On This Day, 1950: Television crosses the Channel
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Laying of the television camera cable across the railway track at Calais Maritime.
"Tonight brings another exciting moment in the history of the BBC Television Service", announces the listing on the Radio Times, August 27, 1950. "Exactly a hundred years after the first message was sent by submarine telegraph cable between England and France, the first television pictures are transmitted across the sea from one nation to another."
On that day, the first outside broadcast from the continent was made in a one hour special called Television Crosses the Channel, presented by Richard Dimbleby.
Richard Dimbleby.
The audience were able to watch live images from the Hotel de Ville in Calais, and a long programme of civic celebration and entertainment.
An article on the Radio Times warned: "On Sunday, August 27, the pictures might not be as good as we would like. They might cease. But if they do come, then think as you watch the French faces, as you hear the French voices, of what there is in this moment. In the floodlit square will be television, the new wonder. In the shadows beyond will be stirring the excitement that men felt one hundred years ago when a message passed along a rubber-covered cable laid slowly and painfully on the bed of the sea, the thoughts of the Guards fighting their way back to England, the history of centuries. Even if the hour planned becomes only the glimpse of a moment, it will still be a great moment."
And 65 years later, you can still watch a clip about how the transmission was achieved. Just go to the BBC Genome listing and click on the link to watch it on the BBC iPlayer - this is just one of the more than 8,500 radio and television programmes that you can now find while browsing through our listings.
