BBC Television Children's Newsreels

BBC Television Newsreel was launched on Monday 5th January 1948, on a weekly basis. The newsreels were shown on Monday evenings, with three repeat showings during the ensuing week, but very soon two new editions were broadcast each week and this situation continued until the end of 1950. This was the first time that any form of visual in-house news presentation had been attempted.

The frequency was further enhanced to five editions per week (one edition each weeknight), as from 2nd June 1952, and this continued until the final edition on 2nd July 1954. Although it seems that the ultimate aim had been to produce seven editions per week, this goal was overtaken by events.

A spin-off from the success of Television Newsreel was the introduction of a parallel programme aimed at children, entitled "BBC Television Childrens Newsreel", the first edition of which was broadcast for the first time on 23rd April 1950. The structure and style of presentation were very much the same as for the original Television Newsreel, and not in the least patronising. The commentary was spoken by Stephen Grenfell and the similar background music was used, but the title music was Clive Richardsons Holiday Spirit. Here, again, regular BBC announcers took turns in speaking the commentary, Mary Malcolm being the most frequent. Childrens Newsreel continued until September 1961.

This film footage is from the Archive Collection held and administered by the Alexandra Palace Television Society.

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Preserving the televisual past for the digital future

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[chuckiejay]

The BBC must have been terminally boring , if this is any indication . No wonder Monty Python hated them so much .

[aptsarchive]

By modern standards this does look boring, but you need to watch this material in the context in which it was produced. The world was a totally different place then. You say Python hated the BBC, but it was the BBC that produced their shows!

[MDSJR67]

I love old newsreels and things showing the history of Television. Thanks for posting these!

[hermankatnip]

@chuckiejay

The monty python team have always spoken with fondness of the BBC and its willingness to give them complete independence and creative control to produce a a series. something I doubt would ever happen today.

[FrederickDelarge]

Bill Cotton, Head of Light Entertainment, was always very uneasy about the Pythons. They were frightening (for him - great for us) in their unpredictability. He let them have their own way - just - but chewed his fingernails to the elbows in so doing. That was the greatness of the man.

[405liner]

Wonderful stuff and very atmospheric of the times. Thank you!

[martpast1]

@aptsarchive its not boring as information but most of the time there were pictures but no information

[ZXC5000]

I agree with Capsule 35, the minute from 5.27 is really beautiful, thank you for preserving it

[missdeebates]

amazing stuff, I was a child in the late 1950's and early 1960 's and remember well having the test card on all morning waiting for watch with mother and then again awaiting children's hour , when i told my nephews we only had two channels , had to wait five minutes for the tube to warm up and everything was in black and white , he was most amused , many thanks for this .

[capsule35]

The sequence from 5.27 to 6.27 is truly magical.

[TashkentFox]

This is definately post-1951.