Launton Historical Society reporting … in Launton Lines Issue 290 January & February 2025

At our AGM meeting in November, Steve Webber took us back to London in the 1970s.It was a time of discotheques and renting colour TVs. Mrs Thatcher was not yet in charge (until 1979) but was hovering in the wings.

Steve was a pioneer in the world of films on videocassette. The story starts in 1974, when he was working for London Town Discotheques, which installed discos around the world. He was reading the trade papers, and people were talking about laser discs - films on video. He was growing tired of the disco installation work, and after chatting to people, got a job working for a company putting promotional videos into discos.

The company was VCL, an early UK pioneer in the field of films on videocassette. There was some competition, but not huge amounts, in the early days, and a great deal to discover and innovate. Times were exciting, but money was tight.

Initially, VCL had thought that films wouldn’t sell, and that music on video was the way forward. They were the only company doing this. Then they began to acquire rights to a range of films, as well as music. Some foreign films too and, thanks to a good relationship with Thames TV, series such as The Sweeney, all to copy onto videocassette. The quality of the films was frequently questionable but if the film had some star names it would qualify as a commercial proposition. One of their first big titles was Just a Gigolo with David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich, “... a terrible film but it sold in thousands”.

The technical side of putting films on videocassette was challenging. Editing videos was complex and the process was expensive and slow. But developments were fast-moving, these were heady times.

The market woke up to videocassettes. Overnight, these pioneers had a business and VCL acquired the rights to more and more films. It was non-stop. At one point they tried to go upmarket and launched art house movies in a promotion with The Observer newspaper. Unfortunately, the market wasn’t ready for a dose of culture and they only sold 10 cassettes! Their offices marked their trajectory - from a small office in South Molton Street in London to bigger offices in Covent Garden, where they built a duplicating facility in the basement, complete with rats, and blew a hole in the pavement when staff put heaters on in the offices as they were drawing way too much current from the existing electricity supply, to Old Street, an office with over 100 duplicating machines and massive stocks of cassettes. VCL also began to produce original content with the Supremes, Tina Turner and Charles Aznavour. Steve recalled that he had met the French singer at Heathrow and then couldn’t find the car in the car park.

Piracy became rampant and there were many grey areas in respect of copyright. The ethos was that you did what you had to do and got sued later. Steve likened this to the current situation with AI. It was also the era of video nasties.There was little regulation in this area, no Government control until the Video Recordings Act 1984, and no censorship of videos, unless you got caught by the Obscene Publications Act. The British Videogram Association was founded, and VCL were founder members.

These were fast-moving times. In the 1980s, after 10 years of success with unlimited expense accounts, the major Hollywood studios joined the market, offering quality movies shortly after general release in the cinemas, and the writing was on the wall for VCL and the many other independent distributors. VCL was eventually sold to Virgin.

Steve reflected that they’d had to learn everything from scratch. Also, that it was a mad business.

It was good to hear Steve’s story, and to think about how things were in the 1970s.

By the time you read this we will have heard Pat Snelson talk about Bicester's Gothic Architecture in January.

For the next few months our speakers are:

27 February - Janine Kilroe, Piers, their History and Future

27 March - Antonia Keaney, Odd Men and Necessary Women (Blenheim staff)

24 April - John Tyler, Reading the Countryside

29 May - Martin Sirot Smith, Daily Life in Tudor Times

26 June - GillianCane, Bletchley Park

We meet at 7.30pm in the Parish Hall. All are welcome.

Gwen Skinner