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.