Rare Footage of UK’s First Female News Reader – Barbara Mandell Screen Test (1955)

In the summer of 1954, the British government would pass the Television Act, legislation specifically designed to break the BBC’s ongoing monopoly on television, and usher in commercial television with regional capabilities. The result of this would be the creation of ITV, and in February 1955 ITN. To see in this new groundbreaking period of British Broadcasting history, ITN’s first editor Aidan Crawley saw a clear path to counter the BBC, which he referred to as the “newscaster system”. At this time the BBC’s format for broadcasts followed a faceless / nameless approach seeing news read atop cards and footage at most. The newscaster system, as he saw it, would break this lifeless cycle by introducing newscasters rather than newsreaders; journalists of “personality and individuality” that would help prepare the reports themselves, giving the news altogether a more human appeal. In pursuit of this, ITN auditioned almost 300 people from which three would be hired, former Olympic runner Christopher Chataway and Robin Day (two newcomers to news) and Barbara Mandell, a former radio journalist for SABC and former reporter for the Daily Rand. She would have the most experience of the three and would present ITN’s noon programmes as the UK’s very first female newscaster from September 1955 onwards.

Noon programming was to be softer and more family-friendly than its evening counterparts but Barbara brought ample “personality and individuality” to the UK’s first commercial broadcasts, helping pioneer the vox pop alongside this new British strand of broadcast journalism. ITV would ultimately encounter economic problems in January 1956, seeing Barbara’s noon broadcasts cut, though she would stay with ITN until 1957, then intermittently returning as a reporter alongside fellow pioneer Lynne Reid-Banks. She would eventually leave to write travel books, marrying legendary ITN cameraman Martin Gray before returning as chief copyeditor for the 5.45 news until 1980.

As far as we know, Mandell left no public writings on her experience at ITN, or role in history, leaving the narrative open to obscurity. But this International Women’s Day we’ve rescued the rushes of Mandell’s newscaster test from 1955 (in rare telerecording format) – preserving her story and legacy, the remnants of which can still be felt in today’s British broadcasting formats.

#IWD #IWD2024 #InternationalWomensDay #InternationalWomensDay2024

To license the footage featured in this clip, follow the link below:

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/videos/r011055001?assettype=film&phrase=R011055001*&sort=oldest&license=rf%2Crr

To search the ITN Archive collection on Getty Images, follow the link below:

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/footage/itn

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