All you need is love ...and a satellite link
OUR World became the first television programme to be broadcast by satellite around the world 55 years ago, on June 25, 1967.
Countries were each allocated their own segment and the BBC commissioned the Beatles to write a song for the UK’s contribution.
The result was the first performance of All You Need Is Love. It was the closing number on the broadcast with members of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, The Who’s Keith Moon and Graham Nash all turning up for the performance. Sir Paul McCartney can be heard singing ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah’ from the band’s 1963 hit at the end of the track.
Credited to Lennon and McCartney, All You Need Is Love was released as a single the following month.
Our World featured contributions
MARION McMULLEN
looks at the broadcast of the first live global television programme
from 18 countries and was watched by 23 million viewers in the UK alone.
It was the culmination of months of hard work involving TV crews around the world. The brainchild of the BBC, it became a showcase for the potential of satellite communications and was originally titled Around The World In 80 Minutes until the running time began to increase, finally ending up at more than two hours.
The international project began with a look at newborn babies around the globe and went on to feature items on contemporary dance from France, American space rockets and Spanish painter and sculptor Joan Miro.
Mastermind presenter Magnus Magnusson also presented a feature for the BBC on the new town of Cumbernauld.
The emphasis was on non-political content and shared humanity, but both the Soviet Union and Poland pulled out a few days before the broadcast in protest at the Six Day War.
Despite this hitch, the broadcast was a major success with an estimated 400 million global viewers tuning in.