BBC and ITV Strikes

As far as Coronation Street was concerned, Thames did show extra episodes after the strike(s), playing it Monday to Thursday at 7.30 until they caught up. I assume they obtained tapes directly from Granada. Interestingly, because the programme was subtitled on Oracle, the subtitles were shown on page 399 (in the local part of Oracle) in London only for these episodes, as the normal national subtitle page 199 was being used, at least on Mondays and Wednesdays, to show subtitles for the episode going out on the rest of the network. I bet a few Thames viewers were bemused if they selected the normal subtitle page in error!

As for Crossroads, I don’t recall exactly but I suspect Thames may have shown extra episodes on Mondays until they caught up, but this would have taken quite a while if they were only catching up by one episode a week. Crossroads tended to be played out locally by each region and scheduled at different times, but normally everyone saw the same episode each day. There was a bit of part networking went on, so anyone who relied on the Thames feed would have had to make other arrangements while they were off air or playing catch up.

Thames remained behind with Emmerdale Farm until it took a break in the summer of 85, but they may have been behind at the time of the disputes anyway. It wasn’t until September 1985 that all regions were kept in sync with Emmerdale, though some still showed it at 5.15 for a while - and STV were still moving it around in the mid 90s.

Crossroads was still going out on different day on Thames until 1986? Ever since that six months delay back in 1968?

Anglia, Grampian and stv who kept emmerdale at 17.15 until jan 1988. When everyone had it at 18.30.

Was it? Are you asking us or telling us?

It deffo went out on different days compared to the network. Im juat not sure as to when it finally caught up.

Thames had no option but to show their own material when management operated, because if they had taken anything from another company, then the shop stewards there would have blaclked the programme in question and nobody would have been able to screen it. However, once the strike was over there would have been no problem recording material down the line.

Can you clarify that a little please Tony - am I right to say that you are talking about taking something played out by another company?

If a company happened to have something on tape that had been produced by another ITV company, would there be anything stopping them from playing it out locally in place of the advertised programme as far as the unions were concerned?

I'm guessing not - I assume the issue would have been with taking a live feed from another site - for example, showing Corrie live from Granada's feed. There's probably little that could be done to stop Thames playing out something they'd already recorded during "peacetime."

The 1984 Thames Television strike was interesting to watch. Unlike 1979, Thames continued with a management run schedule. It wasn't great, but at least they were on the air for the majority of the day. My question is, why couldn't a similar arrangement have been put into place in August 1979?

When the largest ITV strike occured in August 1979, all ITV regions except Channel Television went on strike, and no programming aired at all until October. Why didn't they put out a management run service, which they did in 1968?

You're right to say Thames were behind on Crossroads for many years after they dropped it for six months in 1968, but I think all regions were brought in line in 1972 - that was certainly the first time it was shown in all regions, as some still weren't showing it at all before then. I think some regions had to drop some episodes to catch up, and they recorded a recap to explain what had gone on.

Granada was the last ITV station to start broadcasting the series from Sept 72, YTV and TT were always off and on with it until that point aswell.

I had to go looking and Everyone had it on Tues/Weds/Thurs yet Thames had it on Mon/ Tues / Wed for most of the 80s.. ( The patten changed in 86 Mon/Wed/Thus ) I'm unsure why there kept it behide the network,

However, the strike in Aug/sept and oct/Nov resulted in xroads going out 4 times a week during all of Nov and Dec 84.

Mention was made on another thread about the two hour stoppage at Granada, which meant that the ITV Network couldn't show Corrie or World in Action. The transdiffusion youtube video shows how it was handled when Granada came back on air, and it also shows you what Central and HTV Wales showed in place of Corrie and WIA. HTV Wales I think showed Shelley and a programme with clips from American TV shows. Central showed something else.

The thing about Shelley is, that was made by Thames. Tony Currie mentions above about how, if Thames was on strike, if they tried to take a feed of a programme from another ITV company, the unions there would black in immediately. But, HTV Wales showed Shelley, which was made by Thames. I would guess that, as HTV Wales already had this in their library, and it was not a network feed, they were free to show this with no objection from the unions?

Why would that matter? Shelly was made by Thames? If it was a Granada programme then I could see a problem.