Cinema Trailers and Television Fillers  
 
The COI Film Division productions that, over time, have become most widely known to the public, were the Television Fillers or, in the parlance of government departments, “Short Public Service Information Films”.   
 
Characters such as Green Cross Code Man, Charley, Joe and Petunia all became well known figures to the adult public and well known to children through television exposure.  The dangers of crossing the road, driving badly, getting caught in a storm at sea, being robbed, became well known hazards. All this through several hundred short films looking uncommonly like television advertisements but transmitted by commercial television stations free of charge with some additional screenings by the BBC. 
 
The origin of the “Short Public Service Information Film” (hereafter either “cinema trailer” or  “television filler) was in the 1930s. The Cinema Trailer became very important in the 1939-1945 years of WW2 as films of between 1-3 minutes shown in cinemas. They were included in that section of the evening cinema programme devoted to trailers for forthcoming films, hence the term. The messages of the war time cinema trailers were largely around aspects of living in wartime such as saving energy through taking smaller baths, looking out for health, digging for victory and many more.  
 
After the end of the war the cinema trailers continued to be produced by COI and Crown Film Unit, for example Coughs and Sneezes, You have been Warned, about dangers from unexploded bombs, Food Flashes from the Ministry of Food and trailers introducing the new National Health Service. 
 
The establishment of commercial television in 1954 with breaks in programmes for advertisements led to the suggestion by the commercial television companies of making similar short films for television, hence the term Television Fillers. 
 
The two outlets, one in cinemas and the other in television appear to have continued in parallel for a period but gradually morphed into a situation where cinema exposure was used for paid commercials while television was used both for paid commercials and the free air time accorded to Television Fillers. 
  
The concept that led to production of Television Fillers was initiated by the Independent Television Stations in 1955 when Norman Collins then Managing director of ABC Television wrote to the then Director General of COI Thomas Fife Clarke on 8 August 1955 proposing a series of short  public service information films on subjects such as road safety, prevention of accidents, public health and fire safety. He said: 
 
The programmes of this company start on exact schedule timings but there are bound to be occasions, eg outside broadcasts, when in addition to the paid advertisements there will be short periods of time to be filled in. This company would be fully ready to use the type of film I have outlined if such films were available.  (NA: INF 12/1100) 
 
The use of television fillers by the ITV network was well established by 1960.The deal between ITV and COI was that each regional station would be supplied with a “library” of around 100 television fillers by the COI. The actual decision about which filler to broadcast and when it was broadcast was to be at the discretion of the ITV station.  The rationale for this decision was to establish a clear distinction between fillers and paid time commercials where the decision about what to broadcast and when was determined by the sponsor and the media buyer.  The fillers would be used to “fill” unsold advertising time or when programmes under ran their scheduled airtime.  
 
As might be expected a number of rules governing the nature of the television fillers and their usage were gradually evolved. They are well set out in a note by COI to Treasury (Fleming to Slater: 29 June 1973: NA INF 12/1100) as follows: 
 
 
 2. The policy of ITV on the free transmission of public service fillers is: 
 
  1. Television fillers on subjects in the health, safety and welfare categories are accepted. These have to be approved at the script stage and in finished form by the Independent Television Companies Association and by IBA itself.  
  1. If a subject in the approved categories is also being publicised by COI in paid advertising time, that is, as a commercial, transmissions of the free-time filler are suspended for the duration of the paid campaign and resumed at the discretion of the companies. The resumption is never later than six months after the end of the campaign. 
  1. If a national advertising campaign is being conducted by COI in media other than television advertising, existing free-time fillers on that subject are not shown by ITV, but the transmissions may be resumed at the television companies discretion on the same basis as b. above. 
 
In practice these rules were not onerous. Relations between COI, and the ITV companies were very amicable. A similar arrangement was made with the BBC though the BBC were insistent that the films shown by them were not simply those transmitted by the ITV companies. The consequence was that the operation with the BBC was on a smaller scale. 
 
On the face of it, the scope and transmission opportunities might not appear to have been very significant. However as part of the arrangements the stations were asked to log the use of fillers and these logs demonstrated, over time, a remarkable level of usage. Records show that  by 1969 some 25,000 transmissions by ITV stations and a further 10,00 screenings by BBC were recorded during that year. By 1975 the ITV screenings had risen to 40,00. The value of this amount of airtime was estimated at the time to be of the order of £8 million was based on ITV rate cards. (NA: INF 12/1100). 
 
This level of transmission value can be compared with the costs of production of the Television Fillers. While the overall level of expenditure on production of the television fillers varied from year to year a useful snapshot is contained in a memo of April 1976 (JNR Barran to John Hall) that gives production expenditure for:   
                        
      1972/73 at £192,100  
      1973/74 at £243,900   
      1974/75 at £138,800 
 
The expenditure level in a given year does not equate to the number of projects in progress. The expenditure tends to reflect projects completed as in 1973/74 compared with 1974/75. 
 
The actual number of fillers in progress in 1975/74 was 46. Generally production costs varied between £4,000 and £7,500 but some fillers could be a good deal less.  
 
Film Division were also, over time and informally, able to influence the apparent random nature of transmissions. In order to maintain links with the 15 regional stations and make sure that the “libraries” were in good order, Film Division provided a member of the distribution staff, - for many years Ron Salmon - who travelled regularly around the stations.  In this way good and friendly relations were built up.  The same person also maintained contact with the sponsoring departments. In this way, if a department wanted a particular subject promoted around a given time period, discreet calls to the ITV stations could ensure that television fillers germane to the subject would be transmitted not withstanding the formal rules. 
 
The extent of the use of television fillers and the ability to influence transmissions of particular fillers meant that they were particularly useful to departments who did not have the financial resources to mount paid advertising campaigns. 
 
While smaller in number the BBC also maintained a library and used television fillers albeit on a smaller scale. In 1973 it was noted that the BBC logged about 650 transmissions annually. As a comparison with ITV the figures are somewhat misleading since BBC transmissions were national whereas ITV were regional. So a more accurate comparison required multiplying the BBC figure by 15 giving a total of just under 10,000. As many transmissions were in the afternoons they were particularly useful in terms of reaching audiences of housewives, mothers and young children with relevant subjects. 
 
One particular area of difficulty with the BBC was its reluctance to show fillers that were also appearing on ITV. COI made some adaptations of ITV fillers but the overall situation was not totally satisfactory despite many discussions. ​