Regional news and the mid-twentieth century 'housewife': exploring the legacy of afternoon television in Midlands news programmes in the 1950s and 1960s

Feminist Media Studies has revealed the ways in which women have been excluded from television news. However there has been less consideration of at what times and in what spaces women have appeared in different forms of television journalism. Based around the central figure of afternoon television, the 'housewife', this article explores its legacy in Midland's news programmes between 1956 and 1968. The analysis reveals that the conventional tropes of 'women's interest' media were readily accommodated into news programmes, and that by comparing the appearances of female reporters and 'ordinary' women it is also possible to identify a diverse and contested image of the mid-twentieth-century 'housewife'.