‘Effectively a tool of Satan’: how the UK authorities were utterly terrified by TV
Forty years ago, the battle of early morning broadcasting came to a head. ITV lost, debuting its first ever breakfast show, Good Morning Britain, on 1 February 1983 – a full 14 days after the launch of the BBC’s Breakfast Time. But this was just a mere skirmish in a much bigger war – one that stretched from the 1950s until almost the 21st century. The battleground? How much TV should be allowed in Britain.
The conflict was fought between broadcasters, who wanted to make maximum use of a new medium, and politicians and moralists who feared that more TV would zombify the population and leave workplaces and schools empty as people stayed at home to slump in front of sets. For many decades, religious leaders argued that the box was effectively a tool of Satan.
Today it is shocking to see howat 12.10pm before the lunchtime news. BBC Two didn’t start until 10.10am, and had two daily closedownperiods,from 11.55am to 2.15pm and 3.30pm to 4.35pm. Channel 4, launched in 1982, couldn’t start broadcasting until 4.45pm.
