The Avengers 1960s

Which institution (channel) produced the show?

ITV

Who was the primary and secondary audience (age rating/gender/interests etc).

Adults, 15 years and older, working class. Interested in new exciting dramas.

When did the first episode air?

On 7th January 1961.

How many viewers followed the show?

How many seasons were made?

6

What date/year was the last episode aired?

On 21st April 1969 in the United States, and on 21st May 1969 in London, England.

What was the budget of series 4?

$2 million

The fourth series was different to the third due to a $2 million deal with ABC. It was shot on film. What did this mean in terms of: locations, production values, editing, camerawork and sound?

British television did compete on the world market, with prestige productions such as The Avengers being sold to many countries overseas (90 countries by 1969). A lucrative deal with the American Broadcasting Company (reportedly $2million) required the fourth series of The Avengers to be shot on film and allowed high production values for television of that era. Previous series were very studio bound, as was conventional for television of that era, and so appear to be very 'stagey' by contemporary standards. Videotape editing was difficult and costly process so most television was mixed live, with mistakes and fluffed lined left uncorrected. Many programmes were lost as expensive videotape was re-used for new programmes. Shooting on film for a higher budget enabled more sophisticated camerawork, greater use of locations, more controlled editing and a more sophisticated soundtrack, with a through-composed score.

Who were the stars of Series 4 Episode 1: The Town Of No Return? Name the actors, include images and background information on them e.g. age, gender, previous roles.

• Patrick Macnee as John Steed
• Diana Rigg as Emma Peel
• Alan MacNaughtan as Mark Brandon
• Patrick Newell as Jimmy Smallwood
• Terence Alexander as 'Piggy' Warren
• Jeremy Burnham as Vicar, Johnathan Ainsbury
• Robert brown as Saul
• Juliet Harmer as Jill Manson
• Walter Horsbrugh as School Inspector

ITV was seen as the working class channel, compared to BBC's middle class. How did The Avengers compare, in terms of the representation of rising youth culture, compared to the BBC's flagship drama: The Forsyte Saga?

The BBC was slowly weaned away from its stuffy 'auntie' image by the rigours of competition with ITV. However, channel loyalty tended to split on class lines, with ITV seen as the more working class channel- at a time when, with the rise of youth culture, it was suddenly 'cool' to be working class- and the BBC seen as more middle class. Thus the BBC's flagship drama of the mid 1960s, The Forsyte Saga, was a serialisation  of a set of novels by Galsworthy, a Nobel prize-winning British author. In comparison, ITV series such as The Avengers appeared much more daring, youthful, irreverent and sexy.