1979 ITV Strike - affect on sport and schools

The 1979 ITV strike has already been discussed on its effect on Emmerdale Farm. But, how did it affect schools programming? Obviously programme notes and secondary information for teachers would've been ready for the new term, but as the strike ended during a term, how did ITV manage to catch up with programming, bearing in mind that videos were in their infancy then, so programmes couldn't be recorded by schools.

Also, how did it affect existing and potential sports rights held by ITV? Did ITV miss out on bidding for sports rights, such as Gymnastics, Bowls, Snooker (I believe unionised cameramen at the Holsten Lager tournament in Slough in 1979 actually went for an enforced tea break during play, causing John Spencer's subsequently not recognised 147 to be missed), Football, Golf etc.

I have been wondering about the effect on schools programming myself. The Autumn Term 1979 was scheduled to run from 17 September to 30 November, with half-term repeats w/c 29 October. Programming actually started on 29 October, meaning that if it ended on its scheduled date of 30 November, four out of the ten weeks of programmes wouldnot have been shown. They may have extended the term by a week or two, in an attempt to accommodate some of the missing programmes, but I don't recall them doing this.

The only programme I remember being rescheduled was How We Used to Live, which given an additional timeslot in late Autumn 1979 or early Spring 1980, so it was shown four times a week (two different episodes) for a while. I have heard that the whole school year was affected, with different episodes or modules of certain programmes being shown, rather than those which had been scheduled. Some new episodes and modules whose production had been affected by the strike, were postponed, in some cases until the following school year.

Off-topic, but related, the Thames Television strike of October-November 1984 affected the playing out of schools programmes produced by Thames. Thames itself showed no schools programmes at all during the dispute, and other regions were shown apology captions and music in place of the missing Thames programmes. The missing Thames programmes were networked at the end of the term, during the first week of December, and those missed in the Thames area were also shown to London only during the second week of December.

Ben Clarke from the broadcastsforschools website has summarised the 1984 rescheduling:

As far as football goes, I think I'm right in saying that ITV just continued to pick the fixtures in the usual fashion, because the Merseyside Derby played during the strike wasn't shown on Match on the Day, and Jimmy Hill had to apologise and say that ITV had first pick that week and chosen it, despite the fact they couldn't show it. I think too that various horse races and gold tournaments they'd usually cover were not covered at all, rather than handing the rights over to the Beeb.

Would be interesting to know what the presentation around those programmes was like.

I think that might have dragged the BBC unions into the dispute, if the Beeb had tried to pick up any of ITV's commitments ? I also remember ITV being suggested to take on production of the Eurovision Song Contest that year it was delayed, owing to a BBC industrial dispute. Of course they didn't, and it was delayed by several weeks.

I do recall the matter of a John Pilger documentary, that ATV were keen to have screened, and the Beeb had been approached about showing it, but only after the ACTT had give 'their blessing' to the idea. In the end, it waited until the 1979 strike was over.

Also during the Thames 1984 strike, there was a 'This Week' programme, that the unions did agree to, and it was indeed networked in its originally proposed slot (on Thames, and the rest of the network).

http://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/itv-1979-strike-effect-emmerdale-storylines-29807/

Just for info here is the original ITV strike thread,

Topically there's a feature in this month's When Saturday Comes about untelevised matches which makes reference to the ITV strike, pointing out that as well as that Merseyside derby (which included a streaker, two sendings off and an own goal), England vs Denmark also wasn't televised because in those days the Beeb and ITV took turns to cover England games and it was ITV's turn.

The feature also points out that the last top flight game which didn't have any cameras at it was Sheffield Wednesday vs Manchester City on 1st January 1990, because in those days matches that weren't being filmed for live telly or extended highlights only used one camera and the cameraman didn't turn up because it was an early kick-off and they forgot when it started. I know after that they started using two cameras.

Could the Danish rights holder have not sent a crew over to film and therefore broadcast the match live to the Danish viewing public?

It's also understandable why ITV kept picking matches, even though the strike was ongoing; the strike could've ended at any time, and it made sense for ITV to be as prepared as possible.

In theory yes, but in those dark days before the de-regulation of facilities and production, I suspect Danish Radio's unions might have had something to say about the idea. The costs of doing so, overtime, allowances, etc would probably have been prohibitive anyway ?

I might be wrong, but I think anyone taking an OB truck to another country simply wasn't done until the late 80s/90s ?

I do know in 1992, RTE were on strike one weekend, when Ireland played Scotland at Lansdowne Road in the 5 nations. BBC Scotland thus took a BBC Northern Ireland OB truck and camera crew to Dublin to cover the game instead.

They almost certainly wouldn't have in the days before transportable satellite links. In this particular case how would a Danish OB truck get the pictures back to Denmark without the co-operation of the BBC or ITV?

If it had been Wembley, were there not permanent GPO lines from there back to the tower in those days ? if not, then yes, I agree, they'd have been stuffed.