One Day in the Life of Television

One Day in the Life of Television
Genre Documentary
Production
Executive producer(s) Grant McKee
Producer(s) Peter Kosminsky
Editor(s) Terry Warwick
Running time 180 mins[1]
Production company(s) Yorkshire Television
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Picture format 4:3
Original airing 1 November 1989

One Day in the Life of Television is a documentary that was broadcast on ITV on 1 November 1989. Filmed by over fifty crews exactly one year earlier, it was a huge behind-the-scenes look at a wide range of activities involved in the production, reception and marketing of British television.[2] The project was organised by the British Film Institute and produced and directed for television by Peter Kosminsky.

The documentary opens with TV-am's industrial conflict, with picketers outside of the studio at Camden Lock. The documentary also looks at Breakfast Time, Lucky Ladders and EastEnders. Reactions to the latter's representation of a prison storyline were garnered from inmates in HMP Dartmoor.[2]

The documentary also showed the marketing of cable television, and the availability of pornography through satellite television during the early evening.

A book by Sean Day-Lewis was published to accompany the documentary. It contained the thoughts of people throughout Britain, including industry professionals, who recorded their feelings and experiences of television viewing on 1 November 1988, the day that the documentary was filmed.[3][4]

References

  1. "One Day in the Life of Television". BFI Film & TV Database. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Jane Harbor & Jeff Wright (1992). 40 Years of British Television. London: Boxtree. p. 111. ISBN 1-85283-409-9.
  3. Sean Day-Lewis (1989). One Day in the Life of Television. London: Grafton. ISBN 0-246-13497-6. (Paperback)
  4. Sean Day-Lewis (1989). One Day in the Life of Television. London: Grafton. ISBN 0-246-13424-0. (Hardcover)

External links