Feb. 18, 1965 - Britain’s leading popular music television show, “Ready, Steady, Go,” has decided to ban miming, in which singers merely mouth words of their records.
Teenagers had complained about miming, and some newspapers had taken up the protest. The change will take effect April 2.
The Beatles, who appear infrequently on television, began miming to their records after their successful tour of the United States.
“Ready, Steady, Go” appears on the commercial television network. The British Broadcasting Corporation said its policy remained unchanged — “keeping a close watch on the amount of miming presented.”
Mr. Elkan Allan, one of the producers of “Ready, Steady, Go,” said today: “We feel we’ve been cheating a bit. We’ve never been happy about it. And many teenagers prefer to hear singers perform live.
“We will use the original orchestration that the singers have on their discs and do our best to get as near the original sound as we can.”
Singers and managers who favor miming — it will still be used on ITV’s “Lucky Stars” and the BBC’s “Top of the Pops” — have always claimed that T.V. studios can never produce as good a sound as recording companies.
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