40th anniversary of the ITV strike

The strike was effectively settled the day before and on the actual official return date I am pretty confident the CP transmitter was being fed from Thames’ premises at Euston, therefore the Presentation desk was being fed to CP. I believe the MCR engineers were trying out the studio facilities prior to going on air later in the day when the pres camera was accidentally cut to air for a few seconds. It just so happened that one of the MCR engineers was in the continuity studio when it was cut to air. It was definitely mentioned in the newspapers.

Yes, as I said up thread I suspect Thames's output was being fed out nationally, not just to CP, and the IBA were feeding their (by now, very dynamic) blue captions and music to Thames as an 'OS' sustaining feed. Also the Oracle data reappeared in the VBI. Whether the bloke in the continuity studio appeared on just CP, or the whole network is an interesting (for us) question, it could one or the other, (I too remember it in the press)

Yeah I've seen reference to it it too, I think in the Guinness Book of Television which I was obsessed with at school


An accident, but I think if it was me in the MCR and one of my colleagues was sitting in the chair I would have been tempted to 'accidently' put it to air too

I have a sneaking suspicion he was only seen in London. As you say Thames’ presentation would have been fully networked perhaps nearer to the official on-air time? I don’t have a subscription to any newspaper archive but the engineers name is ‘out there’ as I have previously seen it by searching the internet but I have had no luck today.

Thanks to 623058 who provided me with these schedules for the Thursday and Friday following the strike, and gave me permission to share them here.

Thursday 25th October 1979:



Friday 26th October 1979:



Evidently these schedules are for the London area, but in answer to my queries earlier, it seems the only regional variations on the Thursday were the local news magazine and late night programming from 11.15pm (which may have just been a closedown in the smaller regions). I was wrong about the News at One not appearing on the Thursday, but it seems to have been a somewhat curtailed bulletin.

Friday was pretty much BAU - local news, Bible readings etc probably appeared prior to the 9.30am programme in some regions. The local news at 1.20 is back along with any other local content that often filled that spot (Lookaround, What’s On Where etc). Less variations than you would normally get in the afternoon and evening, I expect, but local again from 11.15pm.

There have been comments on TV-Ark’s Facebook page stating Westward Diary replaced The Muppets on the Wednesday - and that it may have even been shown earlier in the week. Not sure if that’s accurate info - in particular it seems unlikely Westward interrupted the blue screen of death earlier in the week for their local news. If they did show this on the Wednesday, they likely opted out of the trailers and pre-startup menu that advertised The Muppets.

Another rumour bouncing around over there is that Border didn’t come back on air until the following Monday “because they liked being on strike”. This I take with a very large pinch of salt, but I’m prepared to eat my words if necessary!

Interesting, thank you for that, I don't believe the Westward or Border stories either. Interesting they had 'lke' as a mini series that obviously straddled in London Thames and LWT over three nights, I didn't think those sort of splits happened until the 80s?

Where are those listings from? The sarcastic write ups for some of those shows are great!

The Guardian I think.

Anyone remember Alternative 3 and the 77 strike spoof?

The what now?

The reason Border keeps on popping up is because the local union never accepted the pay deal compared to everyone else. It's highly possible on the Wed all Border did was take the main feed from Thames etc, and same could have happened on Thursday etc

I wonder what Thames transmitted in the ad breaks to the network ? I suspect there was something 'viewer friendly' to cover any instances of local difficulties (a lá C4 of course) or maybe it was just their own (Thames's ) local ads ?

What was on before the strike?