratiating themselves upon the new contractors before they had even started their first day's broadcasting. Here is a TV-AM presents frontcap from August 1982.

TV-AM 1982
A different egg design was brought in in November 1981 - but the order of the stripes wasn't changed. Here it is in 1982, the year before it itself was replaced with a rather more snazzy 3D design.

By mid-1982, TV-AM knew that the BBC were, belatedly, planning their own breakfast television service which would be more relaxed, fresh and informal that TV-AM's. The newsy Good Morning Britain was given a revamp, making it more like a lifestyle magazine programme, and TV-AM itself became to seem more like a fluid, 3-hour programme than a TV station in its own right. But, despite the radical changes, the BBC had Frank Bough, which meant that TV-AM would end up playing second fiddle until the late 80s.

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