ABSTRACT
Post-war affluence was measured in ‘white goods’ – consumer durables. Particularly for women refrigerators, hoovers and washing machines made it easier to do what had always been done. It was a worldwide movement. At a 1959 major exhibition of American culture and society in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, a BBC Panorama reported long, patient queues of Russians; it caused the reformists in the Kremlin to understand that Soviet industrial production was failing and had be changed: the exhibit everybody wanted to see was the miracle of an American ‘labour saving kitchen’. 1 It was this affluence that ITV seemed to be in-tune with. Television, it was believed, changed people’s social life and habits. Commercial television was believed to alter their aspirations and values as well.
