The current success of This Is My House reminded me of a television show developed for broadcast half a century ago. Provisionally called Mind Your Own Business, it was an evolution from the radio panel show What’s My Line? and introduced some of the same elements as the modern programme that Stacey Dooley presents. Four professionals, three fake and one real, describe their work and a panel of worthies (these were pre celebrity days) had to identify the real business owner by watching for clues and the answers to various questions.
When the programme featured a printer, these questions ranged from ‘What excuse is best to use for a client whose job is running late?’ ‘How do you decide what to charge a client for a job?’ ‘What happens when you fail to deliver the right number of good copies – do you tell the client or use waste copies to make up the numbers?’ The programme makers then looked around the factory and the cars in the car park to decide which of the BMWs, Jaguars and Range Rovers belonged to the print business owner. Each contestant would also explain his attitude to investment in new technology and to developing his staff through education and training.
Needless to say the panel was completely flummoxed. None could believe that the explanations from the contestant who was the genuine article could possibly be true. Nor could the actors who were pretending to be printers, one of whom had some experience in running a design business. It was astounding, so much so that the programme was never shown and television companies have never again featured print in a mainstream entertainment or factual programme. Of course that was then. The printing industry is nothing at all like that now. Is it?
When the eyes of the viewer fall on print
The current success of This Is My House reminded me of a television show developed for broadcast half a century ago. Provisionally called Mind Your Own Business, it was an evolution from the radio panel show What’s My Line? and introduced some of the same elements as the modern programme that Stacey Dooley presents. Four professionals, three fake and one real, describe their work and a panel of worthies (these were pre celebrity days) had to identify the real business owner by watching for clues and the answers to various questions.
When the programme featured a printer, these questions ranged from ‘What excuse is best to use for a client whose job is running late?’ ‘How do you decide what to charge a client for a job?’ ‘What happens when you fail to deliver the right number of good copies – do you tell the client or use waste copies to make up the numbers?’ The programme makers then looked around the factory and the cars in the car park to decide which of the BMWs, Jaguars and Range Rovers belonged to the print business owner. Each contestant would also explain his attitude to investment in new technology and to developing his staff through education and training.
Needless to say the panel was completely flummoxed. None could believe that the explanations from the contestant who was the genuine article could possibly be true. Nor could the actors who were pretending to be printers, one of whom had some experience in running a design business. It was astounding, so much so that the programme was never shown and television companies have never again featured print in a mainstream entertainment or factual programme. Of course that was then. The printing industry is nothing at all like that now. Is it?
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