British television
Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...
) from 1936 to 1939, and again after the service's hiatus during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
from 1946 until 1952. It was the first British television series to become a long-term and regular popular success.
Format
The programme had a magazine format with two hour-long editions broadcast each week including a range of interviews with well-known personalities, features about a range of topics and coverage of public events. The main presenter during the pre-war era was
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
actress Joan Miller who played the role of a "switchboard operator" similar to that of a
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
exchange, "connecting" the viewers to the particular guests and items being featured that week. Miller was nicknamed "The Switchboard Girl" in the popular press and became one of the first television celebrities. She would be assisted by Leslie Mitchell and
Jasmine Bligh
Jasmine Lydia Bligh (20 May 1913 – 21 July 1991) was one of the first three BBC Television Service presenters in the 1930s. Along with Leslie Mitchell and Elizabeth Cowell, she provided continuity announcements introducing programmes in-vi ...
, two of the BBC's three continuity announcers (the other being
Elizabeth Cowell
Elizabeth Cowell (1912–1998) was a British broadcaster and television announcer.
She was one of the first three BBC Television Service presenters, along with Jasmine Bligh and Leslie Mitchell. She began announcing when the Television Se ...
). After the reinstatement of the programme during 1946, Joan Gilbert assumed presenting duties until 1952.
Mary Malcolm
Helen Mary Malcolm Retrieved 2012-11-08 (15 March 191813 October 2010) was one of the first two regular female announcers on presented some shows in 1949 and 1950.*Vahimagi, Tise (1994).
Preservation
''Picture Page'' was produced
live
Live may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film
* ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film
*'' ''Live'' (Apocalyptica DVD)
Music
*Live (band), American alternative rock band
* List of albums ...
by the BBC from their
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...
television studio for the entirety of its run. The first episode was actually broadcast on 8 October 1936, some three and a half weeks before the official opening of the service on 2 November, as part of the ongoing test transmissions during the prelude to the initiation date. Until 1949 the series was not recorded and thus none of the pre-1949 programmes exist anymore. Four shows from 1951 have survived in the form of
telerecordings
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940s ...
.
Theme tune
The theme tune was composed by
Philip Green
Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) is a British businessman who was the chairman of the retail company the Arcadia Group. He owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020. As of Ma ...