Swingometers and all that

So many daft competitions on UK television - Fame Academy, Pop Idol, Big Brother - using telephone voting for candidates brings to mind the old days when 'other' technology loomed large in the UK televisual landscape, measuring audience response in an altogether different way. In the studio. Or in the polling stations. But which always grabbed the imagination of the public.

I'm talking the Clapometer (used on Opportunity Knocks, to measure the amount of audience clapping), which according to the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television (scroll down for an image), "gave a visual score on screen based on how loud the studio applause was", and was offically known as the Audience Reaction Monitor (1968).

Note: "This is probably the first example of interactive TV in the UK". Yes, those dastardly words, interactive TV.

But of course the mainstay was the Swingometer (includes image), that stalwart of BBC TV late night election programmes, showing the effect of a particular voting 'swing' in various constituencies on the allocation of seats in the House of Commons in our first-past-the-post system. A device that perhaps elevated BBC election coverage to the heights of game show format (?). Almost.

It may well be the case that said meters and so on were 'respositioned' by hand, but in terms of interpretation by the viewing audience this equipment gave us what we wanted. We could all understand just what they meant.

I'm sure these were not the only two examples of 'lo-tech hi-tech' in the televisual world. Please send me more...