Newspapers…
The first true newspaper published in Britain was the Oxford Gazette,
which was published in 1665.
By the 18th century, many
more newspapers were being published - 24 papers in all by the 1720s.
The very first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was first published
in London on March 11, 1702 by Edward Mallet.
1905 Harmsworth (then Northcliffe) bought The Observer.
1906 Newspaper Proprietors Association founded for national
dailies
1915 Rothermere launched Sunday Pictorial (later Sunday Mirror).
1928 Northcliffe Newspapers set up as a subsidiary of Associated Newspapers. Provincial. Newspapers set up as a subsidiary of United Newspapers.
1936 Britain's first colour advertisement appears (in Glasgow's Daily Record).
1953 General Council of the Press established.
1955 Month-long national press strike. Daily Record acquired by Mirror Group.
1959 Manchester Guardian becomes The Guardian. Six-week regional press printing strike.
1964 The Sun launched, replacing Daily Herald. Death of Beaverbrook. General Council of the Press reformed as the Press Council.
1969 Murdoch's News International acquired The Sun and News of the World.
1976 Nottingham Evening Post is Britain's first newspaper to start direct input by journalists.
1978 The Times and The Sunday Times ceased publication for 11 months.
1980 Association of Free Newspaper founded (folded 1991). Regional Newspaper Advertising Bureau formed.
1981 News International acquired The Times and the Sunday Times.
1984 Mirror Group sold by Reed to Maxwell (Pergamon). First free daily newspaper, the (Birmingham) Daily News, launched by husband & wife team Chris & Pat Bullivant.
1986 Eddie Shah launched Today, first colour national daily launched. The Independent launched.
1987 News International took over Today.
1989 Last Fleet Streetpaper produced by Sunday Express.
1993 Guardian Media Group bought The Observer. UK News set up by Northcliffe and Westminster Press as rival news agency to the Press Association. Second Calcutt report into self-regulation of the press.
1996 A year of buyouts, mergers and restructuring in the regional press. Regionals win the battle over cross-media ownership (Broadcasting Act). Newspaper Society launches NS Marketing, replacing PressAd.
1997 Midland Independent Newspapers is bought by Mirror Group for £297 million. Human Rights and Data Protection bills are introduced.
1998 Fourth largest regional press publisher, United Provincial Newspapers, is sold in two deals: UPN Yorkshire and Lancashire newspapers sold to Regional Independent Media for £360m and United Southern Publications sold to Southnews for £47.5m.
1999 Trinity merges with Mirror Group Newspapers in a deal worth £1.3 billion. Newsquest is bought by US publisher Gannett for £904 million. Portsmouth & Sunderland Newspapers is bought by Johnston Press for £266m. Freedom of Information bill introduced. Associated launches London's free commuter daily, Metro.
2000 Newscom is sold to Newsquest Media Group for £444m, Adscene titles are sold to Southnews (£52m)and Northcliffe Newspapers, Belfast Telegraph Newspapers are sold by Trinity Mirror to Independent News & Media for £300m, Bristol United Press is sold to Northcliffe Newspapers Group, and Southnews is sold to Trinity Mirror for £285m. Daily Express and Daily Star are sold by Lord Hollick's United News & Media to Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell.
2001 RIM buys six Galloway and Stornaway Gazette titles, Newsquest buys Dimbleby Newspaper Group and Johnston Press buys four titles from Morton Media Group. UK Publishing Media formed. Sunday Business changes name to The Businessand publishes on Sunday and Monday.
2002 Johnston Press acquires Regional Independent Media's 53 regional newspaper titles in a £560 million deal. Northcliffe Newspapers Group Ltd acquires Hill Bros (Leek) Ltd. Queen attends Newspaper Society annual lunch. The Sun and Mirror engage in a price war.
2003 Conrad Black resigns as chief executive of Hollinger International, owner of Telegraph group. Independent begins the shift to smaller format national newspapers when it launched its compact edition.
2004 Barclay Brothers buy Telegraph group and poach Murdoch Maclennan from Associated to run it. The Times goes compact (November).
2005 Launch of free Liteeditions for London Evening Standard and Manchester Evening News. The Timesputs up cover price to 60p, marking the end of the nationals’ price war. The Guardian moves to Berliner format after £80m investment in new presses.
2006 Manchester Evening Newscity edition goes free. Government threat to limit Freedom of Information requests. Associated and News International both launch free evening papers in London during the autumn.
2007 The government abandons plans to tighten Freedom of Information laws and limit media access to coroners’ courts.
2008 The global economic downturn hit advertising revenues and shares of media companies fell sharply during the year.
2009 Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev acquires the London Evening Standard from Daily Mail & General Trust and the title is subsequently relaunched as a free newspaper.
2010 Lebedev acquires the Independent and Independent on Sunday from Independent News & Media for a nominal fee of £1. Trinity Mirror acquires GMG Regional Media, publisher of 32 titles, from Guardian Media Group for £44.8 million. Newly-elected coalition government announces it will look at the case for relaxing cross-media ownership rules and stop unfair competition from council newspapers. The Independent launches i, a digest newspaper to complement their main title, and the first daily paper to be launched in the UK in almost 25 years.
2011 Five regional daily titles switched to weekly during the year. Local cross media ownership rules were abolished.
2012 The London 2012 Olympics and Diamond Jubilee saw national and local press titles produce a host of supplements, special editions and other initiatives in digital and print to help their readers celebrate the events. In November, the press industry came together to progress plans for a new, tougher, independent system of self regulation following publication of Lord Justice Leveson's report into the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal. MailOnline became the world's biggest newspaper website with 45.348 million unique users.
2013 Significant progress was made by the newspaper and magazine industry in setting up the Independent Press Standards Organisation - the new regulator for the press called for by Lord Justice Leveson. More than 90 per cent of the national press, the vast majority of the regional press, along with major magazine publishers, signed contracts to establish IPSO. Politicians, publishers and press freedom organisations from across the globe railed against the Government's Royal Charter for press regulation which Culture Secretary Maria Miller admitted could become redundant if IPSO was successful.
2015 In October 2015, Trinity Mirror announced the acquisition of Local World for £220 million, demonstrating the publisher’s firm belief in the future of local news media. Newspapers grew their UK monthly print and online reach to more than 47 million people, more than Google’s 45 million, with newsbrands driving nearly a billion social media interactions over the course of the year.
During the early 21st century, many newspapers saw a rapid decline in circulation. The sector's advertising revenues fell 15% during 2015 alone, with estimates of a further 20% drop over the course of 2016.
Radio…
On the 18 October 1992, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is formed. On the 14 November, the first BBC broadcasts from London (station 2LO).
On the 18 January 1923, the UK Postmaster General grants the BBC a licence to broadcast.
The BBC is established by Royal Charter as the British Broadcasting Corporation in January 1927.
It was the first broadcaster to begin a regularly scheduled TV service, in 1936. Radio went from strength to strength with the brand-new Broadcasting House opening in 1932.
1945: The Light Programme launches for light entertainment programming, followed by the BBC Third Programme in 1946.
Normally voiced by famous commentator John Snagge, BBC Newsreel painted a picture of the day’s events as a filmed sequence of short reports in January 1948.
1950: The number of radio licences issued peaks at 11.8 million.
1955: The BBC begins broadcasting in FM (frequency modulation) for the first time. It is superior to AM (amplitude modulation), which is susceptible to interference in bad weather.
1954: The Regency TR-1, the world’s first transistor radio, is unveiled. The first truly portable radio is a huge success, changing the way people listen to radio.
1964: ‘Pirate radio’ stations Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta begin broadcasting from ships in the North Sea. The pirate radio audience is between 10 and 15 million in 1965.
In September 1967, after pirate radio stations were banned by the government, the BBC launched Radio 1,2,3 and 4 to meet the increasing need of the youth market.
January 1983, Breakfast Time was launched ahead of ITV’s breakfast service.
February 1985, EastEnders was one of Britain's most successful television soap operas reached number one in the ratings within 8 months of its launch.
1990: Radio 5 launches – the first new network in 23 years.
1995: The BBC begins the UK’s first digital radio transmissions with Radio 1-5, Parliament and Sports Plus.
1996: It is the birth of internet radio in the UK, as Virgin Radio becomes Europe’s first radio station to broadcast online.
December 1997 bbc.co.uk was launched (Lord Birt the general director of the BBC at the time was quick to recognise the potential of the internet for public service broadcasting).
1999: Digital One, the UK’s first national commercial digital radio multiplex launches with five channels including Planet Rock, Talk Radio, Classic FM, Virgin Radio and Core. The first DAB tuner goes on sale in the UK.
2001: VideoLogic launches the Pure DRX-601EX, the world’s first portable digital radio. It costs £499.
2002: The BBC launches a series of digital-only channels including BBC 1Xtra, 4 Xtra and 6 Music.
BBC iPlayer was introduced by the mid 200’s as a complement to conventional TV viewing.
2015: Figures from Ofcom show more Brits are using digital platforms (TV, internet, DAB) to listen to the radio. 39.6% of total radio hours listened to are through digital platforms. Analogue is 54.3%, but declining.
2016: Ofcom's Communications Report found digital radio use is increasing - accounting for 45.5% of total listening hours in Q3 2016. Digital refers to DAB, internet radio and radio delivered by TV.
Film…
Early to Mid 1830’s Moving images were produced on revolving drums and disks with independent invention by Simon von Stampfer in Austria, Joseph Plateau in Belgium and William Horner in Britain.
1839 British inventor, William H. Fox Talbot made paper sensitive to light by bathing it in a solution of salt and silver nitrate. The silver turned dark when exposed to light and in turn created a negative, which could be used to print positives on other sheets of light sensitive paper.
1867 The first machine in the United States that showed animated pictures was a device called the “wheel of life” by William Lincoln, moving drawings or photographs were watched through a slit.
1878 British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move.
1885 American inventor George Eastman introduces film made on a paper base instead of glass, wound in a roll, eliminating the need for glass plates.
1888 By starting to develop films using its own processing plants, Eastman Kodak eliminates the need for amateur photographers to process their own pictures.
1889 Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a peep-show device in which film is moved past a light.
1894 The first commercial exhibition of film took place on 14th April at the first Kinetoscope parlor ever built.
1895 Two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere patent a combination movie camera and projector, capable of projecting an image that can be seen by many people. Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more than one person.
1896 Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially, successful, projector in the U.S.
1905 Cooper Hewitt mercury lamps make it practical to shoot films indoors without sunlight.
1906 The first animated cartoon is produced.
1909 There are about 9,000 movie theaters in the United States. The typical film is only a single reel long, ten- twelve minutes in length, and the actors were anonymous.
1912 Carl Laemmle organizes Universal Pictures, which will become the first major studio.
1915 The Bell & Howell 2709 movie camera allows directors to make close-ups without physically moving the camera.
1923 Warner Bros. is established.
1925 Western Electric and Warner Bros. agree to develop a system for movies with sound.
1925 The first in-flight movie is shown. It was a black & white, silent film called The Lost World, is shown in a WWI converted Handley-Page bomber during a 30-minute flight near London.
1927 Warner Bros.’s The Jazz Singer, presents the first spoken words. The Vitaphone method that the studio uses involves recording sound on discs.
1928 Paramount becomes the first studio to announce that it will only produce “talkies”.
1930 The motion picture industries adopts the Production Code, a set of guidelines that describes what is acceptable in movies.
1931 Dialogue now took superiority over “Slapstick” in Hollywood comedies: The Front Page (1931) or It Happened One Night (1934),
1934 The first drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey, USA.
1937 Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is released.
Early 1940’s The desire for wartime propaganda created a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas like 49th Parallel (1941), Went the Day Well? (1942), The Way Ahead (1944) and Noël Coward and David Lean’s celebrated naval film In Which We Serve in (1942).
1945 The new methods of drama and characterization meant the story chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature unsettling “twist endings”.
Early 1950’s The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Hollywood. Protested by the Hollywood Ten before the committee, the hearings resulted in the blacklisting of many actors, writers and directors, including Chayefsky, Charlie Chaplin, and Dalton Trumbo, and many of whom fled to Europe, especially the United Kingdom.
1952 The Cold War era translated into a type of near-paranoia manifested in themes such as invading armies of evil aliens, (Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The War of the Worlds).
1957 The cinematic industry was threatened by television, and the increasing popularity of the medium meant that some film theatres would become bankrupt and close.
1962 Hollywood films were still largely aimed at family audiences, and it was often the more old-fashioned films that produced the studios’ biggest successes. Productions like Mary Poppins (1964), My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965) were among the biggest money-makers of the decade.
1964 The growth in independent producers and production companies, and the increase in the power of individual actors also contributed to the decline of traditional Hollywood studio production.
1970’s Filmmakers increasingly depicted explicit sexual content and showed gunfight and battle scenes that included graphic images of bloody deaths.
1971 Marked the release of controversial films like Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection and Dirty Harry. This sparked heated controversy over the perceived escalation of violence in cinema.
Mid 1970’s A new group of American filmmakers emerged, such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas
1972 Film director’s begin to express their personal vision and creative insights. This led to some great critical and commercial successes, like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Coppola’s The Godfather films, Polanski’s Chinatown, Spielberg’s Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and George Lucas’s Star Wars. It also, however, resulted in some failures, including Peter Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love and Michael Cimino’s hugely expensive Western epic Heaven’s Gate.
1976 The phenomenal success in the 1970s of Jaws and Star Wars in particular, led to the rise of the modern "blockbuster". Hollywood studios increasingly focused on producing a smaller number of very large budget films with massive marketing and promotional campaigns.
Early 1980’s Saw audiences began increasingly watching films on their home VCRs. Eventually, the sale and rental of films on home video became a significant “second venue” for exhibition of films, and an additional source of revenue for the film industries.
1994 Major American studios began to create their own “independent” production companies to finance and produce non-mainstream fare. One of the most successful independents of the 1990s, Miramax Films, was bought by Disney the year before the release of Tarantino’s runaway hit Pulp Fiction in 1994. The year 1994 also marked the beginning of film and video distribution online. Animated films aimed at family audiences also regained their popularity, with Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994).
1995 The first feature length computer-animated feature, Toy Story, was produced by Pixar Animation studios and released by Disney. After the success of Toy Story, computer animation began to grow and became the principal technique for feature length animation, which allowed competing film companies such as DreamworksAnimation and 20th Centuary Fox to effectively compete with Disney with successful films of their own.
1992 Americans spend $12 billion to buy or rent video tapes, compared to just $4.9 billion on box office ticket sales. 76% of households have VCR players.
1994 Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen form the film studio DreamWorks.
Late 1990’s Another cinematic evolution began, from physical film stock to digital cinema technology. Meanwhile DVDs became the new standard for consumer video, replacing VHS tapes.
2000 The documentary film began to escalate as a commercial genre for conceivably the first time, with the success of films such as March of the Penguins and Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.
2001 Saw the beginning of a growing problem of digital distribution to be overcome with regards to expiration of copyrights, content security, and enforcing copyright. There is higher compression for films, and Moore’s law allows for increasingly cheaper technology.
2002 More films began being released simultaneously to IMAX cinema, the first was Disney animation Treasure Planet.
2005 The Dark Knight was the first major feature film to have been at least partially shot in IMAX technology.
2009 James Cameron’s 3D film Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time.
2010 onward 3D films gained increasing popularity with many other films being released in 3D. The best critical and financial success was the feature film animation of Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar’s Toy Story 3.
Television…
26 January 1926: First public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution by John Logie Baird in his London Laboratory.
8 February 1928: Baird successfully transmits television pictures across the Atlantic.
3 July 1928: Baird demonstrates colour television.
10 August 1928: Baird demonstrates stereoscopic (3D) television.
5 March 1929: Baird broadcasts television using the BBC’s London transmitter.
30 September 1929: Baird begins regular experimental 30-line television broadcasts. Because there is only one radio transmitter available, sound and vision are transmitted alternately for 2 minutes each.
14 March 1930: Simultaneous sound-and-vision 30-line television transmissions are made possible by a new transmitter (Brookman’s Park).
14 July 1930: First British television drama: Pirandello’s The Man with a Flower in his Mouth.
22 August 1932: The BBC takes over programme-making for the 30-line television service.
24 January 1934: EMI demonstrates a workable electronic television camera. They name their camera the ‘Emitron’.
31 January 1935: The Television Advisory Committee, under Lord Selsdon, take evidence on the relative merits of the various worldwide ‘high definition’ (240 lines or greater) television systems. They recommend that both the Baird 240 line mechanical system and the Marconi-EMI 405 line electronic system be developed as alternatives for the proposed new London television station.
2 November 1936: BBC Television begins broadcasting regular high-definition programmes from Alexandra Palace to the London area. The non-compatible Baird and Marconi-EMI systems are used on alternate weeks.
6 February 1937: The Baird system is abandoned on the advice of the Television Advisory Committee.
12 May 1937: First major electronic television outside broadcast: the Coronation of King George VI. Nine thousand TV sets are sold in the London area.
1 September 1939: British television is shut down immediately at the advent of WWII. It is estimated that there are 20,000 TV sets in Britain at this time.
7 June 1946: BBC television re-opens after the war.
July-August 1948: London hosts the 1948 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic tournament to be broadcast to home television.
27 August 1950: First live link from the continent (Calais to London) lays the foundation for the later Eurovision network.
2 June 1953: Biggest outside broadcast to date: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
22 September 1955: Commercial television (ITV) starts broadcasting in the London area.
21 July 1955: 95% of the UK can now receive BBC television.
October 1958: Videotape recording starts in Britain; prior to this the only way to record programmes has been to use film (telerecording).
21 April 1964: BBC2 opens to 625 lines with episode of Play School.
2 May 1965: First trans-Atlantic satellite television transmission from the USA is made via the geosynchronous satellite Intelsat I, nicknamed “Early Bird”.
3 March 1966: The Phase Alternating Line colour television system is officially adopted for the UK.
1 July 1967: Regular colour transmissions begin on BBC2.
July–August 1968: New ITV contracts start: new companies include London Weekend Television, Thames Television, and Yorkshire Television.
15 November 1969: Regular colour transmissions begin on BBC1 and ITV.
21 July 1969: First live television pictures of men on the moon.
29 July 1981: Biggest outside broadcast to date: the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (750 million viewers in 74 countries).
1 January 1982: New ITV contracts start. New companies include: Central Television, TVS, and TSW.
2 November 1982: Channel 4 television begins broadcasting.
17 January 1983: BBC Breakfast Time (breakfast television) starts.
2 November 1983: TV-AM breakfast television starts.
6 February 1989: Launch of Sky television (satellite television provider)
29 April 1990: Launch of British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) (satellite television broadcaster).
2 November 1990: Sky and BSB merge to form BSkyB.
1 January 1993: New ITV contracts start. New companies include: Carlton Television, Meridian Broadcasting, Westcountry Television and GMTV. Old companies lost in the franchise change include: TV-AM, TVS, TSW and Thames.
31 March 1997: Channel 5 begins broadcasting.
1 October 1998: BSkyB begins digital TV transmissions from a new generation of satellites as Sky Digital.
22 October 2002: UK’s Freeview free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service officially begins
27 May 2006: The BBC begins broadcasting in high-definition (HDTV) on their new subscription channel BBC HD.
25 December 2007: The BBC launches iPlayer, an internet service for watching previously aired TV shows.
January 2008: Warner Home Video announces that it will support only Blu-ray Discs, setting off a chain reaction in favour of the format.
6 May 2008: The Freesat satellite service starts, including the first non-subscription HDTV channels.
30 March 2010: Freeview HD is launched across the UK, featuring the new Channel 4 HD.
1 October 2010: Sky launches Europe’s first stereoscopic (3DTV) television channel.
28 February 2011: Product placement is permitted on UK television for the first time.
4 January 2012: Netflix launches its movie and TV streaming service in the UK.
July-August 2012: London hosts the 2012 Olympics, and the BBC wins the UK contract to broadcast all Olympic tournaments up to 2020. Coverage of the Paralympic Games is broadcast on Channel 4 for the first time.
24 October 2012: The switch-off of all analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts completes.
2013–2016: Phase one of the Local Digital Television Programme Services (L-DTPS) sees new local television services launch in 21 local areas, licenced by Ofcom.
14 June 2013: The British Audience Research Board announces it will include online viewing through catch-up services in its official viewing figures.
1 August 2015: Launch of BT Sports Ultra HD, the first 4K Ultra HD channel in the UK.
16 February 2016: BBC Three becomes online-only.
1 September 2016: A TV Licence becomes a requirement for watching BBC iPlayer online.
1 January 2017: The BBC commences its renewed Charter, and from April Ofcom becomes the first external regulator for the BBC.
Advertising…
Television advertising in Britain began on 22 September 1955. ITV’s detractors claimed it would be too American, the British public would not want their programmes interrupted by adverts and it would never be as good as the BBC. In any case, ITV was only available in London.
They used to be much longer than today’s adverts, the lighting is harsher and they are far more stilted. They had white middle-class actors, values and accents and their message was spelled out with agonising slowness. In effect, they were moving newspaper adverts. In part, this was a result of the lack of experience in television advertising in Britain. But, more importantly, it was because the television industry was concerned not to appear too American.
The first commercial was for Gibbs SR toothpaste. Typical of the early adverts, any single frame could be used with a written caption as a newspaper advert. The first Persil adverts were actually adapted from their familiar posters.
The morning after the first commercials appeared, Bernard Levin wrote in the Manchester Guardian: “I feel neither depraved nor uplifted by what I have seen… certainly the advertising has been entirely innocuous. I have already forgotten the name of the toothpaste”.
There were also experiments in the no-man’s land between advertisement and editorial, with time spots and ad mags. In time spots the advertiser booked the station clock and tied in his product with the time announcement. The Independent Television Authority (ITA) regarded the time spots as annoying and abolished them in December 1960.
The advertising magazine ran for a few more years until 1963 when it too met its end. Created to encourage small advertisers who could not afford their own ad slot, they had a loose story format and each episode featured a collection of products. The most famous was Jim’s Inn, set in a pub with Jimmy and Maggie Hanley as the publicans. Jim’s Inn first appeared in spring 1957 and ran for 300 editions. It relied on a strong and believable story line, recognisable characters and the warm personality of the landlord.
Until the 1970s the advertisers’ approach was very much to tell the viewer why they should use that product. The style changed in the 1970s, with viewers being invited to share in the lifestyles and values of the characters using the product on screen.
The products advertised on television have changed over the years. In the 1950s advertising was dominated by the soap powder manufacturers and food advertising. Into the 1960s there was little car advertising (due to a secret cartel agreement between the manufacturers) and virtually no spirits advertising, for the same reason. The car manufacturer Datsun arrived from Japan in the1970s and broke the cosy agreement between Ford, Vauxhall, Chrysler and British Leyland not to advertise.
The 1970s brought us the Smash Martians, the Heineken lager campaign and the Hamlet cigar adverts. Old favourites remained on the screen, often with a new twist to liven up a familiar product: thus Katie was sent to America with her family, letting her explain all about Oxo to her new American friends while giving an added gloss to a familiar product.
Newspapers started to use television. Prompted by the successful re-launch of the Sun with its enormous expenditure on live commercials, the Mirror followed suit.
Towards the end of the 1970s, corporate advertising started to appear. ICI were the first with “The Pathfinders” and “Ideas in Action” campaigns, adverts which used potent symbols of progress like Concorde to enhance their image.
In the 1980s advertising changed again. New outlets for the message arrived in the form of Channel 4 and Breakfast television. But there were also cultural changes brought about by Thatcherism. The possibility of advertising on the BBC replacing the licence fee was strongly suggested by the Adam Smith Institute. It declared that moves must be made “away from the licence fee to other forms of finance… there can be little future for a system which discriminates against the paying viewer in favour of the decisions of the bureaucrat”. The report went on to recommend that cigarette advertising, banned in 1965, should be reinstated and that the ban on advertising of betting and other prohibited categories (e.g. undertakers, charities, religious institutions) be removed. The BBC still does not carry advertising and the ban on tobacco advertising remains in place. But the first advert for an undertaker appeared on 8 November 1993, during an early evening episode of You take the High Road and, since then, charities and even the Church of England have used television adverts to promote their cause.
Interactive adverts started to appear in the late 1980s. The first was an advert for Mazda cars. In this, viewers were instructed to video record the ad and play it back frame by frame. On doing so they were able to take part in a competition to win a Mazda car. First Direct have also run interactive adverts. They ran ads simultaneously on ITV and C4; by switching between the two channels, viewers could see either a positive or a negative outcome to the story. Both these examples are not truly interactive but they do force viewers to become more involved.
Music videos…
1927 – The Jazz singer
The silent era of cinema was beginning to fall and a whole industry that was still developing its own language had to renovate itself and start from zero on how sound could integrate the films. At the time lots of film theorists claimed that cinema ended at this transition. For others this was a necessary step to endure through and to try to understand how sound could affect the moving image.
The Jazz Singer was the first film to sync audio and image. This meant that for the first time you could actually see a music performance that wasn’t live! Up until then you could only hear your artists, see a picture of how he looked like or be lucky enough to see them live.
1930 – Crying for Caroline (Spooney Melody).
The Spooney Melodey series were the first to introduce the concept of short-films mixing live-action footage of the performer. It was shown at the movie theaters before the main presentations. So now you didn’t actually need to see a full feature talkie to here music and sound, you could see the performer playing in quick segments of music!
1958 – Le poinconneur des lilas (Scopitone)
If you dreamt of watching music videos outside a movie theater the inventor Serge Gainsbourg had the newest gadget for you – the Scopitone! During the 60s these jukeboxes started popping-up all over bars and nightclubs around Europe and in the US.
A jukebox that played 16mm film synced with audio (technology invented for the WWII) was the rage of the 60s. Francis Ford Coppola even lost a small fortune by heavily investing in a Scopitone competitor in the US, and Robert Altman directed a short Scopitone film also.
In questions of film language the Scopitone brought a very interesting dimension to the table and is heavily linked to the the video era and small screens like our iPhones– framing and preparing for a small screen. We see almost no wide angle shots and instead focus on more medium to close-up shots of the artist playing, something that had to be planned since the screen will be crammed in a corner with lots of people around it.
1965-1974
With film technology and 16mm getting a little bit cheaper and more accessible, the growth of broadcast television and consequently the rise of pop culture the late 60s and early 70s was a time of exploring all these new phenomenons as a way to promote the music artist.
1965 – We can work it out (The Beatles)
Considered to be the first music video to broadcast on television. The Beatles were already making some very popular full feature movies and were looking for a way to promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances (primarily the USA). The concept is fairly straight forward and was meant to blend in with the television shows that were being made at the time.
1966 – Paperback Writer (The Beatles).
Together with the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg music video starts its baby steps to distance itself from the recording of live-perfomance and start exploring more options in the cinematic language realm.
1967 – Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane (The Beatles)
From the director Peter Goldman! Finally we start seeing some avant garde and underground techniques that were already being used for decades in cinema in a music film.
1968 – Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd)
With the path being open by Goldman and his films for The Beatles, artists and labels start to finally interact more with experimental filmmakers. As a result music films start consolidating itself as a valid platform for more audacious experimentations in the aesthetic realm. What was previously only relegated to art houses is now being seen by millions of people.
1968 to 1974 – The era of experimentation in film
Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Kinks, etc. Free from constraints of promotional requirements (thanks Beatles and Goldman) and open to experimentations this was one of the most interesting eras to explore how music and film worked together.
Video killed the radio star 1974 to 1992
The endless possibilities of video revolutionises how music video are made and open up a door for endless possibilities. Together with the creative opportunities a whole new platform rises to once and for all kill the radio star.
1974 – Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen).
The music video that practically invented MTV 7 years before its launch. This song is “widely credited as the first global hit single for which an accompanying video was central to the marketing strategy”(Fowles, Paul (2009).
1980 – Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
The most expensive music video made until then, and also one of the most iconic. Bowie’s interest in exploring a more complex nature turns this film a stepping stone to deeper layers of meaning in music videos.
1981 – Video killed the radio star (The Buggles)
The first music video aired on MTV prophesizes the impact that it will have in the music industry. Music videos become one of the main platforms for new artists to gain attention and for consolidated artists to show their latest works. The DIY video approach that initially inundated the MTV in the early 80s soon fade toward huge production budgets and an era where music video cost more than feature films.
1983 – Thriller (Michael Jackson)
Premiered worldwide on MTV, Michael Jackson and John Landis bring back the idea of blending films with music video.
The rise of the directors (1992-2004)
Almost 10 years after its launch MTV in November 1992 began listing directors with the artist and song credits reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur’s medium. Directors like David Fincher (that in the 80s were making music videos) focus on directing feature films while a whole new breed of young and talented directors take the scene to express their unique vision.
1994 – Sabotage (Beastie Boys)
Beastie Boys didn’t feel like going through a major production and opted instead for Spike Jonze and his low budget idea of going around LA in a van shooting a music video without any license. The result is one of the most iconic music videos from the 90s in a throwback to the traditional cop American television series.
1997 – ElektroBank (The Chemical Brothers)
If one video clip was to sum-up the intermingling between Jonze’s influences and main themes this would be it–the perfect american imagery boiled-up with the body movement as a form of liberation.
1999 – Praise you (Fatboy Slim)
The body movement as the main vehicle of expression! Jonze literally cuts to the basic putting himself in front of the camera together with the invented Torrance Community Dance Group.
Michel Gondry
The director that turns his dreams into imagery. The master of visual techniques Michel Gondry manages to blend reality with dreamlike imagery and a quirky and unique sense of humor into his music videos. The images created by Gondry resemble an invention where the viewer is invited to peep into its inner workings and see how the mechanism turns.
1996 – Sugar Water (Cibo Matto)
One of the signature styles of Gondry is how he plays camera movement and mise-en-scène to create mind bending concepts.
1997 – Around the world (Daft Punk)
Around the Wold is considered by Gondry as the music video he most likes and we can see why– It packs all the elements that he got famous for, the visualization of the music through choreography, a minimalistic set design and dreamlike imagery that later became his signature.
1999 – Let it be forever (The Chemical Brothers)
Now blend great mise-en-scène, analog camera movements with VFX and the choreography that and set design that made the director famous two years before and you have Michel Gondry at his best!
2001 – Star Guitar (The Chemical Brothers)
Everything seems normal until it’s not. Till today the idea of how he came with the idea of transforming the view from a train into an audio waveform surprises the spectators, and is a marvel of modern music video.
Chris Cunningham – Come to Dady (Aphex Twins, 1997) & All is Full of Love (Björk, 1999)
Dark electronic distopic futures was the mark that Cunningham brought to the end of the 90s.
Floria Sigismondi – Little Wonder (David Bowie, 1996) & Beautiful People (Marilyn Manson, 1996)
Her sensibilities and jittery camera movements gave light to dark textured worlds always lurking in a deeper part of our minds.
Hype Williams – Sock It 2 Me (Missy Elliot, 1997) & Gotham City (R. Kelly, 1997)
The director that almost single handedly created a whole aesthetic for the R&B and Hip Hop music videos. Joining ludicrous concepts with a materialistic approach, Hype Williams is one of heaviest influences to the contemporary music videos.
Youtube era 2005
Although you could find music videos on the internet since 1997 it was in 2005 when Youtube launched that the whole music industry had to change. Paired with the fact that MTV by mid-2000s largely abandoned showing music videos to air reality tv shows, Youtube became the home for artists and directors to explore new concepts and reach out to a worldwide audience.
The mid-2000s started to feel like when MTV first launched. A focus on new ideas made low budget music videos go viral and unshackled from the censorship of broadcast television. Ideas that weren’t possible to be broadcasted before started appearing in music videos.Combine all these factors with the prices of digital cameras going down and the quality of the images produced going up, resulted that by the end of the first decade indie filmmakers could produce images similar to high budget blockbuster movies.
All this comes with an explosion of music videos. Thus never so many videos were produced and the sheer mass of new videos released each day made it even more important to figure out narrative and commercial ways to reach the audience.
2006 – Here it goes again (Oh OK)
If Youtube had a son and he became a band it would be Ok Go. The band is probably the example of how a group that nobody ever listens to gets famous single-handedly by their music video (I may be exaggerating seeing that they already had a modest career since 2002). Since their first video in 2005 A million Ways turned into a youtube viral the band has been burning their brains out trying to figure the new head turning idea for the next video clip, from treadmills to a single take zero-gravity fall in a Russian plane.
2010 – Born Free (MIA)
Romain Gavras was directing music videos and films since 2001, and got on the map with his music video for Justice. It was Born Free that established his directorial style– the roughness of street and ghetto life with high energy images and a handheld documentary style camera (maybe it’s the influence of his father Costa Gavras and his political movies like Z?). A 9 minute long film that would be hard to pass on any television and stirred the media when it was first launched on Vimeo due to Youtube restrictions at the time.
Although Gavras has now risen to international fame his directorial style is clearly visible through his new films.
2012 – Yet again (Grizzly Bear)
Bock developed a style centered very much on powerful emotional character studies, such as the struggling figure skater in her video for Grizzly Bear (above). With a storytelling ability that allows her to switch between music video and documentary seamlessly, her style has taken her from strength to strength as she delves more into narrative with each video. Her recent work for Arcade Fire on "Afterlife" saw her team up again with cinematographer Evan Prosofsky to create a moving portrait of a father struggling to raise his children.
2014 – Hunger of the Pines (ALT-J)
Nabil Elderkin came to notoriety as a director through his frequent collaborations with Kanye West. Since then, Nabil has become one of the most exciting music video directors of his generation, evolving from still to moving images, creating memorable videos for artists such as Frank Ocean, John Legend, Antony and the Johnsons, Bon Iver, The Foals, and The Arctic Monkeys. With a gorgeous cinematic aesthetic, a strong narrative voice, and more than just a dose of magical realism that binds his work together, his videos never fail to captivate.
Magazines…
1904 Puck magazine was launched by Harmsworth and was the fist comic to use substantial amount of colour (closed in 1940).
1910 William Randolph Hearst buys Pall Mall and Nash in the UK and founds National Magazine Company.
1912 Photoplay is the first magazine for movie fans
1914 Rainbow is the first British comic aimed at children. Colour magazine, glossy paintings with unrelated text of fiction, poems and reviews (closed 1924).
1933 Esquire is the first men’s magazine.
1944 Seventeen is the first magazine devoted to adolescents.
1953 Playboy opens with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.
1962 The Bolton Evening news is the first UK paper to print colour advertising.
1967 Rolling stone demonstrates the popularity of special-interest magazines.
1969 The three largest magazine publishing houses (Associated-lliffe press, George Newnes and Odhams press) merge to become IPC Magazines Ltd as part of international Publishing Corporation (owner of Daily Mirror, people and sun magazines)
1970 Cosmopolitan UK is first international edition and becomes world’s best-selling womans magazine and best-seller in the UK until the arrival of Glamour in 2002.
1974 People debuts with Mia Farrow on the cover. UK edition of Rolling Stone until 1982.
1976 First apple computer launches.
1988 Spanish Hola! Launches as Hello! Magazine, paying celebrities to use their pictures.
1990 Entertainment weekly starts.
1915 Rothermere launched Sunday Pictorial (later Sunday Mirror).
1928 Northcliffe Newspapers set up as a subsidiary of Associated Newspapers. Provincial. Newspapers set up as a subsidiary of United Newspapers.
1936 Britain's first colour advertisement appears (in Glasgow's Daily Record).
1953 General Council of the Press established.
1955 Month-long national press strike. Daily Record acquired by Mirror Group.
1959 Manchester Guardian becomes The Guardian. Six-week regional press printing strike.
1964 The Sun launched, replacing Daily Herald. Death of Beaverbrook. General Council of the Press reformed as the Press Council.
1969 Murdoch's News International acquired The Sun and News of the World.
1976 Nottingham Evening Post is Britain's first newspaper to start direct input by journalists.
1978 The Times and The Sunday Times ceased publication for 11 months.
1980 Association of Free Newspaper founded (folded 1991). Regional Newspaper Advertising Bureau formed.
1981 News International acquired The Times and the Sunday Times.
1984 Mirror Group sold by Reed to Maxwell (Pergamon). First free daily newspaper, the (Birmingham) Daily News, launched by husband & wife team Chris & Pat Bullivant.
1986 Eddie Shah launched Today, first colour national daily launched. The Independent launched.
1987 News International took over Today.
1989 Last Fleet Streetpaper produced by Sunday Express.
1993 Guardian Media Group bought The Observer. UK News set up by Northcliffe and Westminster Press as rival news agency to the Press Association. Second Calcutt report into self-regulation of the press.
1996 A year of buyouts, mergers and restructuring in the regional press. Regionals win the battle over cross-media ownership (Broadcasting Act). Newspaper Society launches NS Marketing, replacing PressAd.
1997 Midland Independent Newspapers is bought by Mirror Group for £297 million. Human Rights and Data Protection bills are introduced.
1998 Fourth largest regional press publisher, United Provincial Newspapers, is sold in two deals: UPN Yorkshire and Lancashire newspapers sold to Regional Independent Media for £360m and United Southern Publications sold to Southnews for £47.5m.
1999 Trinity merges with Mirror Group Newspapers in a deal worth £1.3 billion. Newsquest is bought by US publisher Gannett for £904 million. Portsmouth & Sunderland Newspapers is bought by Johnston Press for £266m. Freedom of Information bill introduced. Associated launches London's free commuter daily, Metro.
2000 Newscom is sold to Newsquest Media Group for £444m, Adscene titles are sold to Southnews (£52m)and Northcliffe Newspapers, Belfast Telegraph Newspapers are sold by Trinity Mirror to Independent News & Media for £300m, Bristol United Press is sold to Northcliffe Newspapers Group, and Southnews is sold to Trinity Mirror for £285m. Daily Express and Daily Star are sold by Lord Hollick's United News & Media to Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell.
2001 RIM buys six Galloway and Stornaway Gazette titles, Newsquest buys Dimbleby Newspaper Group and Johnston Press buys four titles from Morton Media Group. UK Publishing Media formed. Sunday Business changes name to The Businessand publishes on Sunday and Monday.
2002 Johnston Press acquires Regional Independent Media's 53 regional newspaper titles in a £560 million deal. Northcliffe Newspapers Group Ltd acquires Hill Bros (Leek) Ltd. Queen attends Newspaper Society annual lunch. The Sun and Mirror engage in a price war.
2003 Conrad Black resigns as chief executive of Hollinger International, owner of Telegraph group. Independent begins the shift to smaller format national newspapers when it launched its compact edition.
2004 Barclay Brothers buy Telegraph group and poach Murdoch Maclennan from Associated to run it. The Times goes compact (November).
2005 Launch of free Liteeditions for London Evening Standard and Manchester Evening News. The Timesputs up cover price to 60p, marking the end of the nationals’ price war. The Guardian moves to Berliner format after £80m investment in new presses.
2006 Manchester Evening Newscity edition goes free. Government threat to limit Freedom of Information requests. Associated and News International both launch free evening papers in London during the autumn.
2007 The government abandons plans to tighten Freedom of Information laws and limit media access to coroners’ courts.
2008 The global economic downturn hit advertising revenues and shares of media companies fell sharply during the year.
2009 Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev acquires the London Evening Standard from Daily Mail & General Trust and the title is subsequently relaunched as a free newspaper.
2010 Lebedev acquires the Independent and Independent on Sunday from Independent News & Media for a nominal fee of £1. Trinity Mirror acquires GMG Regional Media, publisher of 32 titles, from Guardian Media Group for £44.8 million. Newly-elected coalition government announces it will look at the case for relaxing cross-media ownership rules and stop unfair competition from council newspapers. The Independent launches i, a digest newspaper to complement their main title, and the first daily paper to be launched in the UK in almost 25 years.
2011 Five regional daily titles switched to weekly during the year. Local cross media ownership rules were abolished.
2012 The London 2012 Olympics and Diamond Jubilee saw national and local press titles produce a host of supplements, special editions and other initiatives in digital and print to help their readers celebrate the events. In November, the press industry came together to progress plans for a new, tougher, independent system of self regulation following publication of Lord Justice Leveson's report into the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal. MailOnline became the world's biggest newspaper website with 45.348 million unique users.
2013 Significant progress was made by the newspaper and magazine industry in setting up the Independent Press Standards Organisation - the new regulator for the press called for by Lord Justice Leveson. More than 90 per cent of the national press, the vast majority of the regional press, along with major magazine publishers, signed contracts to establish IPSO. Politicians, publishers and press freedom organisations from across the globe railed against the Government's Royal Charter for press regulation which Culture Secretary Maria Miller admitted could become redundant if IPSO was successful.
2015 In October 2015, Trinity Mirror announced the acquisition of Local World for £220 million, demonstrating the publisher’s firm belief in the future of local news media. Newspapers grew their UK monthly print and online reach to more than 47 million people, more than Google’s 45 million, with newsbrands driving nearly a billion social media interactions over the course of the year.
During the early 21st century, many newspapers saw a rapid decline in circulation. The sector's advertising revenues fell 15% during 2015 alone, with estimates of a further 20% drop over the course of 2016.
Radio…
On the 18 October 1992, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is formed. On the 14 November, the first BBC broadcasts from London (station 2LO).
On the 18 January 1923, the UK Postmaster General grants the BBC a licence to broadcast.
The BBC is established by Royal Charter as the British Broadcasting Corporation in January 1927.
It was the first broadcaster to begin a regularly scheduled TV service, in 1936. Radio went from strength to strength with the brand-new Broadcasting House opening in 1932.
1945: The Light Programme launches for light entertainment programming, followed by the BBC Third Programme in 1946.
Normally voiced by famous commentator John Snagge, BBC Newsreel painted a picture of the day’s events as a filmed sequence of short reports in January 1948.
1950: The number of radio licences issued peaks at 11.8 million.
1955: The BBC begins broadcasting in FM (frequency modulation) for the first time. It is superior to AM (amplitude modulation), which is susceptible to interference in bad weather.
1954: The Regency TR-1, the world’s first transistor radio, is unveiled. The first truly portable radio is a huge success, changing the way people listen to radio.
1964: ‘Pirate radio’ stations Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta begin broadcasting from ships in the North Sea. The pirate radio audience is between 10 and 15 million in 1965.
In September 1967, after pirate radio stations were banned by the government, the BBC launched Radio 1,2,3 and 4 to meet the increasing need of the youth market.
January 1983, Breakfast Time was launched ahead of ITV’s breakfast service.
February 1985, EastEnders was one of Britain's most successful television soap operas reached number one in the ratings within 8 months of its launch.
1990: Radio 5 launches – the first new network in 23 years.
1995: The BBC begins the UK’s first digital radio transmissions with Radio 1-5, Parliament and Sports Plus.
1996: It is the birth of internet radio in the UK, as Virgin Radio becomes Europe’s first radio station to broadcast online.
December 1997 bbc.co.uk was launched (Lord Birt the general director of the BBC at the time was quick to recognise the potential of the internet for public service broadcasting).
1999: Digital One, the UK’s first national commercial digital radio multiplex launches with five channels including Planet Rock, Talk Radio, Classic FM, Virgin Radio and Core. The first DAB tuner goes on sale in the UK.
2001: VideoLogic launches the Pure DRX-601EX, the world’s first portable digital radio. It costs £499.
2002: The BBC launches a series of digital-only channels including BBC 1Xtra, 4 Xtra and 6 Music.
BBC iPlayer was introduced by the mid 200’s as a complement to conventional TV viewing.
2015: Figures from Ofcom show more Brits are using digital platforms (TV, internet, DAB) to listen to the radio. 39.6% of total radio hours listened to are through digital platforms. Analogue is 54.3%, but declining.
2016: Ofcom's Communications Report found digital radio use is increasing - accounting for 45.5% of total listening hours in Q3 2016. Digital refers to DAB, internet radio and radio delivered by TV.
Film…
Early to Mid 1830’s Moving images were produced on revolving drums and disks with independent invention by Simon von Stampfer in Austria, Joseph Plateau in Belgium and William Horner in Britain.
1839 British inventor, William H. Fox Talbot made paper sensitive to light by bathing it in a solution of salt and silver nitrate. The silver turned dark when exposed to light and in turn created a negative, which could be used to print positives on other sheets of light sensitive paper.
1867 The first machine in the United States that showed animated pictures was a device called the “wheel of life” by William Lincoln, moving drawings or photographs were watched through a slit.
1878 British photographer Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move.
1885 American inventor George Eastman introduces film made on a paper base instead of glass, wound in a roll, eliminating the need for glass plates.
1888 By starting to develop films using its own processing plants, Eastman Kodak eliminates the need for amateur photographers to process their own pictures.
1889 Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a peep-show device in which film is moved past a light.
1894 The first commercial exhibition of film took place on 14th April at the first Kinetoscope parlor ever built.
1895 Two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere patent a combination movie camera and projector, capable of projecting an image that can be seen by many people. Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more than one person.
1896 Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially, successful, projector in the U.S.
1905 Cooper Hewitt mercury lamps make it practical to shoot films indoors without sunlight.
1906 The first animated cartoon is produced.
1909 There are about 9,000 movie theaters in the United States. The typical film is only a single reel long, ten- twelve minutes in length, and the actors were anonymous.
1912 Carl Laemmle organizes Universal Pictures, which will become the first major studio.
1915 The Bell & Howell 2709 movie camera allows directors to make close-ups without physically moving the camera.
1923 Warner Bros. is established.
1925 Western Electric and Warner Bros. agree to develop a system for movies with sound.
1925 The first in-flight movie is shown. It was a black & white, silent film called The Lost World, is shown in a WWI converted Handley-Page bomber during a 30-minute flight near London.
1927 Warner Bros.’s The Jazz Singer, presents the first spoken words. The Vitaphone method that the studio uses involves recording sound on discs.
1928 Paramount becomes the first studio to announce that it will only produce “talkies”.
1930 The motion picture industries adopts the Production Code, a set of guidelines that describes what is acceptable in movies.
1931 Dialogue now took superiority over “Slapstick” in Hollywood comedies: The Front Page (1931) or It Happened One Night (1934),
1934 The first drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey, USA.
1937 Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is released.
Early 1940’s The desire for wartime propaganda created a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas like 49th Parallel (1941), Went the Day Well? (1942), The Way Ahead (1944) and Noël Coward and David Lean’s celebrated naval film In Which We Serve in (1942).
1945 The new methods of drama and characterization meant the story chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature unsettling “twist endings”.
Early 1950’s The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Hollywood. Protested by the Hollywood Ten before the committee, the hearings resulted in the blacklisting of many actors, writers and directors, including Chayefsky, Charlie Chaplin, and Dalton Trumbo, and many of whom fled to Europe, especially the United Kingdom.
1952 The Cold War era translated into a type of near-paranoia manifested in themes such as invading armies of evil aliens, (Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The War of the Worlds).
1957 The cinematic industry was threatened by television, and the increasing popularity of the medium meant that some film theatres would become bankrupt and close.
1962 Hollywood films were still largely aimed at family audiences, and it was often the more old-fashioned films that produced the studios’ biggest successes. Productions like Mary Poppins (1964), My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965) were among the biggest money-makers of the decade.
1964 The growth in independent producers and production companies, and the increase in the power of individual actors also contributed to the decline of traditional Hollywood studio production.
1970’s Filmmakers increasingly depicted explicit sexual content and showed gunfight and battle scenes that included graphic images of bloody deaths.
1971 Marked the release of controversial films like Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection and Dirty Harry. This sparked heated controversy over the perceived escalation of violence in cinema.
Mid 1970’s A new group of American filmmakers emerged, such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas
1972 Film director’s begin to express their personal vision and creative insights. This led to some great critical and commercial successes, like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Coppola’s The Godfather films, Polanski’s Chinatown, Spielberg’s Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and George Lucas’s Star Wars. It also, however, resulted in some failures, including Peter Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love and Michael Cimino’s hugely expensive Western epic Heaven’s Gate.
1976 The phenomenal success in the 1970s of Jaws and Star Wars in particular, led to the rise of the modern "blockbuster". Hollywood studios increasingly focused on producing a smaller number of very large budget films with massive marketing and promotional campaigns.
Early 1980’s Saw audiences began increasingly watching films on their home VCRs. Eventually, the sale and rental of films on home video became a significant “second venue” for exhibition of films, and an additional source of revenue for the film industries.
1994 Major American studios began to create their own “independent” production companies to finance and produce non-mainstream fare. One of the most successful independents of the 1990s, Miramax Films, was bought by Disney the year before the release of Tarantino’s runaway hit Pulp Fiction in 1994. The year 1994 also marked the beginning of film and video distribution online. Animated films aimed at family audiences also regained their popularity, with Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994).
1995 The first feature length computer-animated feature, Toy Story, was produced by Pixar Animation studios and released by Disney. After the success of Toy Story, computer animation began to grow and became the principal technique for feature length animation, which allowed competing film companies such as DreamworksAnimation and 20th Centuary Fox to effectively compete with Disney with successful films of their own.
1992 Americans spend $12 billion to buy or rent video tapes, compared to just $4.9 billion on box office ticket sales. 76% of households have VCR players.
1994 Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen form the film studio DreamWorks.
Late 1990’s Another cinematic evolution began, from physical film stock to digital cinema technology. Meanwhile DVDs became the new standard for consumer video, replacing VHS tapes.
2000 The documentary film began to escalate as a commercial genre for conceivably the first time, with the success of films such as March of the Penguins and Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.
2001 Saw the beginning of a growing problem of digital distribution to be overcome with regards to expiration of copyrights, content security, and enforcing copyright. There is higher compression for films, and Moore’s law allows for increasingly cheaper technology.
2002 More films began being released simultaneously to IMAX cinema, the first was Disney animation Treasure Planet.
2005 The Dark Knight was the first major feature film to have been at least partially shot in IMAX technology.
2009 James Cameron’s 3D film Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time.
2010 onward 3D films gained increasing popularity with many other films being released in 3D. The best critical and financial success was the feature film animation of Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar’s Toy Story 3.
Television…
26 January 1926: First public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution by John Logie Baird in his London Laboratory.
8 February 1928: Baird successfully transmits television pictures across the Atlantic.
3 July 1928: Baird demonstrates colour television.
10 August 1928: Baird demonstrates stereoscopic (3D) television.
5 March 1929: Baird broadcasts television using the BBC’s London transmitter.
30 September 1929: Baird begins regular experimental 30-line television broadcasts. Because there is only one radio transmitter available, sound and vision are transmitted alternately for 2 minutes each.
14 March 1930: Simultaneous sound-and-vision 30-line television transmissions are made possible by a new transmitter (Brookman’s Park).
14 July 1930: First British television drama: Pirandello’s The Man with a Flower in his Mouth.
22 August 1932: The BBC takes over programme-making for the 30-line television service.
24 January 1934: EMI demonstrates a workable electronic television camera. They name their camera the ‘Emitron’.
31 January 1935: The Television Advisory Committee, under Lord Selsdon, take evidence on the relative merits of the various worldwide ‘high definition’ (240 lines or greater) television systems. They recommend that both the Baird 240 line mechanical system and the Marconi-EMI 405 line electronic system be developed as alternatives for the proposed new London television station.
2 November 1936: BBC Television begins broadcasting regular high-definition programmes from Alexandra Palace to the London area. The non-compatible Baird and Marconi-EMI systems are used on alternate weeks.
6 February 1937: The Baird system is abandoned on the advice of the Television Advisory Committee.
12 May 1937: First major electronic television outside broadcast: the Coronation of King George VI. Nine thousand TV sets are sold in the London area.
1 September 1939: British television is shut down immediately at the advent of WWII. It is estimated that there are 20,000 TV sets in Britain at this time.
7 June 1946: BBC television re-opens after the war.
July-August 1948: London hosts the 1948 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic tournament to be broadcast to home television.
27 August 1950: First live link from the continent (Calais to London) lays the foundation for the later Eurovision network.
2 June 1953: Biggest outside broadcast to date: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
22 September 1955: Commercial television (ITV) starts broadcasting in the London area.
21 July 1955: 95% of the UK can now receive BBC television.
October 1958: Videotape recording starts in Britain; prior to this the only way to record programmes has been to use film (telerecording).
21 April 1964: BBC2 opens to 625 lines with episode of Play School.
2 May 1965: First trans-Atlantic satellite television transmission from the USA is made via the geosynchronous satellite Intelsat I, nicknamed “Early Bird”.
3 March 1966: The Phase Alternating Line colour television system is officially adopted for the UK.
1 July 1967: Regular colour transmissions begin on BBC2.
July–August 1968: New ITV contracts start: new companies include London Weekend Television, Thames Television, and Yorkshire Television.
15 November 1969: Regular colour transmissions begin on BBC1 and ITV.
21 July 1969: First live television pictures of men on the moon.
29 July 1981: Biggest outside broadcast to date: the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (750 million viewers in 74 countries).
1 January 1982: New ITV contracts start. New companies include: Central Television, TVS, and TSW.
2 November 1982: Channel 4 television begins broadcasting.
17 January 1983: BBC Breakfast Time (breakfast television) starts.
2 November 1983: TV-AM breakfast television starts.
6 February 1989: Launch of Sky television (satellite television provider)
29 April 1990: Launch of British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) (satellite television broadcaster).
2 November 1990: Sky and BSB merge to form BSkyB.
1 January 1993: New ITV contracts start. New companies include: Carlton Television, Meridian Broadcasting, Westcountry Television and GMTV. Old companies lost in the franchise change include: TV-AM, TVS, TSW and Thames.
31 March 1997: Channel 5 begins broadcasting.
1 October 1998: BSkyB begins digital TV transmissions from a new generation of satellites as Sky Digital.
22 October 2002: UK’s Freeview free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service officially begins
27 May 2006: The BBC begins broadcasting in high-definition (HDTV) on their new subscription channel BBC HD.
25 December 2007: The BBC launches iPlayer, an internet service for watching previously aired TV shows.
January 2008: Warner Home Video announces that it will support only Blu-ray Discs, setting off a chain reaction in favour of the format.
6 May 2008: The Freesat satellite service starts, including the first non-subscription HDTV channels.
30 March 2010: Freeview HD is launched across the UK, featuring the new Channel 4 HD.
1 October 2010: Sky launches Europe’s first stereoscopic (3DTV) television channel.
28 February 2011: Product placement is permitted on UK television for the first time.
4 January 2012: Netflix launches its movie and TV streaming service in the UK.
July-August 2012: London hosts the 2012 Olympics, and the BBC wins the UK contract to broadcast all Olympic tournaments up to 2020. Coverage of the Paralympic Games is broadcast on Channel 4 for the first time.
24 October 2012: The switch-off of all analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts completes.
2013–2016: Phase one of the Local Digital Television Programme Services (L-DTPS) sees new local television services launch in 21 local areas, licenced by Ofcom.
14 June 2013: The British Audience Research Board announces it will include online viewing through catch-up services in its official viewing figures.
1 August 2015: Launch of BT Sports Ultra HD, the first 4K Ultra HD channel in the UK.
16 February 2016: BBC Three becomes online-only.
1 September 2016: A TV Licence becomes a requirement for watching BBC iPlayer online.
1 January 2017: The BBC commences its renewed Charter, and from April Ofcom becomes the first external regulator for the BBC.
Advertising…
Television advertising in Britain began on 22 September 1955. ITV’s detractors claimed it would be too American, the British public would not want their programmes interrupted by adverts and it would never be as good as the BBC. In any case, ITV was only available in London.
They used to be much longer than today’s adverts, the lighting is harsher and they are far more stilted. They had white middle-class actors, values and accents and their message was spelled out with agonising slowness. In effect, they were moving newspaper adverts. In part, this was a result of the lack of experience in television advertising in Britain. But, more importantly, it was because the television industry was concerned not to appear too American.
The first commercial was for Gibbs SR toothpaste. Typical of the early adverts, any single frame could be used with a written caption as a newspaper advert. The first Persil adverts were actually adapted from their familiar posters.
The morning after the first commercials appeared, Bernard Levin wrote in the Manchester Guardian: “I feel neither depraved nor uplifted by what I have seen… certainly the advertising has been entirely innocuous. I have already forgotten the name of the toothpaste”.
There were also experiments in the no-man’s land between advertisement and editorial, with time spots and ad mags. In time spots the advertiser booked the station clock and tied in his product with the time announcement. The Independent Television Authority (ITA) regarded the time spots as annoying and abolished them in December 1960.
The advertising magazine ran for a few more years until 1963 when it too met its end. Created to encourage small advertisers who could not afford their own ad slot, they had a loose story format and each episode featured a collection of products. The most famous was Jim’s Inn, set in a pub with Jimmy and Maggie Hanley as the publicans. Jim’s Inn first appeared in spring 1957 and ran for 300 editions. It relied on a strong and believable story line, recognisable characters and the warm personality of the landlord.
Until the 1970s the advertisers’ approach was very much to tell the viewer why they should use that product. The style changed in the 1970s, with viewers being invited to share in the lifestyles and values of the characters using the product on screen.
The products advertised on television have changed over the years. In the 1950s advertising was dominated by the soap powder manufacturers and food advertising. Into the 1960s there was little car advertising (due to a secret cartel agreement between the manufacturers) and virtually no spirits advertising, for the same reason. The car manufacturer Datsun arrived from Japan in the1970s and broke the cosy agreement between Ford, Vauxhall, Chrysler and British Leyland not to advertise.
The 1970s brought us the Smash Martians, the Heineken lager campaign and the Hamlet cigar adverts. Old favourites remained on the screen, often with a new twist to liven up a familiar product: thus Katie was sent to America with her family, letting her explain all about Oxo to her new American friends while giving an added gloss to a familiar product.
Newspapers started to use television. Prompted by the successful re-launch of the Sun with its enormous expenditure on live commercials, the Mirror followed suit.
Towards the end of the 1970s, corporate advertising started to appear. ICI were the first with “The Pathfinders” and “Ideas in Action” campaigns, adverts which used potent symbols of progress like Concorde to enhance their image.
In the 1980s advertising changed again. New outlets for the message arrived in the form of Channel 4 and Breakfast television. But there were also cultural changes brought about by Thatcherism. The possibility of advertising on the BBC replacing the licence fee was strongly suggested by the Adam Smith Institute. It declared that moves must be made “away from the licence fee to other forms of finance… there can be little future for a system which discriminates against the paying viewer in favour of the decisions of the bureaucrat”. The report went on to recommend that cigarette advertising, banned in 1965, should be reinstated and that the ban on advertising of betting and other prohibited categories (e.g. undertakers, charities, religious institutions) be removed. The BBC still does not carry advertising and the ban on tobacco advertising remains in place. But the first advert for an undertaker appeared on 8 November 1993, during an early evening episode of You take the High Road and, since then, charities and even the Church of England have used television adverts to promote their cause.
Interactive adverts started to appear in the late 1980s. The first was an advert for Mazda cars. In this, viewers were instructed to video record the ad and play it back frame by frame. On doing so they were able to take part in a competition to win a Mazda car. First Direct have also run interactive adverts. They ran ads simultaneously on ITV and C4; by switching between the two channels, viewers could see either a positive or a negative outcome to the story. Both these examples are not truly interactive but they do force viewers to become more involved.
Music videos…
1927 – The Jazz singer
The silent era of cinema was beginning to fall and a whole industry that was still developing its own language had to renovate itself and start from zero on how sound could integrate the films. At the time lots of film theorists claimed that cinema ended at this transition. For others this was a necessary step to endure through and to try to understand how sound could affect the moving image.
The Jazz Singer was the first film to sync audio and image. This meant that for the first time you could actually see a music performance that wasn’t live! Up until then you could only hear your artists, see a picture of how he looked like or be lucky enough to see them live.
1930 – Crying for Caroline (Spooney Melody).
The Spooney Melodey series were the first to introduce the concept of short-films mixing live-action footage of the performer. It was shown at the movie theaters before the main presentations. So now you didn’t actually need to see a full feature talkie to here music and sound, you could see the performer playing in quick segments of music!
1958 – Le poinconneur des lilas (Scopitone)
If you dreamt of watching music videos outside a movie theater the inventor Serge Gainsbourg had the newest gadget for you – the Scopitone! During the 60s these jukeboxes started popping-up all over bars and nightclubs around Europe and in the US.
A jukebox that played 16mm film synced with audio (technology invented for the WWII) was the rage of the 60s. Francis Ford Coppola even lost a small fortune by heavily investing in a Scopitone competitor in the US, and Robert Altman directed a short Scopitone film also.
In questions of film language the Scopitone brought a very interesting dimension to the table and is heavily linked to the the video era and small screens like our iPhones– framing and preparing for a small screen. We see almost no wide angle shots and instead focus on more medium to close-up shots of the artist playing, something that had to be planned since the screen will be crammed in a corner with lots of people around it.
1965-1974
With film technology and 16mm getting a little bit cheaper and more accessible, the growth of broadcast television and consequently the rise of pop culture the late 60s and early 70s was a time of exploring all these new phenomenons as a way to promote the music artist.
1965 – We can work it out (The Beatles)
Considered to be the first music video to broadcast on television. The Beatles were already making some very popular full feature movies and were looking for a way to promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances (primarily the USA). The concept is fairly straight forward and was meant to blend in with the television shows that were being made at the time.
1966 – Paperback Writer (The Beatles).
Together with the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg music video starts its baby steps to distance itself from the recording of live-perfomance and start exploring more options in the cinematic language realm.
1967 – Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane (The Beatles)
From the director Peter Goldman! Finally we start seeing some avant garde and underground techniques that were already being used for decades in cinema in a music film.
1968 – Interstellar Overdrive (Pink Floyd)
With the path being open by Goldman and his films for The Beatles, artists and labels start to finally interact more with experimental filmmakers. As a result music films start consolidating itself as a valid platform for more audacious experimentations in the aesthetic realm. What was previously only relegated to art houses is now being seen by millions of people.
1968 to 1974 – The era of experimentation in film
Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Kinks, etc. Free from constraints of promotional requirements (thanks Beatles and Goldman) and open to experimentations this was one of the most interesting eras to explore how music and film worked together.
Video killed the radio star 1974 to 1992
The endless possibilities of video revolutionises how music video are made and open up a door for endless possibilities. Together with the creative opportunities a whole new platform rises to once and for all kill the radio star.
1974 – Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen).
The music video that practically invented MTV 7 years before its launch. This song is “widely credited as the first global hit single for which an accompanying video was central to the marketing strategy”(Fowles, Paul (2009).
1980 – Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
The most expensive music video made until then, and also one of the most iconic. Bowie’s interest in exploring a more complex nature turns this film a stepping stone to deeper layers of meaning in music videos.
1981 – Video killed the radio star (The Buggles)
The first music video aired on MTV prophesizes the impact that it will have in the music industry. Music videos become one of the main platforms for new artists to gain attention and for consolidated artists to show their latest works. The DIY video approach that initially inundated the MTV in the early 80s soon fade toward huge production budgets and an era where music video cost more than feature films.
1983 – Thriller (Michael Jackson)
Premiered worldwide on MTV, Michael Jackson and John Landis bring back the idea of blending films with music video.
The rise of the directors (1992-2004)
Almost 10 years after its launch MTV in November 1992 began listing directors with the artist and song credits reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur’s medium. Directors like David Fincher (that in the 80s were making music videos) focus on directing feature films while a whole new breed of young and talented directors take the scene to express their unique vision.
1994 – Sabotage (Beastie Boys)
Beastie Boys didn’t feel like going through a major production and opted instead for Spike Jonze and his low budget idea of going around LA in a van shooting a music video without any license. The result is one of the most iconic music videos from the 90s in a throwback to the traditional cop American television series.
1997 – ElektroBank (The Chemical Brothers)
If one video clip was to sum-up the intermingling between Jonze’s influences and main themes this would be it–the perfect american imagery boiled-up with the body movement as a form of liberation.
1999 – Praise you (Fatboy Slim)
The body movement as the main vehicle of expression! Jonze literally cuts to the basic putting himself in front of the camera together with the invented Torrance Community Dance Group.
Michel Gondry
The director that turns his dreams into imagery. The master of visual techniques Michel Gondry manages to blend reality with dreamlike imagery and a quirky and unique sense of humor into his music videos. The images created by Gondry resemble an invention where the viewer is invited to peep into its inner workings and see how the mechanism turns.
1996 – Sugar Water (Cibo Matto)
One of the signature styles of Gondry is how he plays camera movement and mise-en-scène to create mind bending concepts.
1997 – Around the world (Daft Punk)
Around the Wold is considered by Gondry as the music video he most likes and we can see why– It packs all the elements that he got famous for, the visualization of the music through choreography, a minimalistic set design and dreamlike imagery that later became his signature.
1999 – Let it be forever (The Chemical Brothers)
Now blend great mise-en-scène, analog camera movements with VFX and the choreography that and set design that made the director famous two years before and you have Michel Gondry at his best!
2001 – Star Guitar (The Chemical Brothers)
Everything seems normal until it’s not. Till today the idea of how he came with the idea of transforming the view from a train into an audio waveform surprises the spectators, and is a marvel of modern music video.
Chris Cunningham – Come to Dady (Aphex Twins, 1997) & All is Full of Love (Björk, 1999)
Dark electronic distopic futures was the mark that Cunningham brought to the end of the 90s.
Floria Sigismondi – Little Wonder (David Bowie, 1996) & Beautiful People (Marilyn Manson, 1996)
Her sensibilities and jittery camera movements gave light to dark textured worlds always lurking in a deeper part of our minds.
Hype Williams – Sock It 2 Me (Missy Elliot, 1997) & Gotham City (R. Kelly, 1997)
The director that almost single handedly created a whole aesthetic for the R&B and Hip Hop music videos. Joining ludicrous concepts with a materialistic approach, Hype Williams is one of heaviest influences to the contemporary music videos.
Youtube era 2005
Although you could find music videos on the internet since 1997 it was in 2005 when Youtube launched that the whole music industry had to change. Paired with the fact that MTV by mid-2000s largely abandoned showing music videos to air reality tv shows, Youtube became the home for artists and directors to explore new concepts and reach out to a worldwide audience.
The mid-2000s started to feel like when MTV first launched. A focus on new ideas made low budget music videos go viral and unshackled from the censorship of broadcast television. Ideas that weren’t possible to be broadcasted before started appearing in music videos.Combine all these factors with the prices of digital cameras going down and the quality of the images produced going up, resulted that by the end of the first decade indie filmmakers could produce images similar to high budget blockbuster movies.
All this comes with an explosion of music videos. Thus never so many videos were produced and the sheer mass of new videos released each day made it even more important to figure out narrative and commercial ways to reach the audience.
2006 – Here it goes again (Oh OK)
If Youtube had a son and he became a band it would be Ok Go. The band is probably the example of how a group that nobody ever listens to gets famous single-handedly by their music video (I may be exaggerating seeing that they already had a modest career since 2002). Since their first video in 2005 A million Ways turned into a youtube viral the band has been burning their brains out trying to figure the new head turning idea for the next video clip, from treadmills to a single take zero-gravity fall in a Russian plane.
2010 – Born Free (MIA)
Romain Gavras was directing music videos and films since 2001, and got on the map with his music video for Justice. It was Born Free that established his directorial style– the roughness of street and ghetto life with high energy images and a handheld documentary style camera (maybe it’s the influence of his father Costa Gavras and his political movies like Z?). A 9 minute long film that would be hard to pass on any television and stirred the media when it was first launched on Vimeo due to Youtube restrictions at the time.
Although Gavras has now risen to international fame his directorial style is clearly visible through his new films.
2012 – Yet again (Grizzly Bear)
Bock developed a style centered very much on powerful emotional character studies, such as the struggling figure skater in her video for Grizzly Bear (above). With a storytelling ability that allows her to switch between music video and documentary seamlessly, her style has taken her from strength to strength as she delves more into narrative with each video. Her recent work for Arcade Fire on "Afterlife" saw her team up again with cinematographer Evan Prosofsky to create a moving portrait of a father struggling to raise his children.
2014 – Hunger of the Pines (ALT-J)
Nabil Elderkin came to notoriety as a director through his frequent collaborations with Kanye West. Since then, Nabil has become one of the most exciting music video directors of his generation, evolving from still to moving images, creating memorable videos for artists such as Frank Ocean, John Legend, Antony and the Johnsons, Bon Iver, The Foals, and The Arctic Monkeys. With a gorgeous cinematic aesthetic, a strong narrative voice, and more than just a dose of magical realism that binds his work together, his videos never fail to captivate.
Magazines…
1904 Puck magazine was launched by Harmsworth and was the fist comic to use substantial amount of colour (closed in 1940).
1910 William Randolph Hearst buys Pall Mall and Nash in the UK and founds National Magazine Company.
1912 Photoplay is the first magazine for movie fans
1914 Rainbow is the first British comic aimed at children. Colour magazine, glossy paintings with unrelated text of fiction, poems and reviews (closed 1924).
1933 Esquire is the first men’s magazine.
1944 Seventeen is the first magazine devoted to adolescents.
1953 Playboy opens with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.
1962 The Bolton Evening news is the first UK paper to print colour advertising.
1967 Rolling stone demonstrates the popularity of special-interest magazines.
1969 The three largest magazine publishing houses (Associated-lliffe press, George Newnes and Odhams press) merge to become IPC Magazines Ltd as part of international Publishing Corporation (owner of Daily Mirror, people and sun magazines)
1970 Cosmopolitan UK is first international edition and becomes world’s best-selling womans magazine and best-seller in the UK until the arrival of Glamour in 2002.
1974 People debuts with Mia Farrow on the cover. UK edition of Rolling Stone until 1982.
1976 First apple computer launches.
1988 Spanish Hola! Launches as Hello! Magazine, paying celebrities to use their pictures.
1990 Entertainment weekly starts.
This is a huge and hugely impressive piece of work, Issy! Well done. Remember to keep this handy and consider how the issue will interweave with all the work we are doing on contemporary media. Excellent.
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