Electronic news-gathering

What I would like to know is when did every ITV company start using ENG? (Electronic news-gathering) I have read TVS still never used it even by 1986.

I do know Grampian TV were the first to introduce it in 1978, when did other follow suit? I doubt Southern, westward had it.

Wasn't this one of the causes of the 1979 strike?

No Channel TV were first to use it, 77/78 ish. RCA kit BBC and ITN started to use it experimentally for the 79 election, and I don't recall Southern of Westward using it at all, it came after 82 with TVS and TSW. BBC South and South West were mid 80s

I thought because of the strike, ENG was introduced?

No, not the case !

I'm not sure the issue of ENG was even central to the dispute ?

Most of the stations never brought it about until 4 years later around 1984? I've not seen anything that the strike was about this since, it started at Thames and well to be fair, I cant see them introducing that so earlier.

I think film replaced video throughout the 80s. There's a story I've heard - which may be an urban myth - that a BBC News cameraman took both ENG and 16mm kit with him to cover the Falklands. For some reason his opposite number at ITN had no kit, and a gentleman's agreement was made to share. The BBC took the ENG and gave ITN the 16mm. (This is from memory and may not be particularly accurate)

I think most UK news operations were heavily 16mm based at the start of the 80s, and by the end of the 80s everyone was pretty much ENG.

I think most operations had at least one generation of UMatic (HiBand almost certainly) with a separate tubed camera, before first generation CCD and Betacam SP was used. Some may have used single-tubed Betacam (ISTR Channel used Betacam). Some BBC operations used Betacam SP camcorders (either dockable or single-unit) but with Betacam tape (to save money)

18 July 1978


It seems this may be where people were getting confused in May 1980 a week long strike with ITN took place because of this. It started on Friday 9 May 1980 and took a whole week to be resolved on Friday 16 May 1980

* Channel Started in 1977
* Grampain started in 1977 ( actually it had to come about before January 1978 as this is when ENG become fully operational.
* Tyne tees started on 10 May 1980.
* Central Television East 1st January 1982
* TVAM - 1st February 1983.
* Granada started on 14 April 1986.
Does anyone know the rest?

10 May 1980


12 May 1980:

I can understand Grampian being an early adopter of ENG because of the distances involved but I'm surprised Channel was the first

The barriers to introduction were probably far lower for Channel TV. Famously it was the only ITV station not to go on strike in 1979 as the workers were perfectly aware such a move could have bankrupted the company, so they'd be more likely to go with new technology which would make running the station more efficient. Also, if you think Grampian have distance issues, try jumping between islands.

In hindsight the strikes against new technology were suicidal and forced TV channels to take the unions on - the result of that is obvious to see now. Mind you, there was a lot of it throughout several industries at the time.

That is a good point, though I assume that there was still a lot of moving stuff around on boats, but tape rather than film? Did they have video links from the smaller islands?

ENG was cheaper and more efficient than film but presumably the initial outlay for the equipment would have been quite high. I wonder how big the investment was and how long it took for the savings to pay off?

How much would be saved be using less people, This was why unions hated it because new tech means less people