Television Advertising Celebrates 49th Birthday

The UK’s first television advertisement was broadcast on this day in 1955 following the launch of Britain’s first commercially funded television station.

The Independent Television Authority began broadcasting on 22 September forty-nine years ago in a move that ended the long-running monopoly of the BBC and brought advertisements to the airwaves for the first time.

The station began its broadcasts with live coverage of a ceremony at the Guildhall marking the start of Britain’s first-ever independent television station. Speakers included the Postmaster General, Charles Hill, who voiced his concerns over television advertising.

He said: “We shall not be bothered by a violinist stopping in the middle of his solo to advise us of his favourite brand of cigarettes. Nor indeed will Hamlet interrupt his soliloquy to tell us of the favourite brand of toothpaste ordinarily used at Elsinore.”

The first advertisement came just over an hour into the schedule. Viewers were faced with a tube of Gibbs SR toothpaste in a block of ice, with a voiceover claiming it to be a ‘tingling fresh toothpaste’ for teeth and gums. There were another 23 advertisements during the evening, promoting products from Cadbury’s chocolate to Esso petrol.

Things have come along way since then and television advertising now generates more than £1 billion a year for the UK’s commercial broadcasters. ITV makes more than £100 million in ad revenue, compared with around £45 million for Channel 4 and almost £20 million for Five (based on agency estimates for August 2004).

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