On this Day 1975: ATV Today campaign to ‘find good news’

OTD, May 21st, 1975…

Presenter Bob Warman was in Birmingham city centre opening the largest bottle of champagne and giving away drinks to passers-by as part of a promotion by ATV Network, the then ITV Midlands production company and broadcaster.

The ATV Today campaign aimed to find good news to offset the daily reporting of bad news regularly filling the TV programme. At the time Midland news was covering issues such as rising unemployment and the falling pound.

Bob gets hold of the bottle of Champagne from a woman who is delivering it to a hotel in the city. Taking the cork out is a slow process and Bob eventually has to use a corkscrew. He pours glasses and then hands them out in the city with passers-by asked about the champagne and the gloom over the country at that time.