The 1960s
News coverage came of age in the Sixties. On 14 April 1961,
viewers saw the welcome of Soviet cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin in
Moscow - broadcast from Tallinn, Estonia, picked up at Helsinki
and fed into the Eurovision network in cooperation with Russian
and Finnish authorities. Then came the 'instant special', a new
form of documentary which dealt in depth with events that had
occurred only a few hours before.
The biggest daytime audience in history saw Alan Shephard's
fifteen-minute ride in a rocket-powered capsule from Cape
Canaveral on May 5th.
A number of series were initiated in the UK during the 60s
which continue to this day. ITN created the first half-hour
evening news bulletin, News at Ten, in 1967; Granada TV's
current affairs series World in Action was first
transmitted in 1963; the BBC's science series Horizon began
in 1964 and the BBC's science futures program Tomorrow's World
started in 1965; while the BBC's seasonal weekly football
magazine Match of the Day was first broadcast in 1964. It
was also the decade of the major, solemn documentary series such
as The World at War, The Ascent of Man and Life
on Earth.
The 1970s
Viewers regularly tuned in to The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
to see what Cher would (or wouldn't) be wearing. Originally
introduced as a summer replacement variety show, the highly rated
series gave the duo's career a new lease of life. In Britain, the
flagship on the light entertainment front was undoubtedly Bruce
Forsyth's Generation Game, a very popular format which continued
on and off for many years (as did the chat show Parkinson
featuring Michael Parkinson, who only finally retired in 2008).
Other notable British light-entertainment shows of the decade
included the long running That's Life, Jim'll Fix It and
Blankety Blank. There were quiz shows ranging from the long-running
Mastermind (where contestants simply compete for a title by
answering complex general knowledge questions and obscure
questions about specialist areas of knowledge) through Sale of the
Century to the banal Mr and Mrs .
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