Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Rediffusion

I can't remember much about Rediffusion.
1 How much did it cost and was there also a TV licence 1950/60s?
2 The switch to turn on and off and get channels,
was it for radio and tv channels or was there a radio only one
3 What radio stations and tv stations could you get
4 Could you get tv signals by aerial then?

I was only young but had the impression as a child that it was piped in? All I know was that Grandad used to bang the top of the TV when the signal got lost, which seemed to be quite frequent.

Quite right, Pax.
Here's all you need to know about Rediffusion
http://www.rediffusion.info/
And about licence fee.
http://www.radiolicence.org.uk/costlicence.html

Thanks Chris for the two links. I found the info on the sites very interesting

We had a Rediffusion radio set in the 1950s (TVs were still out of most people's league).The radio was a plain brown bakelite box, with a clunky switch screwed on to the wall next to it.

The switch gave you a choice of about six stations - I can't remember which, but they were probably the BBC Light Programme, the Home Service, etc. You could possibly also get Radio Luxembourg.

Rediffusion was an early form of cable. It gave interference-free reception, but obviously limited your choice of stations. Once you subscribed, they hooked you up, just as the modern cable services do now. The Rediffusion base in Birkenhead was at Elm Street, just off Hemingford Street near Thompson's Mission.

Redi what

What happened to this alien form of television signal?

My dad still had the old Rediffusion box on his windowsill in his living room up until about 3yrs ago when he got new windows put in, and he said he was able to pick up some radio stations on it prior to its removal

we had the same,we had no leccy,we could see the mast from our house in marion street.workers playtime,down your way,top of the form,billy cotton,wakey wakey,the archers,countless hours of great listening,the huggets.

We had one of the giant brown radio sets till well into the 1980s (!!!) - we could get Radio 4, Radio 2 and Radio Merseyside. It came via Radio Rentals in Liscard precinct, and I remember the switch on the wall too. Good reception most of the time, just the odd taxi coming through and occasional breaks in transmission.

A lot of houses still have the wire fixed to the brickwork but it goes nowhere.

It's all been said but I remember it well. The switch on the wall or where ever had the letters A to F, each letter corresponding to a station. Surprised the Radio Ventriloquist, Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews weren't mentioned. When TV came out then that was his doom because his lips moved something rotten. Luxemburg you could get, and the rest was the BBC Home Service, Light Service and Third Service from what I can remember. BBC and ITV when that came out. Brilliant technology at the time and they called it cable when it came out later. It was better than the old wet battery radio (accumulators the batteries were called and you had to change them when they ran out of power). Funny old days.
I think Rediffusion was the original ITV North, or Granada or whatever.

I remember them well. Whoever sold the BBC the idea of a ventriloquist on radio was a genius.

Wasn't it called the "Light / Third Programme"?

I remember receiving satellite TV via our old Rediffusion box in the 1980s and early 1990s. After Rediffusion went out of business the yard in Elm Street was taken over by another company who used to distribute four satellite channels via the cable network. I remember getting Sky Channel (which showed a mix of old US programmes, kids' cartoons and Europop programmes), Music Box (a sort of early version of MTV), Screensport (mainly showing US football, baseball, golf and motor-racing), and a movie channel whose name escapes me (could have been Prime Movies?). At some point we also got Lifestyle as well, which showed lots of old black & white US TV shows, many of which had never been shown in this country before. This was in the days when receiving satellite TV meant getting a humungous (and expensive) motorised dish erected in your back garden, which required planning permission, so the cable option was somewhat cheaper even if it only was four channels.

After Rupert Murdoch opened up his new Sky service on the Astra satellite and BSB started up in competition with their 'squariel', the cable company went over to showing BSB channels, so we got Galaxy, Power Station, the Movie Channel and the Sports Channel instead of the ones we'd previously had. Until BSB was taken over by Sky that is! When we moved house in the mid-90s the Rediffusion switch was still there, but by that time we'd invested in an Astra dish, so I don't know if it provided any services.

Yes.