UTV strike 1990s?

Bit nerdy - but don't suppose you'd have a photo of this piece of kit? The character set is almost identical to the Mode 7 (teletext mode) 'Double Height' set on the BBC micro - with the exception of the uppercase 'T', which was altered slightly.

IBA switching would also explain the appearance of the IBA-branded ETP-1 at closedown during the strike. I don't believe this testcard had ever appeared on UTV prior to this, or since.

Not quite. If a programme was due to be transmitted from the originating company and that company was off air due to strike action, then the receiving itv companies could only fil the time slot locally. Assume for example Granada was off air due to a dispute, they couldn't bus a coronation street episode to Yorkshire and get them to transmit it on their behalf to the itv network - the half hour slot would have to be filled locally at each itv company with local material although of course that could be some half hour us sitcom but it had to come from a local ITV machine. Yorkshire couldn't transmit a half hour us sitcom to the network.

Only if you wanted to have an entire actt walk out! But as others have already posted, during genuine technical difficulties it was always a case of giving as much assistance as you could to the company having problems. It could be your turn next after all.

I think the STV studios fire was in 1969. I think they were helped by both Border and Grampian. STV, for instance, showed the late night film which Border were screening rather than the advertised movie. On the other hand when the Border studios were put out of action (power supply problems I think) after flooding in Carlisle, Tyne Tees local news bulletins were screened. That was in January 2005. Bacl in the 80s there was a Wednesday evening when Border stopped at 8p.m., just after Coronation Street. Technicians had walked out over manning levels. After a minute or so of a blank screen an IBA caption appeared informing us that there would be no further programmes on the channel that night. I also recall, in BBC terms, an on-screen caption superimposed on the programme with the information "BBC 2 Selkirk on very low power" Selkirk was a maintenance base for the BBC but I don't know whether that caption was inserted there or at Black Hill.

Thanks for the clarification. I was going to query this point, as I didn't remember blank screens around the network during the various disputes at Thames in the 80s. I can't remember what TTT viewers saw in place of The Bill, TV Eye etc, but it was obviously something generated locally (and probably an import). So the other companies weren't even allowed to share content, eg. Central couldn't have played an episode of a US comedy off their shelves which HTV and Anglia latched onto for convenience?

As an aside, I remember Tyne Tees being totally blacked out one Friday in August 1985, with further industrial action set to follow in September, which didn't happen in the end. Was this a technicians' union strike, can anyone recall?

If I find the time today I will update on the reasons behind the 1987 Ulster Television strike and the contingency plans that were implemented. The full story is contained in the official 50th Anniversary book from UTV.

I'm away from home at present, I'll post some shots over the weekend

I don't recall that book going into a huge amount of detail - it did give some context though. There was a great deal of frustration within UTV management at the power of the local unions. The book covered management's secret strategy of sending certain management figures on production courses to gain technical knowledge/expertise so that they were better equipped in the event of a walkout. In those days, managers being involved in anything remotely technical was simply not tolerated by unions, so managers wouldn't have been allowed to play about with equipment in the technical areas.

That particular strike was caused by the sacking of one of the main shop stewards, who was out on sick leave but still working in the pub he owned. The sacking of such a powerful union figure was an unprecedented move within the ITV network; needless to say it was promptly followed by a staff walkout. Initially, there was three days of black screens. During this time, managers were familiarising themselves with the equipment in the various technical areas. Management had also secretly been buying copies of programmes/films - such as the sci-fi series 'V' (the book claimed the tapes were stored in someone's garage). Anyway, after a few days, they got a limited service (of about 5 hours per night) up and running.

Ulster Television's big chief at that time - Brum Henderson - had been critical of various on-air mistakes during the strike. His almost daily memos to his most senior managers were not passed on to the others, for fear of damaging morale amongst the managers who were keeping the channel on the air.

The book did mention that when a strike is called, "the network signal would be cut by the unions" before they walked out. No real efforts were made by management to reinstate the various feeds as it was deemed a waste of time because other ITV companies wouldn't want to get involved in UTV's union issues. In saying that, I am almost certain that they got 'Coronation Street' back on the air (albeit shown later in the evening than on Network) before the end of the strike.

Some advertising was re-instated as well. The arrangement meant that some advertisers could get more slots than they had paid for.

Staff returned to work after two weeks or so, with no pre-conditions. Little did they know that the folks running the channel for the last two weeks were pretty much exhausted and probably couldn't have continued much longer (this extra evening work was in addition to their normal daytime shift). But, now that managers had gained enough technical expertise to run a service, staff walkouts no longer posed the same threat.

Union/management relations subsequently improved. I can't recall any further strike action at UTV since.

Here we are. The Blue crate is the IBA Caption Gen. Ignore the Vistek box, it also came from Pontop but I don't know what its function was, 1990s vintage, it and its coder possibly replaced the 70s vintage IBA crate. As said, I really must get it all working, the PSUs in all three crates appear to be dead

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ihb5heqql1e1jrv/2015-05-08%2018.51.21.jpg?dl=0

[quote="RJG" pid="957771]
I think the STV studios fire was in 1969. I think they were helped by both Border and Grampian. STV, for instance, showed the late night film which Border were screening rather than the advertised movie. On the other hand when the Border studios were put out of action (power supply problems I think) after flooding in Carlisle, Tyne Tees local news bulletins were screened. That was in January 2005. Bacl in the 80s there was a Wednesday evening when Border stopped at 8p.m., just after Coronation Street. Technicians had walked out over manning levels. After a minute or so of a blank screen an IBA caption appeared informing us that there would be no further programmes on the channel that night. I also recall, in BBC terms, an on-screen caption superimposed on the programme with the information "BBC 2 Selkirk on very low power" Selkirk was a maintenance base for the BBC but I don't know whether that caption was inserted there or at Black Hill.[/quote]

The 1969 fire: the transmitter at Black Hill had a slide scanner and a microphone, so the announcer - Drew Russell - was able to voice over some rudimentary captions between programmes. Black Hill had a network feed, so the Post office was able to switch programmes direct to the transmitter. They carried the 6pm edition of Granada Reports, which led with film of the STV fire which had been processed locally and then - if memory serves correctly - fed down the line from BBC Scotland's facilities at Queen Margaret Drive. It was a case of taking the scheduled programme if possible, and if not, whatever might be available from one of the two network lines.

I was at STV when a digger tore through the links from Cowcaddens to Black Hill, and on that occasion (as again when there was a power failure at Cowcaddens) Black Hill switched to an off-air feed of Grampian, rebroadcasting the Angus transmitter. There were receive aerials on the 1,000 foot mast which provided good quality rebroadcastable feeds of both Grampian and Border and latterly, Ulster as picked up at Darvel and fed by microwave to Salsburgh. When Grampian was rebroadcast, it included their commercials and continuity. I also recall the reverse happening at least once when a power failure knocked out Queen's Cross and Grampian viewers were switched to STV.

It is worth pointing out that until the advent of a common "ITV" programme, there was no actual "network feed" as the netrowk was reconfigured during the end break of every programme, and if you simply sat on that you might get crashes and splashes and perhaps not the programme you expected. Most stations had two incoming lines, one of which would normally be used for the fully networked programmes like Coronation Street. The other would carry feeds when regions took varying schedules - STV would take "Crossroads" from Southern for example as they shared a 1720 TX time, along with HTV. On very rare occasions, both network lines were busy and STV would take a particular programme from a third line that was fed a circuitous route through the Borders.

The BBC's UHF transmissions from Selkirk were simply a rebroadcast of Black Hill, so the caption would probably have originated at Queen Margaret Drive, as I don't think Black Hill had caption injection facilities for the BBC. In the days of 405 lines, all ITV main stations could radiate a Test Card that carried the legend "Reduced Power", and major BBC stations could do the same. However once UHF transmissions began, it was an expensive business to instal a dedicated colour slide scanner so there were fewer of those around. That was why the BBC (initially) switched to using the electronically-generated PM5544 card in the regions, as the generator for this was cheaper to instal and required almost no maintenance.

Was it possible in some parts of Northern Ireland to pick up the Scottish TV signals on analogue, such as BBC Scotland and, more appropriate for this thread, STV or Border? If so, then I suppose for viewers that may have been one way for them to get around the disruption, by simply tuning a spare button onto STV or Border?

Cambret Hill near Creetown in Dumfries was receivable in parts of Northern Ireland, but that (or any other
transmitter) would have required a dedicated aerial in most cases to yield a watchable picture