''24 Hours'' or ''Twenty-Four Hours'' is a long-running, late-evening, weekdaily news magazine programme that aired on
BBC1. It focused on analysis and criticism of
current affairs, and featured in-depth short
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
films that set the style for current-affairs magazine programmes. ''24 Hours'' launched on 4 October 1965 and focused on
investigative journalism. The programme's main presenter was
Cliff Michelmore.
History
The programme brought together the production teams from two BBC television programmes: ''Gallery'', a weekly political programme, and ''
Tonight'', an early-evening magazine programme. The original editors were Tony Whitby from ''Tonight'' and Derrick Amoore from ''Gallery'', and it later came to be led by
Anthony Smith.
Presenter
Cliff Michelmore was the first lead anchor for ''24 Hours''.
"Cliff Michelmore, television presenter – obituary", ''The Telegraph'', 18 March 2016
/ref> With him in the studio were Kenneth Allsop, Michael Barratt and Robert McKenzie, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics (LSE). Towards the end of its run David Dimbleby became the main presenter.
Style
''24 Hours'' was conceived with the intention of being very different from other current affairs programmes at the time. Critical to the point of confrontational, it abandoned the orthodox reverential rules of engagement with politicians and took a tougher, more modern approach to interviews. ''24 Hours'' used a combination of panel discussions and studio debates, usually with an invited "expert" audience. The programme also featured filmed items or "packages" presented by its reporters Michael Parkinson, Fyfe Robertson, Michael Aspel, Julian Pettifer, Bernard Falk and David Jessel, among others. It helped establish an approach to television current affairs, and is in many ways the forerunner to BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
's present-day current affairs flagship '' Newsnight''.
Production paperwork, '' Radio Times'' and BBC Archive library all list the title "Twenty-Four Hours" in words, but the programme's logo used numerals: "24 Hours".
Scheduling
The programme originally had a fluid start time somewhere after 10pm. The decision to give it a fixed start time of 9:55pm was taken in 1967 following the establishment of ITN's peak-time '' News at Ten'' programme. However, on Wednesdays ''24 Hours'' would begin at 10:20pm "in order that ''The Wednesday Play
''The Wednesday Play'' is an anthology series of United Kingdom, British television plays which ran on BBC One, BBC1 for six seasons from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually original works written for television, although dramatic ...
'' may begin ... and run its full 75 minutes."[''Radio Times'', 15 June 1967, p.19]
Huw Wheldon, the then BBC Controller of Programmes, said that ''24 Hours'' "has become such a valuable part of our coverage of national and international affairs, that we feel we must give it a regular and predictable placing. David Attenborough ... who wants to put his BBC2 programmes on in such a way as to provide real choice for viewers, is driven mad by ''Twenty-Four Hours'' which has had to keep jumping about all over the place. Now we've got ''Twenty-Four Hours'' fixed at five-to-ten, we can handle all that!".
Studio presenters
* Kenneth Allsop
* Michael Barratt
* David Dimbleby
* Robert McKenzie
* Cliff Michelmore
Reporters
* Michael Aspel
* Michael Parkinson
* Julian Pettifer
* Fyfe Robertson
Footnotes
External links
*
{{BBC News
1965 British television series debuts
1972 British television series endings
1960s British documentary television series
1970s British documentary television series
BBC television documentaries
British English-language television shows