TV Commercials: whose archive?Steve BryantBFI National Archive

ITV Starts 22nd September 1955

• A federation of regional broadcasters

• Funded only by advertising sales, following the American model, but with no sponsorship and restrictions on presentation

• Associated-Rediffusion, broadcasting to London on weekdays, is first on air

• The first commercial, for Gibbs toothpaste, is seen at 7.12pm

ITV’s first night commercials

• Gibbs SR toothpaste

• Cadbury’s Find the Link

• Kraft cheese slices – Smiling Sandwiches

• Surf washing powder – Meet Mrs Bradshaw (version 1)

• Surf washing powder – Meet Mrs Bradshaw (version 2)

• Guinness sealion

Where are commercials kept?

• Broadcasters?

• National archives/museums?

• Regulators/broadcasting associations?

• Advertising agencies?

• Advertising associations?

• Brand owners?

Raymond Williams

Williams on advertising

“The insertion of advertisements has had extraordinary

effects on television as a sequential experience and has

created quite new visual rhythms. Indeed, it is possible

to see television of this kind as a sequence in which the

advertisements are integral rather than as a programme

interrupted by advertisements”

Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974)

Commercials as indicators of social change

The work of major directors

Coca-Cola

Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015)

But………….