January 1970 - The Dawn Of A Dazzling New Decade

Colour was a very recent introduction to British television at the start of the 70s, having only begun on 15th November 1969, and was still something of a luxury, and not yet available in all IBA regions, but by the end of the decade colour would more or less be the standard for British television.
Our first colourful journey to 1970 starts in a drab northern street where the only real colour was painted on the front doors.
I'm of course referring to the Granada serial Coronation Street, the most watched show in the Uk in both the weeks commencing 5th January and 12th January. Coronation Street is by this time just over 9 years old, but many of it's original residents are still around at this stage, including Annie Walker, landlady of the Rovers Return, who in episode 942 on 5th January decides that she will only serve customers who are smartly dressed, a ruling which only results in most of her customers and bar staff boycotting the Rovers in favour of the Flying Horse.

Meanwhile corner shop owner Maggie Clegg agrees to divorce her estranged husband Les, and sets her sights on local builder Len Fairclough, but he only has eyes for the barmaid in the Flying Horse. By episode 944 on 12th January it would seem the boycott of the Rovers is still going on, as Len's apprentice, Ray Langton, has fainted in the Flying Horse and needs medical attention. Meanwhile Maggie still has her sights set on Len, as does Flying Horse barmaid Anita, and both ponder their feelings and next move during this episode. The most significant thing about episode 944 though is that it marks the debut of Coronation Street's first brick exterior, erected on the site of what was Grape Street, just behind the Granada Television Studios. Prior to this brick set, Coronation Street had used painted wooden facades, and cobbles handpainted on the studio floor, to create the street within their studio. These wooden facades had been supposedly weatherproofed and erected on the Grape Street site in 1968, before they rapidly perished and were rebuilt in brick due to the introduction of colour.

The second of Coronation Street's and Granada's charttopping weeks this month was actually in a tie with it's IBA rival, Thames', biggest show This Is Your Life. This Is Your Life involved the incumbent presenter surprising a well-known or particularly worthy person in whatever location they were in, or had been contrived by the producers to be in, and presenting them with a book full of details and photographs of their life (though the book used in the actual show was blank, and the real book was produced after the recording) with the immortal words ".....tonight this is your life!". The presenter would then take them back to the studio to present a half hour show in which their loved ones, friends and colleagues from throughout their life would be revealed to have assembled to shower them with memories and praise. In the US the presenter was Ralph Edwards, but in the UK version it was an Irishman called Eamonn Andrews. Eamonn first surprised people in this way for the BBC between 1955-1964 before the show lay dormant, until being picked up in 1969 by London IBA franchisee Thames Televison, who had been formed the previous year by the enforced merger of original London weekday franchisee Associated Rediffusion with ABC, who had provide the newly defunct weekend franchises to the North and Midlands regions. Viewing figures for the 1950s are hard to come by, but it would seem that the BBC era of This Is Your Life never troubled the top of the viewing charts, whilst the Thames version had hit number one for the first time in the last week of 1969, with a news years eve edition celebrating the Beverley Sisters.
This Is Your Life would now top the chart for three of the four weeks of January 1970, week commencing 12th January in a tie, and weeks commencing 19th and 26th January outright.
Wednesday 14th January's edition surprised boxer Henry Cooper, and can be seen here:

Interestingly at this stage the infamous 'big red book' has yet to become red, presumably because colour TV was still in its infancy and producers hadn't yet found ways of making programmes more colourful. The following week's edition, Wednesday 21st January, surprised racing driver Jackie Stewart in the foyer of Euston Road Studios,

and the week after, Wednesday 28th January was the first of two surprises for Jimmy Saville who would be surprised again just over 20 years later, though of course Jimmy is now remembered in a rather different way to either of his two 'Life's. In any case whilst all of Coronation Street's 8000+ episodes survive, and both the Henry Cooper edition of This Is Your Life (above) and the Jackie Stewart edition survive, the Jimmy Saville edition from 1970 is now missing presumed wiped, which may be just as well.......

January 1970 Summary
NB Viewing figures for this period are measured in millions of homes. To get a rough idea of how many millions of viewers this equates to, it is usually suggested to multiply this figure by 2.2

W/C 05/01/1970 Coronation Street (Ep 942,  Granada Television, Mon 5th Jan 19:30, 8.25m)
Coronationstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_942_(5th_January_1970)

W/C 12/01/1970 Coronation Street (Ep 945, Granada Television, Weds 14th Jan 19:30, 8.2m)
http://coronationstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_944_(12th_January_1970)
                            This Is Your Life (Henry Cooper, Thames Television, Weds 14th Jan 19:30 8.2m)
http://www.bigredbook.info/henry_cooper.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnkq1CXvQPw

W/C 19/01/1970 This Is Your Life (Jackie Stewart, Thames Television, Weds 21st Jan, somewhere between 8.2m and 8.9m)

W/C 26/01/1970 This Is Your Life (Jimmy Saville, Thames Television, Weds 28th Jan, somewhere between 8.35m and 8.9m - NB: This edition is missing presumed wiped)