Armchair Cinema: A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981

Since broadcast television first emerged as a serious alternative to the cinema, more people have seen films on TV than by any other means. Feature films originally made for the big screen were initially withheld from TV by the film industry in the competition for audiences. Struggles between film and television interests settled into a truce in the mid-1960s, since when thousands of films have been shown on British terrestrial television each year. They assumed particular importance in the 1970s and 1980s, when cinema blockbusters became major TV events and themed seasons gave viewers access to many older movies.
This book provides a comprehensive history and analysis of the ways in which cinema films have figured in TV programming in the UK and the role that British television has played in changing the consumption of film entertainment.

Sheldon Hall is Reader in Film and Television at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. A former film journalist, he has contributed to numerous books and journals on British and American cinema. He is the author of Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It (2005/2014), co-author of Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History (2010) and co-editor of Widescreen Worldwide (2010) and Film Critics and British Film Culture (2024).