1983 Yorkshire/Tyne Tees "dispute"

(I'm not sure whether this is really worth a new thread, but it doesn't really fit into anything else that hasn't been archived)

I was intrigued by the reference Dickie Davies makes at 33m54s into this video:


World of Sport had to juggle the running order because a dispute between YTV and TTTV had (once again) scuppered their planned coverage of horce racing from Thirsk.

That would sound like some kind of contractual dispute rather than a union thing; so does anybody know what was going on?

Some factors that sound like they might be relevant but might not be:

• Thirsk is in the overlap area between TTTV (Bilsdale) and YTV (Emley).
  
  
• 1983 was just after Trident Television had ended and Yorkshire and Tyne Tees had gone their own way
  
  
• Racing would transfer to Channel 4 the following year.
  

I did ask on the comments section but no one was able to come up with a bang on answer.

I was a spotty faced Engineer at TTT then, all I can remember was that I think YTV claimed it was their course, so they had to supply the power to the scanner.
I think power connector on the TTT scanner had a different pin configuration to that of YTV and so there was a "converter cable" that the YTV sparks had.
So TTT had to hire a YTV spark to attend with the cable

That was a very long time ago and so I may have dreamt it

Thirsk may be an overlap area, but surely there would be maps that the IBA had at the time, saying which ITV region each town/city was in, and therefore who was the main provider of their services? If so, surely that would provide guidance as to whether it was TTTV or YTV that was the main company.

Another thing though, WOS was an LWT production, despite it saying "AN ITV COLOUR PRODUCTION" at the end. Wouldn't LWT simply be able to contract one company, either TTTV or LWT, to provide the racing at Thirsk?

I don't think there were any regulatory rules about providing OB's 'out of area'. For instance ATV were
still doing 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium' into the 70s, well after they'd lost the London weekend franchise.

I do recall Thames (and not TVS) providing network OB facilities for an ice skating tournament from Basingstoke. Not a TVS vehicle in sight.

Surly it would have been sorted out during the weekly network meeting?

I don't think the intricacies of differing three phase power connectors would have been on the radar of the big five ITV barons (Although industrial relations were never not on their radar !)

These coverage area maps, from mb21, are post DSO, but they give an idea of the location of Bilsdale, Thirsk, and Emley Moor.

Firstly, this is Bilsdale: http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/map.php?mapid=84

And here is Emley Moor: http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/map.php?mapid=60

If you look on the Emley Moor map, you'll see that the town of Thirsk is on the border of the principal service area of Emley Moor (coloured dark blue) and the supplementary service area (light blue). The fact that such a small area of Principal area coverage is so far away from the rest of the principal area, is purely due to geography; the height of the location of the transmitter, and how high up Thirsk is.

This other map is a bit more relevant for the period. It's from 1969, and is the 405 lines UHF coverage area. Again, Thirsk is just off the boundaries for the principal area coverage, and is in the supplementary area. http://tx.mb21.co.uk/info/405/itv/yorkshire.shtml

Of course, it still asks the question, whose course was Thirsk? I'd go for TTTV.

I thought in 1974 when YTV got given Lincolnshire that sorted out the mess with the claim to Bilsdale. Mind you in 1982 it didnt STOP YTV trying to convert viewers to turn the Ariel the other way to get TV. SO York is in Tyne tees??

Bilsdale provides a better signal in York (particularly in the area where Emley is shielded by York Minster), but
where viewers have a free choice, most opt for Emley and YTV

I wonder if this campaign worked, look at the slides.

Just to cloud the issue - in the TV Times the billing of WOS ended with 'World Of Sport is complied for ITV by London Weeked Television'

Therefore, that implied that the individual companies fed into the show, and LWT fed out again via the KRS lines.

Now, I'm unsure how the show worked in planning.
Whether the editor had a list of events and cherrypicked them and then 'commissioned' the lTV company local to that event to park up the scanner for WOS.
Or, something like the daily editorial meeting that Nationwide used to have at 10.30am where the regions would 'offer' a piece/report for inclusion between on that nights show, ITV companies would 'offer' a sporting event for that Saturday's WOS.

Hence, how you got into the 'Thirsk' mess, where WOS/LWT took YTV's offer of racing at Thirsk, but then hit the TTTV juice cable issue on the day of TX.