CMCR9 - Programme History

CMCR9 was built in 1969, and on the 13th October began acceptance testing procedures at the Pye works in Royston, followed by more testing at Kendal Avenue, the BBC OB base in London. New scanners were routinely taken to Brookmans Park transmitter site and checked to ensure that RF interference was not going to affect performance. This was done on the 6th January 1970, followed by an operational trial at Teddington. A non transmitted full OB was carried out at Fulham on the 19th January, probably a dummy run of a football match.

The first actual OB was believed to be a Match of the Day from Tottenham Hotspurs ground. During February 1970, six programmes were made- mainly sports OBs from Twickenham, Swindon and racing from Ascot. On the 24th February a programme was made from Swansea 'Top Rank' at Kingsway- possibly this was 'Come Dancing'.

On 6th March 1970 CMCR9 (then Lo5) did an OB from the Lyceum Ballroom, London. The photograph shown above was taken inside the vision control room by a professional photographer working for Pye, and shows what might be a band on stage. There is a caption visible which says 'Star United Kingdom Nine Dance Championship'. 

A search of the Radio times archive reveals it was a live broadcast at 10.00 pm.

Presenter:Peter West

Music:The Ray McVay Band

Commentary:Keith Fordyce, Peggy Spencer

Television Presentation:Douglas Hespe

(Photo: The National Media Museum archives.)

Further OBs in 1970:

11.3.70- St Stephen Wallbrook Church London

18.3.70- Lyceum Ballroom 

23.3.70 The Boat Race

29.3.70 Twickenham

1.4.70 Lyceum Ballroom

9.4.70 Ascot (Racing)

15.4.70 Loughborough Uni. (Swimming)

23.4.70 Edinburgh Commonwealth Pool

27.4.70 Inverness

5.5.70 Crystal Palace

14.5.70 Sportsnight- Sir Alf Ramsey

17.5.70 Garrick Theatre

21.5.70 Racing from Haydock Park

26.5.70 Man Alive

29.5.70 Royal Albert Hall- World Professional Dancing

1.6.70 Chelsea

5.6.70 Rallycross from Lydden Hill

15.6.70 Royal Ascot

23.6.70 Gardeners World Hyde Hall Chelmsford

30.6.70 Royal Opera House

6.7.70 Open Golf-St Andrews

15.7.70 Edinburggh Commonwealth Games

5.8.70 Leicester-World Cycling Championships

20.8.70 Bradford Rugby League

28.8.70 Anglesey Climb

7.9.70 Brighton 

24.9.70 Liberal Party Assembly, Eastbourne

5.10.70 Wembley- Horse of the Year Show

18.10.70 Lamda Theatre Ealing

20.10.70 Salford RFC- Floodlit Rugby league

1.11.70 Bradford RFC

4.11.70 Wembley Stadium- Sportsnight with Coleman

8.11.70 London Palladium- Royal Variety Performance

16.11.70 Royal Festival Hall- Frank Sinatra

For the weekend of August Bank Holiday 1970 CMCR9 was sent to Anglesey to cover a first in world TV history- live climbing in colour, to be covered all day on the Bank Holiday Monday with special programmes and updates between other items. The Pye PC80 cameras were the only colour cameras capable of working at cable lengths of over 3000 feet. Up to 5000 was possible using video amplifiers, so a base was established at the cliff top at South Stack.

Apparently the riggers built a camera platform on the beach at low tide, knowing where the sea level would be at high tide. They set up the cameras for testing, and contemplated leaving them in situ overnight, but decided against it. There was a stormy sea that night and in the morning one of the camera platforms had gone!

This programme also had one of the first uses of a Minicam lightweight camera which was cabled from a Land Rover. Equipment was lowered to the camera positions part way down the cliffs by a winch system using a specially constructed bullet shaped container. It was a considerable feat of engineering to accomplish. The programme was featured on the cover of the Radio Times and had a double page spread inside.

CMCR9 was exchanged with the EMI equipped CMCR6 based at Birmingham around 1971/2. (It then became  'Colour Midlands 1' - (CM1) instead of Lo5.) We don't have any accurate details of programme dates or times for this period- if any ex BM OB crew kept a diary and would like to share that information, please get in touch.

CM1 will have covered many hundreds of programmes during the main part of its service career- we know it covered cricket test matches from Edgbaston, motor racing from Silverstone, football from many grounds around the country, and 'Songs of Praise' from numerous venues- other regular programmes would have been 'Come Dancing', 'Gardeners World', 'Mastermind' and many others.

CMCR9/CM1 and the other OB vehicles were housed at the newly opened Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham which was a purpose built TV centre, in the days when the BBC was expanding. 

A promotional film was made showing the pride that Birmingham had in its magnificent broadcasting complex- alas, like most of the other regional bases, now destroyed. The film shows the OB vehicles leaving Pebble Mill, and the scanner is definitely CMCR9. The clip is available to view below- (BBC copyright). 

There is also a clip of an Open University film about politics on TV, which shows some 'behind the scenes' action at Party Conferences. There are shots (originally on film) taken inside C9's production gallery at the Labour conference in Blackpool, believed to be in 1976. The crew have been identified as all from Birmingham, so it is definitely C9 when it was CM1.

We used some clips from this in a 'Welcome to North 3' video made about 10 years ago-  the footage has been transferred many times from one medium to another, it may have originally been on VHS or Philips 1500, so the quality is not that great. We re-voiced it with our own voice-over, narrated by Jerry Clegg. 

In 1980 CMCR9 was transferred from Birmingham to Manchester, as Manchester's OB facilites were overstretched. (Birmingham was soon to get a new Type 5 scanner, as would Manchester.)

The Birmingham OB crew sprayed the inside of C9 with fake cobwebs, and as it was getting near the end of its service life, but was enjoying a revival at Manchester, some of the crew dubbed it 'The Phoenix', after the mythical bird that arose from the ashes. 

It joined CMCRs 7 & 8 (North 1 & 2) and the Manchester LMCR (Lightweight Mobile Control Room, a 3 camera unit, although far from light at about 9 tons). We have a Manchester crew member who kept his old diaries to thank for this list, and also the Electronic Fault Record (EFR) books which were still in N3 when we got it. The dates and locations were compared and added to the list. 

OBs- 1980-81

(*  = pictures/video available)

16.5.80 Rugby League, Swinton

19.5.80 Benson & Hedges Cup Cricket, Canterbury

29.5.80 'It's a Knockout', Park Hall Charnock Richard

7.6.80 'Grandstand', Racing from Haydock Park

9.6.80 Benson & Hedges Cup Cricket, Chelmsford

13.6.80 Horse Racing, Bath

18.6.80 'Hinge and Bracket' Buxton Pavilion

21.6.80 Cricket, Worcester

8.7.80 Songs of Praise, St John the Baptist, Knaresborough

12.7.80 Cricket, Old Trafford

20.7.80 Sunday Cricket, Edgbaston

29.7.80 The Westminster Debate, Brunel Rooms, Storey's Gate W1*

6.8.80 Cricket test Match, England vs West Indies, Headingly, Leeds

16.8.80 MOTD, Leicester City

18.8.80 'Superstars' Stanley Park, Blackpool

23.8.80 MOTD, Birmingham City

27.8.80 & 3.9.80 Alan Price, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

8.9.80 Labour Party Conference, Blackpool

26.9.80 MOTD Manchester United, Old Trafford

10.11.80 MOTD, Liverpool FC

3.12.80 Russell Harty Show, Harry Ramsden's, Guisely, Leeds

5.12.80 Rugby League Warrington

7.2.81 'Grandstand', Racing from Wetherby

30.3.81 Grand National, Aintree, Liverpool

6.6.81 'Grandstand' Racing from Haydock Park

16.5.81 'It's a Knockout' South Shore Pool, Blackpool

10.7.81 'It's a knockout' (?) Derby Baths, Blackpool

19.10.81 'Nationwide' Jarrow

23.10.81 MOTD Norfolk Park, Sheffield

6.11.81 MOTD Stoke

31.10.81 Rugby (?) Widnes

20.11.81 MOTD Birmingham City

19.12.81 'Rhythm on Two' Leeds

10.1.82 'The Good Old Days' City Varieties Theatre, Leeds

24.1.82 'The Good Old Days' City Varieties Theatre, Leeds

19.2.82 Darts, Port Talbot, Wales

5.3.82 Racing from Haydock Park

29.3.82 Grand National, Aintree*

6.4.82 MOTD Tottenham Hotspurs

12.6.82 Athletics, Gateshead

12.7.82- 18.7.82 British open Golf, Troon, Scotland*

We understood that the final OB was the Golf Open at Troon in 1982, but when working on the inside we found a running order sheet for a 'Grand Slam' at Painswick House in Gloucestershire. We assumed this was tennis, but no such match appeared in the BBC archives. Then we found out it was a 13 week series- of a Bridge tournament! 

N3 is not shown on the tech requirements, and none of the crew names were from Manchester. So was this actually N3s last OB ?  We thought it had been retired by then, but maybe not.

There is a rumour that a scanner  due to be retired was kept in London in case the Falklands war developed into an emergency situation in the UK - although we think that was C6, currently owned by the Science Museum, the only other complete Type 2 known to have survived.

Does anyone know any more that would fill in the blanks? -we would love to know.