Scottish Television

Central Scotland

itv1963part3 17
The final of a talent-finding contest

Scottish Television Limited is the public company which under agreement with the Independent Television Authority provides the programmes in Central Scotland during the whole week.


comp-stv

Theatre Royal, Hope Street, Glasgow C.2.
GLASGOW DOUGLAS 9999
Wingate House, 93 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W.1.
REGent 6941
Spencer House, Digbeth, Birmingham 5.
BIRMINGHAM MIDLAND 9303
Thomson House, Withy Grove, Manchester 4.
MANCHESTER BLACKFRIARS 7621



    ITA    Channel   Vision     Sound    Opening Date   Population ITA Homes
Transmitter        Frequency  Frequency                    000's      000's
                      Mc/s       Mc/s
Black Hill    10    199.7305  196.2395   31st Aug 1957      3,980      936
Directors

R Thompson (Chairman); JM Coltart (Deputy Chairman); Lord Balfour of Inchrye, PC; W Brown; JJ Hardy; CN McQueen; HNC Stevenson, OBE (Managing Director); IM Stewart; J Whitton.

Officers

RS Coltart (Administration Manager); H Henry (General Sales Manager); L Henry (Chief Accountant); D Kane (Technical Controller); G le Grove (Director of Programmes); JHB Munro (Secretary); TV Shields (Press and Publicity Manager); R McPherson (Head of Schools Broadcasts).

Staff

Total members of staff: 429. Administration 113, Accounts 26, Sales 51, Programme Department 96, Technical Facilities 110, Non-Technical Facilities 33.

Visits to Studios

An average of four hundred tickets are issued daily for the One O’Clock Gang Show, and to date well over a million visitors have been to see STV productions. Throughout the year audiences are also invited to see such programmes as Jigtime, At the Lucky Diamond, Studio Downbeat and Francie and Josie.

More than 1,500 new visitors are welcomed at the Theatre Royal every year when an average of seventy tours are arranged for members of organisations in Scotland to see over the Theatre Royal. Refreshments are served to visiting parties and an information pamphlet on the station’s activities is issued to each guest.

Enquiries

Enquiries about artistes and programmes should be addressed to the Director of Programmes, Scottish Television, Theatre Royal, Glasgow C.2.

Submission of Scripts

Material required. 30-60-minute plays in completed dialogue form, preferably contemporary and with some relevance, either of theme, setting or authorship, to Scotland. Adaptations from short stories or novels are rarely considered. Comedy sketch material for daily lunchtime shows may be submitted, although a local knowledge of the show and the cast is almost essential. Documentary ideas, particularly with a Scottish slant, considered, as are children’s items of the magazine type. No present demand for quiz games, panel shows, musicals, talks, short stories or poetry readings. All submissions should be addressed to the Script Editor.

Programme Journal

The Viewer publishes separate editions for the Newcastle and Central Scotland areas giving details of both local and network programmes. Editorial office for Scotland is Theatre Royal, Glasgow C.2.

Studios

THEATRE ROYAL, Hope Street, Glasgow. Total studio floor area 9,100 sq. ft.; Studio A 80′ × 50′ (4,000 sq. ft.), Studio B 38′ × 30′ (1,140 sq. ft.), Studio C 80′ × 45′ (3,600 sq. ft.), Studio D 12′ × 15′ (180 sq. ft.), Studio E 12′ × 15′ (180 sq. ft.). Control Rooms 1,500 sq. ft.; Technical Facilities Central Area approximately 4,000 sq. ft.; Workshop and Maintenance 2,500 sq. ft.; Rehearsal Area 1,200 sq. ft.; A three-camera mobile control room for outside broadcasts. Two videotape recorders.

Technical Developments

Scottish Television’s engineers have pioneered a revolutionary new new development for small television stations in underdeveloped territories – the one-man control centre. In this new design all the controls for operating a television service – video control, continuity, switching for sound and vision, cueing to announcer, operating tele-cine and changing slides – have been grouped to simplify co-ordination and assure smooth functioning, even in unskilled hands. Its designers claim any inexperienced person can operate it confidently after only a few days’ instruction. The first production models were installed at Nairobi, Gibraltar and Trinidad – three stations all opened within weeks of each other in 1962.

Education

An Educational Advisory Committee serves both STV and Grampian Television. Delegates attend all meetings of A-R‘s Educational Advisory Council. The company is represented on the Study Group on teaching by television of the European Broadcasting Union. The education department maintains regular contact with schools and colleges and its members give talks to a wide variety of groups interested in education. At intervals, study groups of teachers are invited to the studios to confer on particular programme series.

Religion

Policy and planning meetings are held regularly with the company’s Religious Advisory Committee. Training courses for ministers are held from time to time at the Theatre Royal.

Programmes

STV production include: News and News Magazines: Here and Now, Dateline-Scotland. Talks, Discussions and Documentaries: Sense and Nonsense, This Wonderful World. Cultural: Highland Air, Studio C, The Scottish National Orchestra. Religion: Seek the Truth, Church Services, Youth Discussions, Late Call. Children: Roundup. Schools: ten programmes each year covering a wide variety of subjects, eight of which go out on the network. Plays: contributions to the Thirty Minute Theatre productions. Light Entertainment: Studio Downbeat, The One O’Clock Gang, situation-comedy series. Sport: Scotsport. Features: national occasions including Burns’ Night, St. Andrew’s Day and Hogmanay. By-Elections. Outside Broadcasts: among those planned for 1963 are concerts by the Scottish National Orchestra. Experimental Programmes: a series of fifteen-minute programmes screened twice a week during early afternoon cover a variety of subjects, including the care and handling of pets. Adult Education Programmes: plans for this series include late-evening programmes in medical teaching, physics, mathematics and public administration.

Central Scotland

Scottish

  • Population within measured contours: Primary 3.23 mn, Secondary 0.54 mn, Fringe 0.21 mn. Total 3.98 mn.
  • Channel: Band III Channel 10 (vertically polarised)
  • Vision Carrier Frequency: Nominal 199.75 Mc/s. Actual 199.7305 Mc/s
  • Sound Carrier Frequency: Nominal 196.25 Mc/s. Actual 196.2395 Mc/s
  • Effective Radiated Power: Vision 475 kw maximum. Sound 120 kw maximum.
  • Power of Transmitters: Vision (peak white) 2 x 10 kW. Sound (carrier) 2 x 2.5 kW
  • Heights above sea level: Site 900 ft. Mean aerial 1,850 ft.
  • Location: 3° 52′ 25″ W, 55° 51′ 45″ N.

Black Hill (Channel 10)

Company: Scottish Television

The construction of this station, on a site 900 ft. above sea level and midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, began in the late summer of 1956. The station was designed to serve the central lowlands of Scotland, covering a population of nearly four millions within the o.25 mV/m contour.

The selection of the site was straightforward, but there was difficulty in obtaining the land.

A study of the topography within the required service area of this station established the need for a 750 ft. mast and it was evident that the best possible coverage could be obtained only by using a directional aerial system. It was important that, if possible, both Dundee in the north-east and the towns on the Ayrshire coast in the west should be included in the service area. Little benefit, however, would result from radiating high power into the hilly north-westerly or south-easterly directions. It thus appeared that an aerial having an elliptical power distribution pattern with its major axis aligned to the north-east and south-west would provide the best result. However, an international limitation on power in certain directions made it necessary to compromise and to design an aerial whose radiation pattern can best be described as “boot”-shaped, the “heel” (250 kw) directed towards the south-west and the “sole” (475 kW) directed to the north-east. A power of about 150 kW was adequate for the northwest and south-west directions.

ill-black hillA novel 16-stack vertically-polarised directional aerial system was developed, possessing many useful features, which attempted to approximate to the optimum power-radiation pattern. The aerial was located centrally within the mast structure to radiate through the opening of the lattice steel formation of the mast, mainly to reduce the wind loading and icing on the exposed site.

Unfortunately, complex anomalies in the behaviour of this aerial caused its performance to deviate from the prediction. The desired power in the various directions was not completely achieved, while the radiation in the south-west sector in the direction of Ayr was predominantly horizontally instead of vertically polarised. The result was a marginal shift in the potential service area of the station. These anomalies had to be accepted for the time being, and the station came into service on 31st August 1957.

In 1959 it was decided to replace the “inside the mast” aerial by one of more conventional form, with the radiators mounted outside the mast. In order to ensure continuity of service, it was also decided to erect the replacement aerial on a new 1,ooo ft. mast near the original mast.

The difficult task of constructing the new mast close to the old began in August 1960. It was brought into use together with the new aerial on 10th July 1961. The 750 ft. mast was dismantled and has been used at the Selkirk station in the Borders. The performance of the new aerial at Black Hill is satisfactory and has resulted in an enlargement of the service area and in improvements to reception generally.