Transatlantic Teleview

Dates

1954 - 1958

Category

Cinemagazine - Government

History

Transatlantic Teleview was the brainchild of Charles Dand, Director of the Films Division of British Information Services in New York in 1954. In a memo to the Foreign Office he outlined the need and format of magazine film series for television that would introduce British political figures to an American audience through a series of studio interviews. By December 1954 the first issue of Transatlantic Teleview, an interview with the Secretary of State for the Colonies Mr Lennox Boyd, was on its way to New York. Most of these interviews were conducted by Robert McKenzie, then Foreign Editor of Picture Post, who explored a wide variety of topics from labour relations with Vic Feather of the Trades Union Congress, issue no. 4 (1955) to the future of Jamaica with Norman Manley, issue no. 10 (1955). An issue was produced roughly each month, usually by World Wide Pictures and usually lasted around fourteen minutes. The format was successful enough to continue for three years and persuade the Commonwealth Relations Office to produce their own version, Commonwealth Teleview for Canada and Australia.

Provenance

The data for this series has been compiled from the following sources: The COI catalogue cards and viewing copies at BFI Archive Footage Sales, COI catalogues at the BFI National Archive, the production files (INF 6) and the COI monthly divisional reports of the COI (INF 8) at The National Archives and the BFI National Archive database.

Films in this series can be obtained from:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries: nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk For commercial/footage reuse enquiries: footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

View all series held by British Film Institute (BFI)