1955 and 1956 - ITVs cunning plan

On September 22nd 1955 the ITV network began with the launch of it's all-important London region, under the care of Associated Rediffusion on weekdays, and Associated Television (ATV) at weekends. Prior to the launch of its commercial competitors, the BBC had had a broadcasting monopoly, and any viewing figures it had compiled had been for internal use and not generally published or thought in any way newsworthy. Once ITV began though it was essential that the ITV companies knew how popular their programming was, both in and of itself, and in comparison to the BBC alternative, in order to know how much they could charge advertisers for a slot in their commercial breaks, and therefore be profitable. Of course it worked the other way round too, in that Auntie wanted to be reassured that she was still loved, and that those nasty Americanised commercial companies weren't going to steal her audience and cause the government to review the viability of her television licence system, the unique form of taxation that pays for the service. So it was with the arrival of competition that viewers first chose what to watch rather than simply whether or not to watch, and this was what made viewing figures start to become meaningful enough to become a weekly staple of the tabloid newspapers, the bane of television executives lives, and the mechanism by which a television star's career was made or broken as the case may be. For that reason, as well as a lack of available data for previous years, I have begun our sitcom journey in 1955, although the 'year' is only really the last 100 days of that year, the period during which ITV existed.

In 1955's top 20 of the 3 and bit month period, are a variety of homegrown and imported shows, with variety itself riding high, as the most watched show, with an audience of 84% of homes who could receive both services, was Sunday Palladium, and one of the runners up, at 79% was Theatre Royal.

There were also two sitcoms in that first year's chart, the lower of the two was in 13th position with an audience of 69% and was Love And Kisses, starring Arthur Askey as ex-engine driver Billy Brown, who was now a pub landlord living alongside his wife Sal and daughter Rose (Arthur's real-life daughter Anthea), and serving his regulars Alf the milkman and stuttering W-W-W-Wally. This sitcom was a filmed stage show in Blackpool, and was filmed for television by the impressario Jack Hylton's TV Productions for Associated Rediffusion. Shot on film, it has apparently survived to this day according to kaleidoscopes lost shows database at www.lostshows.com

Also surviving to this day is 1955's most watched sitcom in the UK, and second most watched show of the 'year' (tied with Theatre Royal), an import from the US called I Love Lucy, which achieved a peak audience of 79%. I Love Lucy starred Lucille Ball and her then husband Desi Arnaz, and had begun in the states in 1951, running there until 1957. Because Lucille and Desi insisted it was shot on film using a revolutionary new three camera set-up which has since become then norm for sitcoms, and because they even agreed to each take a sizeable pay cut to allow this to be affordable, it has meant that the unlike most shows from the 50s and 60s it has not only survived, but survived in high enough quality that is still broadcastable to this day. Indeed I Love Lucy was probably the first show to make use of it's high quality filming process, by selling the series to many other countries, including of course us. Also when Lucille needed a few weeks off for her pregnancy leave (how times have changed!) they were probably the first show to choose to repeat some of their old shows in the same timeslot and still get high ratings, thus inventing the rerun. I have only selected viewing figures for 1955 and cannot be sure which UK broadcast achieved the year's peak sitcom audience of 79%, indeed more than one eiditon may have done, and in any case I don't have a reliable episode guide for UK broadcasts to know which actual episode was broadcast on any given week, but I can guess that UK viewers saw the show approximately, if not exactly, in series order, and that therefore it would be an episode from the show's first season in 1951. I therefore give you an example episode of the first season, episode 10, ungrammatically entitled 'Lucy is jealous of dancing girl',

The top 20 I have for the full year of 1956 does not list any sitcoms in amongst the 20 shows that achieved a peak audience of 68% or more, which is odd because although I have only a few of the weekly charts from that year, I can find one sitcom which reached at least 73%, and that is once again I Love Lucy. Therefore in the absence of complete data I am, for now at least, claiming it as the most watched sitcom of 1956 too. I will however change this blog if new information comes to light.

Lucy and Desi made 180 mostly weekly episodes of I Love Lucy before that series came to an end in 1957. They then went on to make a similar series, The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour, in a longer timeslot (an hour duh!) and only making a new episode every so often rather than the previous hectic weekly schedule. Indeed only 13 episodes were made between 1957 and 1960, as Lucille and Desi's marriage began to break down, and the final episode was filmed on the very day in early 1960 that Lucille filed for her divorce, ending apparently with much of the cast and crew visibly shedding tears as that episode's guest star Edie Adam's sang the song 'That's All" and it began to sink in that for the team who had produced comedy for the best part of a decade that really would be all.

Laughs Of A Lifetime - An Overview

Hello and welcome to my new blog - Laughs Of A Lifetime, a look at the history of sitcoms in the UK over the last 60 years!

I intend to use various data sources available to me to identify the most watched sitcom episode of every year from the arrival of commercial television in the UK in 1955 to the present time. Some are well-remembered and much loved even today, whilst others are better forgotten, and others still are genuinely obscure. Sadly thanks to wiping policies in the past, at least one sitcom episode no longer survives in the archive of the company who made it.

For each years blog I intend to detail the most watched sitcom episode of that year, together with its viewing figure and channel of broadcast. Where possible I will also link to an online video of the episode in question, though please be aware that these videos will have been uploaded by members of the public who are not the original copyright holders, and as such some/most of these linked videos will become dead links at some stage. If I have enough data for a given year I will also summarise some of the other sitcoms that were also-rans in that year, complete with viewing figures, where possible. Speaking of which lets discuss those in more detail (those who don't want to be bogged down in technical details can skip the next paragraph if they wish).

Viewing figures have been compiled in a variety of ways over the years so I will give you a quick overview now. When commercial television first arrive in the UK, in the shape of Asscoiated Rediffusion and ATV providing the London service on weekdays and weekends respectively, viewing was measured in terms of what percentage of viewers in that region tuned in. The figures I have for 1955 and 1956 are of this form and pertain, as far as I can ascertain, to the London region alone, even after the arrival of the North region (Granada/ABC) and Midlands region (ATV/ABC). By 1957 viewing figures began to be compiled as the number of sets or households tuned into the networked programme across the country as a whole, and as the dozen or so other mostly smaller regions came into the network the figures rose year on year well into the 60s. At this stage the BBC and ITV used different viewing compilers with different compilation methods, and I believe (though can't be totally certain) that all viewing figures I have for this era are from ITV's compiler, even for BBC programming. In 1977 the system was changed to being a measure of the number of actual viewers tuned in, rather than households, and an approximate mutliplier of 2.2 viewers per household is usually quoted to translate older figures for comparison with newer ones. Since the change happened midway through 1977 some of the figures for that year have been thus translated, though some appear to have used a multiplier of 2 rather than 2.2 and some appear to have been lower figures under the new system that have then been mistakenly and unnecessarily translated into much higher figures. I will endeavour to find and verify the correct figures, but am limited by the data available to me. During 1981 the industry moved to a new viewing figure compiler, BARB, who, for the first time, were the chosen compilers of both the Beeb and ITV, under a new agreement that continues to the present day, albeit with the subsequent inclusion of literally hundreds of new channels over the years. From 1981 onwards it becomes much more easy for me to verify viewing figures, thanks to BARB's website, and from mid 1998 onwards almost all viewing figures for all terrestrial channels can be easily checked on the Barb website, so those years will be much more certain and accurate.

Phew, that paragraph was longer than even I expected... sorry to those of you who ploughed through it, and welcome back to those who took up the skip option. I intend to post daily from now until Xmas, although the first few posts will be irregular due to a lack of data for the late 50s. I hope you enjoy remembering those sitcoms you enjoyed laughing at and hope that there aren't too many you wish I hadn't reminded you of.