In 1925 when the ACLU challenged the Tennessee legislature in the Scopes Monkey Trial, Chicago’s own WGN-TV was on hand to cover the proceedings, making quite possibly the world’s first televised trial. The following decade CBS would broadcast the first news program, “World News Roundup” and president Franklin Roosevelt would use the new medium to take his message to the American people. But television news did not come into its own until after WW II, when both U.S. and Britain launched their longstanding radio news program in the new medium.

On this day, July 5, in 1954 the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) broadcast its first daily television news programme. It was introduced as “Illustrated summary of the news… Followed by the latest film of events and happenings at home and abroad” although there was precious little of illustration, and much of  the program was just the newsreader Richard Baker in a dark shut sitting against a grayish background.

Many found the concept to bland, if not outright boring. The harsher reviews called it “absolutely ghastly,” “crazy,” and “as visually impressive as the fat stock prices.” But the BBC persevered and improved, adding more footage to break up the monotony and making improvements in the storytelling. As the BBC Director General conceded “News is not at all an easy thing to do on television. A good many of the main news items are not easily made visual – therefore we have the problem of giving news with the same standards that the corporation has built up in sound.”