| 1966 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
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| January 1 |
Radio Scotland pirate ship goes on the air. |
|
| January |
Television service starts in Upper Volta (=Burkina Faso). |
Television service starts |
| January |
Independent Television programme contracts in UK are extended for a further year to July 1968. |
|
| January |
UK's Monopolies Commission concludes, after a 2½ year investigation that Kodak operates a
monopoly in the supply and processing of colour film but that it is not against the public interest. The
practice of nearly every other supplier whose products include the cost of processing would operate against
the public interest. The Commission recommends abolishing import duty on colour film and that Kodak should
reduce its prices. |
|
| January 7 |
Doomed UK two-channel pay TV experiment begins in London and Sheffield. Run by Pay-TV Ltd,
a consortium comprising British Home Entertainment (formed and chaired by film producer Lord Brabourne),
British Relay Wireless and Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), it has a licence that runs to
1968 with a limit of 10,000 on the number of subscriptions. Brabourne's associates include Sir Laurence
Olivier, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Lord Harewood, Field Marshall Lord Slim and Sir Rupert Hart-Davis. |
à 1968 |
| January 19 |
In a Federal Communications Commission hearing,
producer Robert Montgomery testifies that rigging of
quiz shows and bribery (payola) have been common in the television industry. |
|
| February 3 |
Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft lands on the moon. |
|
| February |
University of the Air proposals, published as
a UK government White Paper, starts the process leading to the Open University.
The idea had first been proposed in 1926. |
à 1971 |
| February |
Boots closes the last of its Booklovers' lending libraries. |
|
| March 1 |
Soviet spacecraft crash-lands on Venus. |
|
| March 3 |
UK Postmaster General, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, authorises the introduction of PAL colour
television transmissions, to start towards the end of 1967. It will cost the BBC an extra £1m-£2m, paid for
by a supplementary licence fee, for four hours a week, rising to 10 hours a week after 12 months. Later in
the month, the BBC says that with colour films, bought-in programmes and outside broadcasts, it will start
with about 12-15 hours of colour a week. |
|
| March |
Television service starts in Israel. |
Television start dates |
| March |
In a UK survey just ended, 23 per cent
of leisure time for both males and females is spent watching television. Among
married men with children in the age group 31-45 the proportion of time rises to
29 per cent, in age group 46-60 it is higher still at 34 per cent. Among married
women with children the proportion is only 24 per cent, but married women aged
61 reached 29 per cent. For single women aged 19-22, television took up only 10
per cent of leisure time. The survey, conducted September 1965-March 1966, is
later published as Planning for Leisure. |
|
| March |
BBC publishes a pamphlet on Local Radio in the Public Interest,
offering to run nine pilot local stations with no increase in the licence fee. |
|
| March |
Ampex announces an automatic velocity
compensator for eliminating colour errors due to videotape speed variations. |
|
| March |
Sony announces Videomat and Video Color
Demonstrator machines using plastic discs for recording and playback of monochrome moving
pictures and colour still pictures respectively. These developments are forerunners of the
Mavica electronic stills camera system. |
|
| March 30 |
BBC Television cancels a screening of Peter
Watkins’ deliberately shocking film about nuclear war, The War Game, which it
had commissioned. The film is subsequently blown up to 35mm, released theatrically and
wins the Academy Award (Oscar) for best documentary. |
|
| April 3 |
Soviet Luna 10 spacecraft orbits the moon. |
|
| April 21 |
Opening of UK parliament includes televising
of scenes from inside the House of Commons for the first time. The hot lights and bulky
equipment do not encourage MPs to favour regular televising of debates. |
|
| April 23 |
Molniya-1 satellite is launched by USSR into geostationary orbit. Once established it is
used for television relays between Moscow and Vladivostok, a distance of 6,200 miles. |
|
| April |
Ampex announces VR-6000 fixed-head home video
recorder using one-inch tape and having built-in tuner for recording one programme while
watching another, and optional camera. |
|
| April |
Westel firm of California announces a portable
television camera and back-pack recorder, WRC-150, weighing 7 lb and 23 lb respectively.
Recorder holds 30 minutes’ supply of one-inch tape. |
|
| l |
Thomson Organisation buys The Times newspaper. |
|
| May 3 |
The Times publishes news on its front page. |
|
| May |
Radio England pirate station goes on the air from a ship in the Thames Estuary;
Britain Radio broadcasts begin from the same ship. |
â November 14 |
| May |
Completion of Japanese nationwide colour television transmitter network. |
|
| June 2 |
American Surveyor I spacecraft lands on the
moon, transmitting 11,000 television pictures of the moon’s surface. |
|
| June 6 |
American Gemini 9 returns to Earth, after a
flight including a two-hour space-walk, seen live on television. |
|
| June |
Radio 270 pirate ship goes on the air, broadcasting
to northern England from off the Yorkshire coast. |
|
| July 1 |
Overnight colour television test transmissions begin in Canada. |
|
| July 22 |
Four-week Oslo conference of 79 countries under
the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) ends without agreement on a
pan-European colour television standard. The continent will be divided between SECAM
(France and most of the Soviet bloc) and PAL (everywhere else). |
|
| July |
US Air Force funds RCA to research solid state image sensors. |
|
| July 30 |
Final of the World Cup (England 4 West Germany 2) culminates a month in which BBC
Television's average audience share is 58 per cent—the highest since the introduction of ITV in 1955. |
|
| September 1 |
Regular experimental colour television
programming begins on CBC in Canada. About 30 hours a week is broadcast on the
English-language service, of which two-thirds is acquired programming, whilst most of the
15 hours a week on the French-language service is originated by CBC, there being few other
sources of French colour programming. |
|
| September |
Television service starts in Iceland. |
Television start dates |
| October 19 |
Paramount Picture Corporation acquired by Gulf + Western, an diversified company, and
becomes just a part of one division which accounts for less than 15 per cent of conglomerate business. |
|
| October |
Television service starts in Iran. |
Television service starts |
| late |
National Society of Film Critics is founded in US. |
|
| November 14 |
Radio England pirate ship begins transmissions in Dutch and
changes its name to Radio Dolfijn |
|
| November |
NHK, national Japanese broadcasting organisation,
begins use of a new colour kinescope system that reportedly gives excellent resolution. |
|
| November |
NBC screens first made-for-TV feature-length film, Fame is the Name of the Game, as
part of a regular series. The 120-minutes features are made by Universal. |
|
| December |
Radio Essex pirate station is successfully prosecuted in
UK but is renamed BBMS (Britain’s Better Music Station) pending appeal. |
|
| December 22 |
ITA announces
proposal for re-organisation of UK Independent Television
regions, with five major programme companies and 10 smaller ones. |
|
| l |
Videotape production now used extensively for
television programmes and commercials. US Clairol and Arrow video adverts receive industry
awards in competition with filmed entries. |
|
| l |
NBC uses instant replay in coverage of Rose Bowl American football game. |
|
| l |
British researchers at Standard Telecommunications
Laboratories at Harlow, Essex propose that laser light beams transmitted by glass fibres
could be used as communications carriers. |
|
| l |
Films Act passed by UK parliament extends the life of the National
Film Finance Corporation, Eady levy and film quota regulations. |
|
| l |
Television service starts in Zaire. |
Television service starts |
| l |
Intelsat agrees plan for global communications system of at least three geo-stationary
satellites with capacity of 1,200 two-way telephone links plus television circuits, to be in place by 1968.
The cost of building ground stations is estimated at £150m. |
|
| l |
Revelation of Soviet aims for a global satellite television network in the current five-year
plan evokes visions of direct reception of transmissions on cheap portable transistor colour TV sets. |
|
| l |
A Eurospace consortium memorandum proposes domestic direct satellite reception (later known as DTH)
rather than terrestrial re-transmission of television signals. |
|
| l |
State-owned Ukrtelefilm production company is established in Ukraine. |
|
| l |
First successful hologram of a human subject made by L D Siebert of the Conductron
Corporation using a pulsed laser. |
|
| l |
SECAM colour television signals are transmitted between Moscow
and Paris using a Soviet Molniya satellite. |
|
| l |
Film-making continues to spread in parts of Africa:
• Chad: Les Abattoirs de Forcha, a 15-minute documentary directed by Edouard Sailly
• Dahomey (=Benin): a short called Ganvié, mon village, directed by Pascal Abikanlou
• Guinea: the first feature film, Sergeant Bakary Woolén, directed by Lamine Akin |
à 1974
ß 1953 |
| l |
Durwood Theatres opens the first four-screen multiplex cinema. |
à 1969 |
| l |
Decca Records in London applies Dolby A-type noise
reduction to a recording of Mozart’s Piano Concerti 8 and 9 by Vladimir Ashkenazy. |
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