STILL having a struggle getting Channel 5? Imagine then going to the lengths of drilling a hole in your telly with a carpenter's brace and bit in order to get the latest channel.

Yet, that's what lots of folk in East Lancashire did to theirs when the era of BBC-only TV ended.

All that was afoot, however, was the fitting of a converter so the set would receive Channel 9 - the one that brought ITV programmes to the North West for the first time on Thursday, May 3, 1956.

Though the TV manufacturers had pre-empted the arrival of commercial TV, which first went on the air in the London area the previous September, by bringing out lots of new models designed for both BBC and ITV, many homes did not join the rush to replace their old set.

The main reason was they couldn't afford to because TVs were hugely expensive. One of the new "dual" models - a typical table-top version with a 14-inch screen - on sale in 1955 cost 65 guineas, or £68.25 in today's terms.

Yet, that bog-standard box - delivering only a black-and-white picture made up of 405 lines - cost the equivalent of £986.20 in 1997 money. Consider what a slice it took out of the family budget back then when a weekly wage was around a tenner. Even buying on hire purchase was a burden as the so-called "easy" terms demanded a one-third deposit and the rest paid in two years. TV rental wasn't cheap either. A tiny 12-inch telly cost 11s 9d (59p) a week - equivalent to £8.48 now - and, by law, renters had first to put down a returnable sum equal to 39 weeks' rent. That would be the same as paying more than £330 up front today for the privilege of renting a small-screen set.

One Fifties' answer to the tiny picture was a giant liquid paraffin-filled magnifier placed before the screen - which distorted the image unless it was viewed head-on.

Not surprisingly, many viewers hung on to their old BBC-only sets and decided to fit them with converters. In lots of cases, it was the first they had ever owned - as the televising of the Coronation in 1953 had brought the first large audience for TV in Britain and sparked the first real boom in sales of sets as post-war austerity eased and many were still paying for them. Hence, the small army on TV mechanics and electronics amateurs who went about fitting clumsy converter boxes on the top of tellies. Others had the equipment crammed inside - hence the drilled hole on the side for the switch for ITV (and the alarm of the owners who saw what was also a prized piece of furniture being attacked with a brace and bit.

Other converters fitted on the back of the set and sometimes worked exceedingly well. Radio ham Fred Barnes, of St Mark's Place, Blackburn, who is now 80, remembers one of the two-valve converters he and friends made to help satisfy a hungry market. It worked so well on his own TV that it delivered the new Granada TV picture to his neighbour's unconverted set for nothing.

But though the coming of commercial television - originally dubbed "TTV" or "Trade" TV by the newspapers - offered viewers more choice, it hardly did in terms of the hours of programmes available.

A typical day's TV in midweek on the BBC would begin with Children's TV at 5pm, followed by a break until the screening of the Weather Chart at 7.25pm heralded the rest of the evening's viewing, which ended around 10.35pm with the News - in sound only. The first day of ITV in the North West delivered by Granada did not start until 7.25pm and was nothing more exciting than a test pattern followed by a tuning signal and the National Anthem - with programmes proper, the highlight of which was an hour-long "Salute to Lancashire" variety show, ending at 10.45pm with a newscast. But, according to Sir Kenneth Clark, chairman of the new Independent Television Authority, viewers in the North did not want longer programme hours in the form of morning television.

Even so, what they did get was not always to their satisfaction. Many in East Lancashire were complaining about "ghost images" on the new ITV picture - caused by the signal from the Winter Hill transmitter being reflected from buildings and hillsides.

But in Blackburn, some found they could pick up commercial TV on their existing aerial while others had to fork out for a shorter high-frequency aerial, bringing a new look to the region's skyline.

Another big bugbear for 50s viewers was the frequent interference on their screens caused by unsuppressed electronics on cars and other electrical equipment. Yet, the growth in TV ownership was blamed by radio listeners for interference with the reception on their sets. And a Post Office investigation in East Lancashire in 1955 found that of 558 complaints about interference on sound reception, 51 were due to neighbouring TVs. Even so, there will still many homes without TV - enough for East Lancashire to still support more than 20 cinemas. When ITV began, in the whole of the North West there were only some 360,000 homes with sets, making its original viewing audience only about one million.

Nonetheless, the beginnings of mass TV ownership had already been recognised by the manufacturers - as with the building of a giant cathode ray tube factory at Simonstone by Mullard in the mid-1950s.

There was a host of brand names for buyers to choose from - Pye, Philips, RGD, Baird, Sobell, HMV, Ultra, Cossor, Decca, Pam, Philco, Stella and Ecko among them. There was also the novelty of "Swivelet TV" offered by Philco - a set which, mounted on spindly tubular steel, could be turned by the viewer to give a "square-on" picture at "correct eye level."

The impact of the arrival of mass TV viewing there was no doubt. A year after ITV began, Blackburn buses carried a million fewer passengers "due to changing social habits, mainly TV." The head of Waterfoot County Junior School conducted a survey that showed pupils were staying up late to watch the box and were not getting enough sleep. And a doctor's wife complained to the annual conference of the Institute of Housing that, as well as being a big outgoing from the family purse, television was a dreadful thing for the child.

"My own son is fast becoming a moron," she said. "He does not read a book or do anything but sits like a codfish in front of the TV."

But as ITV was born in the North West, the North Daily Telegraph's reporter who watched the first night's fare wondered how long people would be distracted by the "plugs for margarine, soap, tyres, pickles, petrol and hair cream," as he described the new TV curiosity of commercials.

"There were 25 last night," he complained.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.