ATV the London weekend contractor run by the impresario Lew Grade led the

ATV, the London weekend contractor run by the impresario Lew Grade, led the way with Sunday Night at the London Palladium and by importing popular American comedies such as I Love Lucy and shows by the exotic pianist Liberace.”The BBC’s attempts at light entertainment were puerile,” Sir Denis Forman recollects, singling out Cafe Continental, which sought to re-create the atmosphere of a smoky night club between the wars. When Day made his debut the next night, Bernard Levin wrote in the Manchester Guardian that he was “much too eager to please”. After the opening night, Chataway received mixed reviews: one critic feared that “over-chattiness” might rob the news of its authority; another noted disapprovingly that Chataway was interpreting the news rather than announcing it. Nationally, Independent Television News – jointly owned by the ITV franchise-holders – seized its chance by appointing two men in their twenties as its regular news- readers: Christopher Chataway, already famous as an international athlete, and the unknown Robin Day.Informality was the watchword. “BBC television news was the laughing stock of the country,” says Sir Paul Fox.

“It was just words with pictures, and pompous announcers in dinner jackets.”The assault came on two levels. Because ITV companies were regionally based, their local news was an immediate strength. The BBC’s timidity about reporting politics was highlighted when Granada became the first broadcaster to give full coverage to a by-election – in Rochdale in 1958. Pressure from the ITV companies forced the abandonment of the “14-day rule” that barred discussion on television or radio of topics coming up in Parliament in the next fortnight.News was the BBC’s most vulnerable area in 1955, and one that ITV attacked vigorously. ITV did not just push out the borders of public reticence on advertising and gambling, it had a profound impact on political coverage as well.It launched hard-hitting and long-running programmes, such as World in Action and What the Papers Say. We thought they were arrogant, stuffy and patronising.”That philosophy was evident in Granada’s coverage of news and current affairs, for which it became famous. Sir Denis Forman, who was with Granada when it began ITV transmissions to the north of England in 1956 and later became its chairman, says: “We got our people from journalism, from Canada, from the post office, anywhere but the BBC.

“Ian Jacob, then the Director-General, felt that sport would be a decisive battleground. The BBC found some money to almost double my salary and others’, and let us do things that wouldn’t have been possible had the competitor not been round the corner It was a wonderful time in the BBC. Budgets were constantly being increased and there were no management consultants to tell us what to do.”Not all the commercial companies were keen to recruit from the BBC. You were put in one room and were appraised by Towers’ mother. You knew someone else was in the next room being interviewed. There was a lot of money being offered.”But Fox decided to stay with the BBC. A man called Harry Alan Towers (controller of programmes for ATV) invited me to his flat in Langham Street It was like an old farce.