Good ideas are normally simple in their application and the basic idea of reflecting moving text in front of the television lens as a prompt has not changed since Autocue Limited, was first registered as a company in 1955. However, the technology to deliver the text in front of the television camera lens has changed over the 45 years of the company's history.

During the early 80's Autocue became the generic for television prompting not least because of the high profile presenters and performers past and present who rely on the product and service for eye-line contact with the camera lens. By their constant references, good or bad, on-air to the Autocue doing this or that, Autocue became part of the English language.
In 1955 Autocue Limited. patented the synchronised electric paper roller prompter, with 1 inch jumbo type, which used a mirror and a piece of semi-reflective glass to focus the image of the moving text over the lens of the camera into the presenters eyeline. An Autocue operator using an electric master paper roller controlled the movement of the on-camera rollers at the speed of the presenters delivery. Needless to say in those early days the job of the Autocue operator was not easy with this technology.

As the company did not sell product within the UK until the late 70's Autocue built up an aura of excellence, in its field, with its hire service and highly professional operators on such programmes as BBC News, The Two Ronnies, Nation-wide, Match of the Day, Bradens Weeks, The Frost Programme, Parkinson, This is Your Life, Opportunity Knocks to name but a few.

The early 70's saw the introduction of Autocue's close-circuit range of prompters which at last took prompting out of the dark ages. Moving onto the 80's the computer prompter became of age with the introduction of the MS-DOS prompting software. During this period Autocue opened up new markets for its prompting products and service in the area of public speaking at conferences, AGM's, trade presentations and product launches.

Today Autocue and its sister company in the US, QTV, have probably sold to every country in the World and have around 75% of prompting hardware sales world-wide.