George Troy, televisionary

IT was on 28th August 1952 that the late George Troy wrote to A H Reed at the now defunct UK Government Office of Directorate of Overseas Communications and so made his opening bid to bring local broadcasting to the Channel Islands.

The letter began: There is a pressing need in the Channel Islands for a low power broadcasting station designed to meet the particular requirements of a group of islands which possess their own Constitutions, Parliaments, customs and laws and which therefore ‘have problems peculiarly their own’.

Over the next seven years he continued to press, at first for local radio, later for a television contract. Then in April 1959 an official of the General Post Office in London (the GPO was responsible for broadcasting wavelengths in those days) sent George Troy a copy of the Television Act and invited him to get in touch with the Independent Television Authority.

Within a year, by March I960, Channel Islands Communications (Television) Limited had prepared and submitted its application for appointment as ITV programme contractor. The application was successful and a little over two years later Channel Television went on the air.

Shortly after, in a sad and cruel twist of fate, George Troy, the Company’s founder Chairman, was dead.

A whole generation has since grown up, most of them taking local broadcasting for granted. Certainly few people under the age of thirty will realise what a vital and pioneering rôle George Troy played in making it happen.