Britain: An official handbook > 1966

SOUND AND TELEVISION BROADCASTING
485
under the Television Act 1964, for television broadcasting services ‘as a
public service for disseminating information, education and entertainment’.
The ITA owns and operates the transmitting stations, but the production
studios and equipment are owned, and the actual programmes are provided,
by programme companies under contract to the ITA. Fourteen programme
companies are under contract for the period July 1964 to July 1967:
Rediffusion Limited; Associated Television Limited; ABC Television
Limited; Granada TV Network Limited; Scottish Television Limited;
Independent Television for South Wales and the West of England Limited
(TWW); Southern Television Limited; Tyne-Tees Television Limited;
Anglia Television Limited; Ulster Television Limited; Westward Television
Limited; Border Television Limited; Grampian Television Limited; and
Channel Television Limited. A common news service is provided by
Independent Television News Limited.
The Authority has controlling and regulatory powers of a wide and
important character in regard to programmes: for example the Television
Act requires it to ensure that they do not offend against good taste or decency,
that they are balanced in their subject matter, that they preserve due impar¬
tiality in presenting matters of industrial or political controversy, and that
the news is reported accurately; it also provides for the submission by the
programme contractors of programme schedules for the approval of the
Authority; and lays on it the duty to produce and keep under review a code
of programme standards governing the rules to be observed about the showing
of violence, particularly when large numbers of children and young people
may be expected to be watching. In the choice of programme companies the
ITA is guided by their potential ability to provide an efficient service and,
in the case of regional companies, by their associations with the local
communities concerned.
The chief executive officer of the ITA is the Director-General. There are
also two Deputy Directors-General, and a headquarters and regional office
staff covering all technical, administrative, clerical, typing and office services,
which numbered 630 in 1965. Engineering staff serving at the transmitting
stations number 231.
In the discharge of its duties the ITA is advised by a General Advisory
Council, three statutory committees and a statutory panel: the Advertising
Advisory Committee; the Educational Advisory Committee; the Central
Religious Advisory Committee to the BBC, which by arrangement also advises
the ITA; and the Medical Advisory Panel. Programme schedules are discussed
by the Programmes Policy Committee. The ITA also has a panel of six
consultants to assist it in the exercise of its day-to-day responsibilities for
religious services and programmes. A standing consultative committee,
composed of two representatives of the ITA and a representative of each of
the programme companies, provides consultative machinery between the
ITA and the companies on matters, other than programmes, affecting the
companies as a whole. There is also an Independent Television Companies
Association, designed to further the collective interests of the companies
with such outside bodies as trade unions and sporting organisations, and
generally to ensure that they speak as far as possible with one voice on public
issues connected with television broadcasting policy.
The ITA receives no payments from licence revenue; its finance is drawn
from annual rental payments made to it by the programme companies. In the
year which ended on 31st March, 1964, these payments amounted to about
£5-6 million, while the running costs of the ITA were ^4-3 million.