ITV 1979 strike, effect on emmerdale storylines

I'd like to see a video of this. Does anyone know if such a thing exists online somewhere?

Here are some stills from an ITN news report about the return of ITV and therefore Coronation Street...
http://www.dl.netmx.co.uk/images/itncs/itncs0.png
http://www.dl.netmx.co.uk/images/itncs/itncs1.png
http://www.dl.netmx.co.uk/images/itncs/itncs2.png
http://www.dl.netmx.co.uk/images/itncs/itncs3.png
http://www.dl.netmx.co.uk/images/itncs/itncs4.png

She looks a bit old for Len <no suitable smilie>

Can't find a video of that Coronation Street but here's the first 15 minutes of ITV after the strike, including a report on the news from Coronation Street (the video of the stills above) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZvrWCIbpMU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpZXP5tigQs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w81MnwtAOcQ

thanks for those links Jez

notice in that report on corry, at 1:29, it shows the reporter 'supposedly' talking to len and bet in front of the Barlows, he has his back to the houses as well

wouldn't he have his back to the factory, or was it just too much effort to turn the camera round

nice to see the old set and surrounding streets though





what I meant was that corry would have been so many weeks ahead when the strike actually began so would have had X amount of episodes already made. When the strike ended they would not have started making new episodes immediately other wise they would have filming 12 week ahead of themselves.

I'm confused by the terminology of 'technicians' as being the people who broadcast the programmes as opposed to those who make the programmes. I was thinking they were making programmes which were then not being broadcast due to the strike

not all tv strikes bring the whole chanel to a stand still though, when there were BBC strikes in the 1980s programmes like Blue Peter came from an empty studio or programmes were done on different sets, like Saturday Superstore came from the Playschool set

also remember a musicians strike where BBC school radio programmes were broadcast but the songs were played with just a piano rather than a full orchestra
(they even had to put the strike in a episode of the Muppet show and just had Rolf the dog on playing the closing theme on the piano)

anyway thanks for all the info, rather oddly I remember putting ITV on during the strike and turning the volume full on and hearing a pedigree chum advert

ISTR how strange it was to see a clock simply branded as 'ITV' when the strike ended, rather than the Granada I was used to. Didn't Thames provide the all continuity on that first night back, and wasn't there a pan-regional service for quite a while as they got everything up and running again.

Yes, according to Leonard Parkin the national service was due to run until the start of the autumn schedules the following Monday but some of the regional news programmes started again the day afterwards.

That was Thames providing the national service on the first day, whether they continued doing it right up until the Monday I don't know - Friday night, Saturday and Sunday being LWT territory in normal circumstances of course. IIRC some of the regions came back earlier

HTV Wales showed their own clock into the News at 5.45, though it was a second slow. Arfon Haines Davies linked into the bulletin - I still have my cassette of the audio. Good grief.

stevek2: Let me explain a bit further. In 1979 everybody who worked in ITV had to belong to a union. The union that went on strike was the ACTT (Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians) and the term "technicians" was applied to all of their members. This included cameramen, sound men, VT editors, telecine operators, lighting, transmission controllers - the lot. When the technicians left the building, it was almost impossible to make programmes or transmit them. So the production of "Coronation Street" ceased for exactly the same period as there were no programmes on the screen.

I say 'almost' because during a strike in the mid 60s, the management at Border Television continued to provide a service of sorts, although it was anything but normal and included such gems as films running backwards and long gaps between items.

The strike began as a local dispute and slowly spread to the other companies, so for a period of about three weeks, some regions would have complete blackouts, others would find some scheduled programmes substituted at the last minute by a film series.

On the day the strike spread to the whole country I was duty announcer at STV, and at 2pm we were due to transmit a feature film that was networked to us from Yorkshire TV. I was told to introduce the film, but not what to do if it failed to run. About ten minutes to go and the senior management of STV were in Master Control arguing loudly with the Transmission Controller and the ACTT Shop Steward. At one point the Director of Programmes and Transmission Controller were arguing about what I was supposed to say. Over talkback, I said "Gentlemen - you will know what I've said when you've heard me say it on air!"

The film was 'laced up' in YTV's telecine so we could see six in the gate on the preview monitor. (It took five seconds for a film to get up to speed so the film would be set up with the leader showing the number SIX. When it rolled the film leader would count down to 4 then go to black for the final couple of seconds before starting) I knew that if the film stayed on the SIX then we weren't getting it, and the Union had 'blacked' any local substitute which meant we would have to go off the air.

Ignoring the standoff in the control room (where it was very tense indeed) I introduced the film. Nothing happened. So I said "Well,I'm afraid that due to an industrial dispute we're unable to bring you the film. it's a lovely sunny day outside so I suggest you go and enjoy it now and we'll be back with you at 5.15 for "Crossroads"!"

We faded to black and everybody marched out. Black Hill took control and put out the apology caption and music. Later the crew came back to go through the whole pantomime again. Black Hill switched back to Cowcaddens for a commercial break, my colleague Pauline Muirhead introduced "Crossroads" (which of course failed to run) and then we let Black Hill show the caption for half an hour. Then back to STV for another commercial break and Pauline apologised for the absence of "News at 5.45" and we were off the air for 12 weeks.

Pickets manned the entrance to the studios. Although my union (Equity) wasn't on strike we were told to stay at home to avoid confrontation with the ACTT pickets.

Twelve weeks later I was back in the chair on the night the strike ended. Although Thames undertook continuity for most of the regions, we did our own and opened up with the normal IBA Caption and music, and I did some in-vision continuity later although it looked a bit odd because the camera hadn't been lined up properly for 12 weeks. My first words on air were "As I was saying when I was interrupted, this is STV."

Only Channel Television stayed on the air during those twelve weeks. There, a local union agreement meant there was no dispute. Of course there were no network programmes either. But Channel's boss travelled to London and loaded up a vanful of film programmes. Channel would do their lunchtime news as usual from 1.20 - 1.30 and then close down until 5pm from which point they showed US and Australian film series (and episodes of "The New Avengers" with an hour-long "Channel Report" news magazine at 6. This included National News headlines. These were obtained by someone driving to the most northerly point of Jersey and painstakingly scribbling down the 5pm news from IRN that was broadcast on Radio Victory and could just be heard on a car radio!!

Len was married to Rita at the time - what would Reet say!

Thanks for postin, it's very interesting to hear about what happened from someone involved

I thought that the ACTT wasn't that broad in terms of the different jobs it covered (not as much as BECTU is today)_ am I right in thinking that there was a different union for electricians in those days?



I did read somewhere that the strike was averted at Channel because everyone realised that being so small it would probably go out of business if it went on strike

Have a read of TV Cream's top ten strikes: http://tv.cream.org/extras/strike.htm




There was a story about one ITV strike possibly one of Thames' in the 80's when the only thing broadcast apart from the caption was someone who sat in the announcers chair to try it out and 'accidently' got cut to air!

That is a Wonderful insight Mr Currie.

saying that who played out those commercial breaks? If it was the management why there never pushed the button to play "Crossroads" aswell.

Did STV broadcast that? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZvrWCIbpMU