Counting down, only another 10 days before ITV returns!
I'll be glad to get back to work. The money's running out but I'm determined to 'stay out' and have a couple of agency jobs now - hard work and not very rewarding financially but I have to make some sort of effort.
Everyone at Channel Television must be partying, as their temporary schedules will soon be coming to an end with the network due back - Poor Channel, how the hell they stayed on air was truly amazing. Fantastic effort from all their staff to produce six hours of programming every day during the strike.
Looking at the Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/ITVonstrike it is certainly not guaranteed at this moment 40 years ago that the ACTT will recommend the offer should be accepted. It then has to be voted on.
Nothing is at all certain.
Looking back from 2019 the offer of 40% sounds amazing after we have had such a long period of very low inflation in the last 11 years. It is easy to forget what it was like back in the late 70s.
I am truly amazed at the ratings bonanza BBC One got with the 1979 strike - no surprise, as there were only two channels, but still the ratings was extraordinary, as people decided to stay in and watch BBC One, than going out to the cinema, pubs, shops, clubs etc.
For the week ending 7th October 1979, the ratings were astronomical for BBC One:
To The Manor Born - 24 Million
Larry Grayson's Generation Game - 23.6 Million
Blankety Blank - 23.3 Million
Mike Yarwood in Persons - 22.3 Million
Last of the Summer Wine - 21.9 Million
Mastermind - 21.9 Million
Citizen Smith - 21.8 Million
Petrocelli - 21.7 Million
Secret Army - 21.6 Million
Sykes - 21.2 Million
Rings on their Fingers - 21 Million
Some Mothers Do Ave Em - 20.3 Million
Shoestring - 20.3 Million
Star Trek - 20.3 Million
Nine O'Clock News (Thursday Edition) - 20.2 Million
Angels - 20.1 Million
Doctor Who - 19.5 Million
Top of the Pops - 19.4 Million
International Showjumping - 18.9 Millions
Roots - 18.7 Million
If the BBC were a commercial channel, they would have raked in a fortune in advertising from those shows, with those ratings.
Didn't One Day At A Time get to number 1 partly because of older people watching TOTP because of the strike who wouldn't have normally watched it going out and buying the song?
Yeah, you think that Welcome Home to ITV graphic was quickly done overnight?
No, but there was no reason it had to have been made after an agreement was made. ITV was gong to come back at some point
Wouldn't doing it earlier have involved crossing the picket line? Same goes for Tyne Tees's new ident, come to think of it.
Were jingles, idents, and other bits of presentation done in-house at ITV back then? In the U.S., they would have been produced by outside production companies (at least in most cases).
Wouldn't doing it earlier have involved crossing the picket line?
Only if it was made at an ITV company. There will have been plenty of places that would be able to knock up that little animation and plenty of recording studios to record the singers