How to be in public: the case of an early television show

The process of image management, whether that of celebrities or non-celebrities, involves attention to several different registers of communication at once. Television appearances have always presented difficulties for ordinary people in managing these different ‘framings’ (Goffman) of their spontaneous behaviour. This is vividly demonstrated by the first ever ‘Double Your Money’ programme on the newly opened British commercial channel ITN in 1955. The different performance styles that people employed, along with the key role of the presenter, Hughie Green, are here examined in detail. The problems of historical TV research using programmes that were ‘temporarily meaningful’ is also discussed along with other examinations of this archival programme.