Podcast

Associated Rediffusion

Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion, was the British ITV franchise holder for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 22 September 1955 and 29 July 1968. It was the first ITA franchisee to go on air.

Most of the images on this page are from the Dick Branch collection in the Transdiffusion archives and are used with permission.

When Rediffusion originally launched, as Associated Rediffusion, presentation consisted of a simple animated ident, featuring the station name, and a spinning star called the Adastral. This first ident was accompanied by a five note electronic fanfare, achieved by tapping out the morse code for ‘A-R’. To accompany the ident, a timepiece was created based on a heraldic coat of arms and nicknamed ‘Mitch’ after Head of Presentation Leslie Mitchell.
In 1964, Associated Rediffusion rebranded itself as Rediffusion London, using a black and grey ident featuring the same as previous, but with the new name now in a stripe and in a sans serif font. A new and simpler clock was designed featuring a 24-hour display at the bottom of the face and an adastral at the centre. The original timepiece ‘Mitch’ was given to the Science Museum, where it became the first ITV exhibit, and now resides in the National Media Museum, Bradford.
Christmas Ident
A selection of now and next captions used by Rediffusion.
Production Endboards