TV: Tomorrow’s World comes to a close

I was saddened to hear via the Guardian’s Online Blog that the BBC’s science and technology TV programme Tomorrow’s World has been axed after 38 years on the air.

I started watching it when I was young (when Judith Hann and Howard Stableford presented it) and it really interested me and “had me hooked”. They covered a wide range of innovations – occasionally getting them wrong (where are the robots to clean our houses?), but others they got more than spot on. I remember them demonstrating a new printing method which allows information to be printed on egg shells – it had to be delicate so as not to break the shell, lasting (you don’t want the ink to be easily rubbed off or smeared) and yet not soak through the shell: nowadays it’s quite difficult to buy eggs WITHOUT the “use by” date printed on the shell.

They also did (I think it was covered in one of the “Prince’s Trust” shows which were supported by Prince Charles) a way of printing on one side of glass yet allowing you to see through the other side (sort of like a one way mirror but without the mirror). Nowadays, at least around Leicester, you see buses with this sort of advertising on their rear and side windows. Oh – and they also covered how Zaphod Beeblebrox’s “extra” head did (or, as more was the case, didn’t) work in the TV series of Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

I stopped watching it when the BBC moved it off it’s (IIRC) 7.30 Wednesday night slot to make way for yet another episode of EastEnders. They then continually re-vamped it and seemed to dumb it down (and had less ‘in the studio’ articles which I really enjoyed). Shame such an “institution” has come to an end after so long, but my feelings are that the BBC alone are to blame for the falling audience figures.

Tomorrow’s World also gave me my first chance to operate a BBC television camera – it would then be many years before I next operated a broadcaster’s camera (Granada was the next company) and appear actually in front of a camera for a national TV show…