An interview with Andy Martin

Andy Martin worked behind the scenes in ITV for 32 years, starting as an Engineer with ATV London in the mid 60s and then in Presentation. Andy became a Programme Producer/Director with ATV (later Central) in Birmingham and Nottingham in 1979 and finally freelanced for many ITV companies. He now lives in South Western France and has his own communication business. Andy kindly supplied us much of the information on the workings of ATV...

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy worked at ATV London as a Technical Assistant (Engineer) at Foley/Ogle Street, London W1: "When I first started as a trainee engineer, we transmitted such well-known series on film, including Danger Man and The Saint. Telecine (Telecine machines convert film, an optical medium, into an electronic format for broadcasting) was in Foley Street and VTR was next door in Ogle Street.

"Foley Street and Ogle Street are midway between the BBC in Upper Regent Street and the Post Office Tower. It had been a pub during the war and had been bombed and there were rumours that there was a ghost that had been heard many times during the small hours! VTR transmitted recorded material such as Emergency Ward 10, The Braden Beat and The Plane Makers. These programmes were recorded from the ATV Elstree Studios at Borehamwood, now of course home to the BBC and especially well-known for Eastenders.

An EMI telecine machine in ATV London 1965

In 1967 Andy moved on to become an Assistant Transmission Controller with ATV London at the Foley Street Master Control Room (MCR). MCR controlled sound and vision before it was sent, via Post Office telecommunications links, to the IBA transmitter at Croydon.

The ATV London Master Control Room in 1966 (Foley Street W1)

A slide used to distinguish the distribution of material from Foley Street to other companies,
for example programmes to be broadcast at different times than the network.

Ogle Street next door had four Ampex 1000 2" VTR machines with a very small associated control room at the rear. These machines had been introduced in 1956 and had rotating heads, transverse scanning, and FM encoding, which allowed broadcast quality recording at 15 inches/second on 90 minutes reels. Each tape had to be checked for 'drop outs' before use (i.e. missing oxide coating on part of the tape, showing up as lines of white across the picture) tapes were then classified for recording or if there were too many dropouts then they were returned to the manufacturer.

An Ampex 1000 VTR machine similar to those in ATV London (Ogle Street) 1960 – 1968

In 1967, Andy moved to Yorkshire TV, to be a Senior Assistant Transmission Controller, where he helped put YTV on the air.

Two slides from Yorkshire's early years

To be continued....