ABSTRACT
This paper will review certain aspects of the nature of educational television. It will do this by analysing in detail a particular Open University TV programme. The Open University (OU) is by far the largest user of TV for educational purposes in the UK. It is now using some 35.5 hours of television transmission time weekly (and 26 hours of radio transmission time per week, though this aspect of its broadcasting activity is not considered here). In 1977 there were a total of 1305 separate television programmes being broadcast to the 55,600 registered students of the University (Gallagher, 1977). Of course there are other users of TV for directly educational purposes, for example the Schools Service of the BBC, further education and various language teaching programmes and ad hoc series of programmes pitched at particular groups like non-readers, managers, trade-unionists, and so on. The whole range of these programmes has not been looked at in any systematic manner here, and the paper does not claim to offer a comprehensive review of television educational broadcasting in this country. In fact it does the opposite. It concentrates upon one particular programme, but in doing so it is hoped that that some useful general points about such broadcasting can be made.
