From Eric and Ernie to The Office, Douglas McPherson celebrates six decades of groundbreaking telly
WORDS: DOUGLAS MCPHERSON
In today’s world of streaming on demand it’s hard to believe we once had only two television channels: the BBC and ITV. That all changed with the launch of BBC2 (as it was then styled) on April 21, 1964.
The BBC’s second channel was intended to air more high-brow content. It broadcast Open University for late night and early morning scholars, examined financial issues in The Money Programme, broadcast debates live from the House of Commons, and screened long-running documentary series Arena.
It also gave us quality dramas such as I, Claudius and The Six Wives of Henry VIII, as well as launching some of the best-loved programmes of all time, from Top Gear and The Great British Bake-Off to Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
The channel got off to a disastrous start on April 20, 1964. It was scheduled to launch at 7.20pm with an introduction by Denis Tuohy, who recalled, “The sense of occasion really had us fired up. I was feeling very nervous.”
The evening was set to conclude with a fireworks display, live from Southend Pier.
But at seven pm the lights went out.
A fire at Battersea Power Station and a cable fault in Buckinghamshire knocked out the electricity to West London, including BBC Television Centre. Power wasn’t restored until the following morning.
The first programme broadcast, at 11am, was Play School presented by Virginia Stride and Gordon Rollings.
That evening, Tuohy introduced the programmes that should have aired the night before. He began by symbolically blowing out a candle.
Play School was the first of many shows created on BBC Two (as it is now known) that would quickly migrate across to BBC One.
Other programmes launched in Two’s first year include Match Of The Day, now the longest-running football television programme in the world.
Only 20,000 viewers tuned in to watch Liverpool beat Arsenal 3-2 in the first screened match – less than half the number attending the game in person.
The end of the year saw the debut of The Likely Lads, penned by TV newcomers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who went on to create Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
James Bolam and Rodney Bewes proved so popular that they reprised the characters in colour, on BBC One, in 1973, in the series Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
In 1966, Scotland and Northern Ireland got their own versio
