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40th anniversary of the ITV strike

10 August – 24 October 1979 (August 2019)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MA
Markymark
JKDerry posted:
Brekkie posted:
When is the last time a strike ended up with blacked out screens. Certainly the more recent ones, which have tended to be BBC, have seen alternative programming air instead.

And the ITV strikes of the 3/4 channel era are well documented but were there any significant BBC strikes in that era aswell?

The December 1978 strike at the BBC was probably the worst one for them, when both BBC One and BBC Two were totally blacked out on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd December 1978 - there had been wild cat strikes leading up to those two days of no BBC television what so ever.


Friday 22nd December 1978 also affected BBC Radio, when all the union radio staff walked out and left a skeleton staff at BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place to put together an An Network Service, combining BBC Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 into one station from 4.00pm until 2.00am, by which time the strike was settled.


Yes, and the schedule is here.

http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2011/05/bbc-all-network-service.html?m=1

I do recall the combined service carried on again the following day (Saturday) from 6am until mid morning?
NL
Ne1L C
A-ha I think I've found it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETP-1
NL
Ne1L C
Markymark posted:
JKDerry posted:
Brekkie posted:
When is the last time a strike ended up with blacked out screens. Certainly the more recent ones, which have tended to be BBC, have seen alternative programming air instead.

And the ITV strikes of the 3/4 channel era are well documented but were there any significant BBC strikes in that era aswell?

The December 1978 strike at the BBC was probably the worst one for them, when both BBC One and BBC Two were totally blacked out on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd December 1978 - there had been wild cat strikes leading up to those two days of no BBC television what so ever.


Friday 22nd December 1978 also affected BBC Radio, when all the union radio staff walked out and left a skeleton staff at BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place to put together an An Network Service, combining BBC Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 into one station from 4.00pm until 2.00am, by which time the strike was settled.


Yes, and the schedule is here.

http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2011/05/bbc-all-network-service.html?m=1

I do recall the combined service carried on again the following day (Saturday) from 6am until mid morning?



YTV was on strike over Xmas '78!

http://boggenstrovia.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-christmas-that-nearly-wasnt-bbc.html
JK
JKDerry
Ne1L C posted:
Markymark posted:
JKDerry posted:
The December 1978 strike at the BBC was probably the worst one for them, when both BBC One and BBC Two were totally blacked out on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd December 1978 - there had been wild cat strikes leading up to those two days of no BBC television what so ever.


Friday 22nd December 1978 also affected BBC Radio, when all the union radio staff walked out and left a skeleton staff at BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place to put together an An Network Service, combining BBC Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 into one station from 4.00pm until 2.00am, by which time the strike was settled.


Yes, and the schedule is here.

http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2011/05/bbc-all-network-service.html?m=1

I do recall the combined service carried on again the following day (Saturday) from 6am until mid morning?



YTV was on strike over Xmas '78!

http://boggenstrovia.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-christmas-that-nearly-wasnt-bbc.html

Yes, Yorkshire Television was blacked out for the whole Christmas 1978, with the festive shows airing in January 1979 instead. Amazing to think that a whole region of the UK at one point had no television service at all, not one channel available (unless they were lucky enough to pick up the signal of a nearby region).
NL
Ne1L C
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.
JK
JKDerry
Ne1L C posted:
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.

Some houses did have different aerials on their roof. One pole, with possibly three aerials on it pointing in different directions.

That was the norm in Ireland, where many homes had an aerial to receive RTE and a separate one to receive the UK channels.
MA
Markymark
Ne1L C posted:
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.


There would have been a fair number of second aerials looking at Bilsdale (for Tyne Tees) as (as we all know) has an embarrassingly large overlap with Emley
MA
Markymark
JKDerry posted:
Ne1L C posted:
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.

Some houses did have different aerials on their roof. One pole, with possibly three aerials on it pointing in different directions.

That was the norm in Ireland, where many homes had an aerial to receive RTE and a separate one to receive the UK channels.


Yes, I lived in a three region overlap area, (London, South, Midlands), quite rare, most houses used two of those regions, I was the only person I knew who had Midlands too as a third (bit too exotic for Hampshire presumably)
NL
Ne1L C
Markymark posted:
Ne1L C posted:
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.


There would have been a fair number of second aerials looking at Bilsdale (for Tyne Tees) as (as we all know) has an embarrassingly large overlap with Emley


I used to get a good-ish Tyne Tees signal with a little knob Wink twiddling
NL
Ne1L C
JKDerry posted:
Ne1L C posted:
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.

Some houses did have different aerials on their roof. One pole, with possibly three aerials on it pointing in different directions.

That was the norm in Ireland, where many homes had an aerial to receive RTE and a separate one to receive the UK channels.


Didn't you have any problems with co-channel interference?
:-(
A former member
This is an outstanding tweet Very Happy



JK
JKDerry
Ne1L C posted:
JKDerry posted:
Ne1L C posted:
And I'll bet there weren't many adjustable aerials either.

Some houses did have different aerials on their roof. One pole, with possibly three aerials on it pointing in different directions.

That was the norm in Ireland, where many homes had an aerial to receive RTE and a separate one to receive the UK channels.


Didn't you have any problems with co-channel interference?

Part of my family lived in County Donegal, and I remember when visiting them in the early 1990s and they had one aerial to pick up RTE1 and RTE 2 from Holywell Hill RTE transmitter, and another pointing towards Londonderry where they received the then four main UK channels, and I remember all six channels were fantastic signal quality.

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