Our World

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Our World was the first live, international, satellite television production, which was broadcast on 25 June 1967. Performers, including opera singer Maria Callas and artist Pablo Picasso, from nineteen nations were invited to perform in separate segments featuring their respective countries, and the two-and-half-hour event had the largest television audience ever up to that date: an estimated 400 million people around the globe watched the broadcast.[1]

Today, it is most famous for the segment starring The Beatles. Performing at the height of the Vietnam War, the group wanted to spread a message of peace and love to the world. They gave a live performance, transmitted at 8:54 p.m. GMT, performing a new song written by John Lennon, "All You Need Is Love", composed especially for the occasion. The Beatles invited many of their friends to the event to create a festive atmosphere and to join in on the song's chorus. Among the friends were members of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon and Graham Nash. The performance required only a single rehearsal.[2] [3] [4]

[edit] Planning

The project was conceived by BBC producer Aubrey Singer. It was transferred to the European Broadcasting Union, but the master control room for the broadcast was still at the BBC in London. The satellites used were Intelsat I, Intelsat II and ATS-1.[5]

It took ten months to bring everything together. One hitch was the sudden pull-out of the Eastern bloc countries headed by the Soviet Union in the week leading up to the broadcast. Apparently it was a protest to the Western nations' response to the Six Day War.[6]

The ground rules included that no politicians or heads of state could participate in the broadcast. As well, everything had to be 'live', so no use of videotape or film was permitted. 10,000 technicians, producers, and translators took part in this massive broadcast. Each country would have its own announcers, due to language issues, and translators would voice-over the original sound when not in a country's native language. In the end 14 countries participated in the production that was transmitted to 31 countries with an estimated audience of 400 million people.[6]

[edit] The broadcast

The opening credits were accompanied by the Our World theme sung in 22 different languages by the Vienna Boys Choir.[7] [8]

Canada's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had Marshall McLuhan being interviewed in a Toronto T.V. control room. At 7:17 p.m. GMT, the show switched to the United States' segment about the Glassboro, New Jersey, conference between American president Lyndon Johnson and Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin. Since Our World insisted that no politicians be shown, only the house where the conference was being held was televised. The National Educational Television's (NET) Dick McCutcheon ended up talking about the impact of the new television technology on a global scale.[6]

The show switched back to Canada at 7:18 p.m. GMT. Segments that were beamed worldwide were from a Ghost Lake, Alberta ranch, showing a rancher, and his cutting horse, cutting out a herd of cattle. The last Canadian segment was from Kitsilano Beach, located in Vancouver, British Columbia's Point Grey district at 7:19 p.m. GMT.[6]

At 7:20 p.m. GMT, the program shifted continents to Asia, with Tokyo, Japan being the next segment. It was 4:20 a.m. local time and NHK showed the construction of the Tokyo Subway system.[6]

The equator was crossed for the first time in the program when it switched to the Australian contribution, which was at 5:22 a.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT). This was the most technically complicated point in the broadcast, as both the Japanese and Australian satellite ground stations had to reverse their actions: Tokyo had to go from transmit mode to receive mode, while Melbourne had to switch from receive to transmit mode. The segment dealt with Trams leaving the Hammer Street Depot in Melbourne with Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Brian King explaining that sunrise was many hours away as it was winter there.[6] A scientific segment, later on in the broadcast, was also included that dealt with the Parkes Observatory tracking a deep space object.[9]

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ Harrington, Richard. "His Musical Notes Have Become TV Landmarks", Washington Post, 2002-11-24, pp. Y06. Retrieved on 2007-06-04. 
  2. ^ Sheppard, John (1987-06-03), It was 20 Years Ago Today, <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093285/>. Retrieved on 4 June 2007  Granada TV documentary shows the Beatles' Our World broadcast segment.
  3. ^ Hastings, Chris (2007-07-23), Beatles never told of protests at satellite show, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/22/nbeatles122.xml>. Retrieved on 28 November 2007 
  4. ^ Although the entire program was originally transmitted in black and white (and thus the videotape recording was also in black and white), for its usage in the 1995 TV special The Beatles Anthology, the majority of the Beatles' performance on the 1967 program was colourised - using colour photographs taken at the event as a reference.
  5. ^ "The Whole World's Watching" (1996). Air and Space Magazine. Smithsonian Institution. 
  6. ^ a b c d e f Burke, Stanley. "Our World - A Sunday in 1967", CBC Archives, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1967-06-25. Retrieved on 2007-06-04. (English) 
  7. ^ Flowers, Brian; European Broadcasting Union. "The Technical History of Eurovision", European Broadcasting Union, 2007-07-04. Retrieved on 2007-11-28. (English) 
  8. ^ "Our World: first ever live international TV production", EBU Viewpoint, European Broadcasting Union, 2007-07-04. Retrieved on 2007-11-28. (English) 
  9. ^ Rowsthorn, Peter; Peter Rowsthorn. "Moment in Time Episode 12: First Satellite Broadcast", Can We Help, Australian Broadcasting Company, 2007-05-04. Retrieved on 2007-06-04. (English) 
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