Our History
CTVC is part of the Rank Foundation, a charitable organisation which was established by Lord and Lady Rank in 1953. In addition to CTVC, the Rank Foundation focuses on encouraging and developing leadership amongst young people and supporting disadvantaged young people and those frail or lonely through old age or disability. CTVC officially began life in 1978, but it was formed from the merger of two charities which Rank had set up much earlier; the Lord Rank Foundation for Christian Communications Ltd and Religious Films Ltd.
Religious Films Ltd was launched in the early 1930s, sparked by Rank’s role as a Sunday School teacher. Frustrated by the materials available for teaching the children, he decided to take matters into his own hands. While working in his father's milling business, he established the 'Religious Film Society’. At a small studio in Norwood, South London, the new company began to produce films for showing to schools, Sunday schools and churches. A film library was also established, as well as schemes for providing library users with equipment such as projectors and screens. Eventually, the Society became known as Religious Films Ltd, and began making productions for the main cinema circuits, as Rank was determined that the films should be seen in the 'market place' as well as in churches. After World War II, there was a surge of activity. The enterprise moved to the Gate Studio, Elstree, and from there, a large and varied output was produced – Biblical films, documentaries on a wide range of subjects, contemporary dramas – all with a broad Christian purpose.
By the late 1950s, television was reaching a huge audience. ITV stations had joined the BBC on air, and a regular ITV production last thing at night was 'The Epilogue'. Local clergymen were used as presenters, and naturally enough, since they were more accustomed to pulpits than to TV studios, their skills at adapting to the new medium varied considerably. J Arthur Rank (by now, Lord Rank) thought there ought to be somewhere that clergy (and others) could be trained to do the Epilogues properly. So in 1959, in a separate venture to the Religious Film Society project, a dedicated training centre for media training was established – the Churches Television Training Centre. Initially a programme of training for clergy, it was widened as it grew to include lay men and women, people from charities, societies and organizations outside the Church.
1965 saw the thriving operation move to newly built studios in a converted country house called ‘Hillside’, in Bushey on the Northern outskirts of London. Lord Rank paid his last visit to Bushey early in 1972; he died on the 27th March of that year. But he was aware of the plans being considered for Hillside, in the context of a broadcasting world which had expanded to include local radio, ITV and colour television. The policy of the Centre had always been that it should not be a Christian ghetto in the world of television and radio, but should be involved as much as possible in main stream broadcasting. And outlets were developing. The 1970s saw the expansion of BBC and independent local radio and many of the stations offered the churches in their area air time in the schedules, sometimes as much as two to three hours early on Sunday mornings.
By the mid 70s, the Centre had four studios, a mobile TV/Sound Unit, a Film Unit plus the staff and backup facilities to support them, and had a threefold function – training, production and research. The word Training had been dropped from the company title, not because training wasn’t important, but because of the widening scope of the Centre’s work. An increasing number of films were being made by the Film Unit, the outlet for them being chiefly via the Film Library. Loan schemes for films and projectors operated through its regional officers. However, when appropriate, productions were offered to TV companies with the aim of having them transmitted. ITV companies in particular began to buy in programmes for transmission. In 1978, the name changed again, this time to The Centre for Radio & Television Communication, using the logo CTVC. An early production, Will the Real Jesus Christ Please Stand Up featured a fresh faced young Hugh Grant, and opportunities were also arising for non-religious work to help support the studios financially bringing other well known names to Hillside. (Including Frank Windsor in a production for Volvo Cars, Roy Hudd in an advert for Dulux paint, and soon to be famous film-maker David Lean, brought in to direct a studio show for the Leonard Cheshire Organisation.)
A year later, in 1979, the Centre for Radio & Television merged with Religious Films Ltd. to form The Foundation for Christian Communication Ltd., a limited company with charitable status. The logo continued to spell out CTVC.
As a new century dawned, the broadcasting environment was changing further and CTVC urgently needed to adapt. Although the company was successful at pitching to all the Uk’s key television networks, neither the vast overheads in Bushey nor the traditional CTVC proposition were viable any longer. In late August 2005 CTVC made the move from the Hillside studios to more modest office premises in Tower Bridge and in 2007 finally changed its name from the Foundation for Christian Communication Ltd to CTVC Ltd.
This represented considerably more than a mere name change. CTVC had recently appointed independent producer Nick Stuart as the Chief Executive- the first time a television professional and not a clergyman had been offered the top job. CTVC now began to operate as an independent production company and under Stuart's leadership opened up new opportunities in digital and new media as well as terrestrial broadcasting.
Stuart also recruited David Coomes, the former producer of BBC Radio 4's "Moral Maze" to set up and lead a radio department. Coomes in turn attracted some of radio's top broadcasters including Ed Stourton, Michael Buerk, John Sweeney and Roger Bolton to present documentaries.
CTVC also launched TrueTube.co.uk, an innovative broadband site, devoted to inspiring young people to make films, and create debate around important social issues.
Under Stuart's leadership, CTVC's remit was extended to advancing the public knowledge and understanding of all historic world faiths with significant communities in the United Kingdom. Programmes about Christianity continued to play an important role in the Company's output and, under the editorial supervision of Head of Programmes, Ray Bruce, included Holy Week programmes for all the main network channels, Christmas services for ITV, the four part historical investigative series, Secrets of the Cross for Five and the eight part co-production with Pioneer Productions for Channel Four, Christianity: a history.
CTVC, however, didn't limit their coverage of religion to Christianity. Bruce and Stuart also produced five series of Shariah TV for Channel Four as well as Rajeh Omar's Islam in America for Al Jazeera.
2010 saw further evolutions to CTVC's remit. The dawning of a new year offered both challenges and opportunities. There were fewer available slots on linear broadcast television for programmes about religion; following a loosening of Ofcom's regulations, ITV and Five are no longer obliged to carry any religious output. However, the increased convergence between broadband and broadcast also offers fresh possibilities.
CTVC's current mission is to stimulate and motivate people to think about the moral and spiritual issues in their everyday lives. Religious programmes remain an important part of our output. Together with Big Book Media we launched a major three hour initiative, The Story of Jesus, which tells the story of Jesus life through a mix of dramatic reconstruction and interviews with leading contemporary scholars. A documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls premiered recently on the National Geographic Channel while ITV commissioned Flight of Faith, an aerial view of the Holy Land in Jesus' time.
In addition to content on religious affairs for broadcast television, we have broadened our horizons and now produce films which raise important ethical and moral issues for mainstream slots. Our BBC1 prime time documentary, Too Old to be a Mum?, led to further commissions from the BBC's documentary department including BBC-2's Fix My Family. While together with our Northern Ireland partners, Green Inc Productions, we have been commissioned to provide seventeen reports which focus on ethical issues for BBC-1's highly popular One Show
We have also returned to our roots by recalling the original reason why Lord and Lady Rank established CTVC- namely the lack of suitable educational material in Sunday schools. The broadband initiative, True Tube, now focuses on supporting the RE, PSHE and Citizenship schools' curriculum with dynamic and engaging short films. Last year we launched both Being Victor, a broadband interactive soap for young people which tackles ethical and moral issues and is co-produced with Shed Media Scotland, and BoldFace Productions, a training operation and platform for young people to make and distribute their own films on the issues which matter to them. Both technology and the broadcasting environment have changed considerably since the Ranks launched their original initiative. But Lord Rank was nothing if not entrepreneurial and we would like to think that he would be proud of how we are interpreting his original vision in the 21st Century.
CTVC is part of the Rank Foundation, a charitable organisation which puts the Christian ethos at the forefront of its activities.
