London Television Service (LTS) News Features:  
 
The LTS News Features were items of variable length intended for inclusion in local news or current affairs programming. The title had come into being in 1969/70 following the review of the Overseas Television Service with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.  
 
The material was a continuation of the Television News Items Service that started in 1958. It did not provide complete programs but short, 1-2 minute, these items designed to be included in news programs produced by local television stations.  Distributed on 16mm film, the items were accompanied by a suggested script to be read by a local news presenter. Where the item included interview material a transcript was included in the script for local translation.  
 
A music and effects soundtrack was also included for incorporation into local news programs. Since television stations were used to being supplied by material in this form from commercial television news agencies, the material was judged on the basis of its perceived interest to a local audience rather than as something coming from a foreign government.    The fact of distribution by 16mm film that entailed sending material by air meant that the material took some 24 hours to arrive: it was not instant news. However all the news agencies faced the same time limitation that enabled the Television News Items Service to compete on roughly equal terms. Reports from FCO Posts suggested that items supplied by the service were well used.  
 
The content of the news items reflected events of the day including political events involving relations between the UK and other countries. This offered opportunities for the UK view to be included in local news programs, an opportunity frequently taken up by UK Ministers. The access to Ministers enjoyed by the service together with relatively “soft” questioning made it a good vehicle for “hard” political subjects which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were keen to get across. The existence of these services were much valued by a number of other UK government departments who had an interest in overseas publicity. 
 
This service was to continue and expand to become London Television Service News Features sometimes producing items longer than traditional 1.5- 2 minute items as for the USA (see below).  It was a prime source of items that were “hard information” including interviews with Ministers that required fast turn round and dispatch, it was a very demanding area requiring constant close control. It also required close cooperation with COI Radio Services who provided a frequent service of items packaged as Radio News Service that were transmitted by line to local overseas radio networks. Initially Radio Services were part of Films Division but were hived off to become a separate Division and became a prime source of hard news stories. These items, both for television and radio, were highly regarded by the Overseas Information Service for this reason. 
 
The main customers for the LTS News Feature Service were the USA through BIS New York, the High Commission in Canada, Australia and New Zealand together with a range of other other Posts where appropriate.  
 
The LTS Television News Feature service for BIS New York consisted of some 30-35 short items each year. Each item was of the order of 5 minutes. BIS New York marketed the items to specific stations, for instance a number of items on agricultural themes were placed with a network of agricultural programs in the Mid-West thus achieving a substantial audience. 
 
As with other series the records for LTS News Features are  incomplete, recording  only a few items in each year. In 1974 and 1975 there are three clues to the total output of these items. The first "Northern Ireland A chance for Peace" is listed as issue number 3055, Diving a Dangerous Job is number 3165, the third Christmas in Belfast is number 3537. It is possible that the numbering included the earlier Television News Items that might explain the figures suggesting over 3000 news features had been produced. There are few existing records of TelevisionNews Features for 1980 onwards. 
 
The LTS News Television Features that were sent to the television stations consisted of the film or later videotape that had a soundtrack consisting of music and sound effects together with a suggested script. The format enabled the television station to use its own staff to narrate the story this was attractive in terms of easily incorporating the item into local programs. 
 
An indication of the content range of Television News Features are set out below: 
 
Aircraft Noise (1971): a story about ways in which Britain was seeking to reduce levels of noise from aircraft around airports. 
 
New Piccadilly Circus (1972) :  was about plans to improve this iconic place in the centre of London that was a must see for tourists. 
 
 Concorde Parade (1972): an item showing several Concorde arcraft ​

Ugandan Asian Refugees at London Airport (click here to view from BFI)
 
Milton Keynes A Village City (1973): was about the way this new town was laid out. (click here to view from BFI)
 
Silent Rider (1974) was about new electric powered buses that were being introduced in the UK 
 
Blood a Priceless Gift (1974) was about the organization of the National Blood Transfusion Service. 
 
Christmas in Belfast 3537 (1977) reflected on the situation at the time of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland 
 
Elections Fair and Free (1980) was about the outcome of the first General Election in Zimbabwe 
 
North Sea Offshore Production (1980) was a story about progress and production levels in the North Seas oil fields. 
 
Harrier Demonstration (1980) which is just that, a demonstration of the unique abilities of this fighter/bomber to take off and land vertically. 
 
Computer Farming (1980) about the uses which computers could be put to on the farm. This is an example of the items that BIS New York were placing through Mid West USA farming networks. 
 
Britain’s Mosques (1980) reflected the growing Muslim population in the UK nearing 1.5 million and mosques that were being built to serve the growing Islamic communities. This item would have distributed to the Middle East and south East Asia. 
 
A Royal Romance (1981) was about the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. 
 
 
While the subjects of most of the newsfeatures were created at the request of the Foreign Office, specific requests, sometimes for longer films, from Posts were also catered for to meet local needs. An account of one such request and the issues surrounding its production follow. It is written by Ian Morrison who joined COI in 1965 first as a producer then as a reporter/presenter on London Line. By 1974 Ian had become a freelance writer reporter and sometimes director for different parts of the Overseas Television Services.  He had the habit of keeping contemporary notes of his involvement in each production that enabled him to produce this vivid account some 45 years later. 
 
 Ian Morrison writes: 
 
At some point towards the end of 1974, I got a phone call from Helen Standage who was then in charge of London Television News Features operation. 
 
It was an odd story.  The owner of a television station in San Francisco, who was originally Irish, had attended some event in Boston.  This had turned out, in effect, to be an IRA fundraiser, though the station owner didn’t really understand it at the time.  He had, however, bought into the idea that what was going on in Northern Ireland was the 1916 uprising all over again and that it was the duty of Irishmen everywhere to rally to the cause.  What he hadn’t worked out was that Noraid, the IRA’s fundraising arm in America, wasn’t a charity designed to help the Irish victims of British persecution, but an arms purchasing organisation that smuggled weaponry and explosives into Ireland and then took them across the notoriously porous border with the North.   
 
In a welter of sentimental enthusiasm for the old country, he had agreed to screen a film made by the Provisional IRA entitled ‘A Place Called Ardoyne’ which is a working class and mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist district in north Belfast.  
 
He duly gave the film to his Head of News with instructions to screen it as soon as possible. Some days later, his Head of News went to see him and said that the film should not be screened by the station because it was not a news story, it was propaganda.  While he was no expert on Northern Ireland, he believed that he could recognize propaganda when he saw it. The station owner was understandably pretty upset but the Head of News held his ground. 
 
In the end, there was a compromise.  It was agreed that the IRA movie would be shown so long as there was a matching film from the British government. At which point the fun started. 
 
“You see,” said Helen, “there wasn’t anything. The Foreign Office has shied away from doing anything at all on such a controversial subject. So when this cropped up, they were their usual selves that meant they phoned me to tell me to do something.  Fast.  The reason I phoned you was because I thought you were the one person we worked with who would have the first idea how to tackle this.” 
 
I thought about it for a while. Then said to Helen that I did not want to do it for two reasons.  Northern Ireland was a dangerous place and this was no ordinary story.  I would therefore want double my normal fee, because the risk to me was considerable. While I have no problem with showcasing British industry and inventiveness and I’m happy to put this country’s genuine intellectual strengths and creative energies in front of the rest of the world. I drew the line at British government political propaganda.  Because that’s what the FCO will want.  What I would want to do is to tell the story the way I see it.  It would be a normal film as far as I’d be concerned.  Under these circumstances, the only way I’d do this is if I have creative control.  And that means script control as part of it.  You’re not about to give me that.  You wouldn’t be allowed to.  We both know that.   
 
The following morning, Helen phoned. 
 
They’re not happy on the seventh floor (Director General’s Office), but they’ve agreed. You’ve got creative control.  The only thing they ask is that they see it before it goes out and that you’ll listen to any comments they have.  You won’t have any obligation to change anything if you don’t want to.  
 
Fair enough,” I said.  “Okay, I agree.  I’ll listen to anything that’s stands a chance of making it better.  So long as they’ve taken on board that it’s just going to be a straight documentary report. 
 
Which is how, the following day, I came to be on a plane to Belfast.  I had five days to put together a script for an eighteen minute film, four days to shoot it, two days to get back to London, get the rushes processed and in sync ready for the editor, and a day and a half to cut it ready for screenings in the final afternoon.  No pressure, then. 
 
A number of incidents stick in the mind.  One of the triggers for what came to be known as the ‘Troubles‘ was housing.  In Northern Ireland the houses that were publicly owned were controlled by the Protestant majority. They looked after their own. Catholics didn’t get much of a look-in.  It was only after Northern Ireland moved into the civil war phase that there was some change.  I wanted to film on one of the estates that reflected what had happened in the past and what changes were beginning to happen.   
 
To get permission to film meant going through the Housing Executive.  Eventually, I met up with a man of called Charlie who told me that we would have to get agreement from “some people”.  This would mean meeting them in a pub.  So far, so good.  I turned up, as did the man from the Housing Executive.  I thought he seemed a bit nervous, but I bought him a drink and hoped he was all right.  Then a couple of heavies in suits walked in.  They headed straight for us and were introduced as –Pat and Mike.  Since it took me all of fifteen seconds to spot the bulges under their left armpits, I concluded I’d been blessed with a visit from the IRA. They proceeded to ask me a heap of questions designed to establish who I was and what I wanted.  I told them I’d been hired to make a film for showing by a television station in San Francisco to supplement the film they were going to show entitled ‘A Place Called Ardoyne’ with some more recent footage.   
 
At this point Charlie from the Housing Executive went white. 
 
To be fair to Charlie, I hadn’t told him any of this because it had never occurred to me that it would come up.  After all, he hadn’t told me that I had to pass muster with the IRA.  But then, all he knew was that I’d been handed over to him by the government’s press office, which could mean anything.  As he told me later, if I hadn’t passed muster, the heavies were under orders to take us both before the fearsome head of the Belfast Brigade, Martin McGuiness, who was later Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister for ten years. 
 
Anyway with that, they both got to their feet and one of them clapped me on the shoulder. “Let Charlie here know what time and place.  It’ll be okay.” Which it was. 
 
What proved much more difficult was getting people to say on camera what they were prepared to say to me privately.  Given that America still thought it was 1916 when it came to Ireland, I was all too aware that for the most part people in the USA were completely unaware of the reality of life in Belfast between the two factions of the IRA and what each side stood for.  I believed that was a gap in America’s knowledge that needed to be filled.  In the end, the only way of doing it was for me to say it to camera.  I did it on an island in the middle of the Falls Road, one of the main streets in the Catholic part of the Belfast tribal map.  Since, at that time, the moment you put down a tripod anywhere in Belfast, you could guarantee a crowd gathering, I briefed the crew how we were going to do it.  All the gear except the essentials for shooting was to be loaded into the crew van, whose engine was to be left running.  I would do the piece to camera in one take with no rehearsals and the moment I said “cut” we would walk quickly away – no running – and get out.  My piece to camera went something like this: 
 
“Since we started filming in Northern Ireland, a number of people have told us things in private that they weren’t prepared to say in public.  I can do no better than quote one man who told me that the rest of the world hadn’t yet taken on board that, after a split, the two IRA organisations represented quite different views.  The Official IRA, he said, was a Marxist organisation which, under the cloak of Irish nationalism, was obsessed with creating the next socialist nirvana.  The Provisional IRA, he said, was essentially fascist. The Provisionals not only ran most of the crime in the Catholic parts of Belfast and the rest of the country to raise funds, they were ruthless in their enforcement of their authority.  The Prods, or protestants, are way behind at the moment, he added, but it’s only a matter of time before people like the UVF get organised and start doing the same kind of thing. “ 
 
I delivered this piece and we left.   
 
Back in London, once the film had been developed, the sound transferred and the syncing of the rushes was complete, the editor, Mike Wilcox and I had thirty six hours to cut an eighteen minute film and have it ready for the screenings.  You’d normally have had a lot more for such a task.  We did it and I can’t remember ever feeling quite so exhausted.  At one viewing, Helen’s boss, Arthur White, suggested changing one word, on the grounds that the way it was written was open to misinterpretation.  He was quite right and I duly changed the word.   
 
The last screening was the really interesting one, because it was for the Foreign Office.  They sent two people, one I had met before.  The other man was older and one look at his face told me he was potential trouble.  When the screening finished, this older man exploded. 
 
“We can’t show that,” he said.  “It’s critical of the Army and it’s critical of the government.  That film goes out over my dead body.  It’s an outrageous condemnation of government policy.”  He turned to me.  “Are you the person who demanded control over this film and got it? 
 
“Yes, I am.” 
 
"You should be ashamed of yourself,” he said,. “you’re a disgrace.  Why on earth have you said some of those highly critical things in your script?” 
 
“It’s called journalism,” I replied.  “It’s a reflection of what people are saying and thinking………”“Journalism of the gutter,” he said “and it’s out of the question that………” 
 
At which point, Peter held his hand up, “Stop right there, David,” he said firmly. 
 
It had never occurred to me until that moment that the younger man, Peter, was the more senior, but it soon became clear that he was.  He turned to me with a half-smile on his face.   
 
“Don’t change a frame or a single word, Ian.  Well done.  It’s perfect.  I know what pressure you’ve been under.  That’s one terrific job you’ve pulled off.  Thank you.” 
 
“Peter, what are you talking about?  Why are you saying this?” said the older man 
 
“Because it’s true.  The IRA have a propaganda film.  You’re saying you want us to be the same as them, which means we’re asking people to judge whether our propaganda is better than their propaganda.  What this film does is to move the whole thing on to a quite different level.  This film has balance.  It’s objective.  Theirs isn’t.  Yes, it’s critical of us in places, but then, we didn’t see this one coming and that’s been shown in the way we’ve handled it.  Besides, it’s critical of everybody – nobody comes out of it outstandingly well.  Which means, above all, it’s fair.  That’s its strength.” 
 
I liked Helen a lot.  She was an extraordinary woman.  She was about 4’11” in height and always wore four to five inch heels to give herself added stature.  She had a voice like a sergeant-major and if you planned on crossing her, you needed to be very sure of your facts before you did.  She’d been a producer on the London Weekend Television arts program called Aquarius and she’d taken the COI job because she had an enormous tax bill that she couldn’t pay.  The Inland Revenue had told her to stop being freelance and get herself some permanent employment if she didn’t want them to get seriously nasty.  Which is why she finished up at Hercules Road.  She was always a touch coy about her early life, but I knew at least some of it had been in the theatre.  Once she moved to television, she felt that was her metier and there she stayed until the taxman got her.  ​

This remarkable account of making an item for the LTS Television News Feature operation is perhaps not typical but taken with variety of subject and the numbers of items produced as indicated earlier whether they were well over 3000 or some other figure starting from a different base, the output was a very important part of the Overseas Television Service.

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