When all you had was BBC1 and BBC2, both of which were virtually nonexistent in the daytime hours, and Westminster was still debating the future of a possible fourth channel, the absence of ITV was hard to ignore.
@@rajnirvan3336I'm too young to remember newsreaders like Leonard. And i don't remember the evening bulletin at 5.45 i only remember it at 5.40 before it moved to 6.30 in 1999
ITV national emergency service recommenced on Wednesday 24th October 1979. The following day most ITV regions came on air just before 1.00pm when the News at One kicked off their full day schedule after the strike. The first morning schedule commenced on Friday 26th October 1979 at 9.30am.
It has always bemused me as to why the number one concern during any national crisis since 1960 has invariably been the affect it has upon Coronation Street.
My guess is that in a crisis, Coronation Street was seen as an escape from the bad news of the day so anything that affected the airing of that show felt big.
For viewers and listeners in Northern Ireland at this time, they had a bit more luck, as most in the province could pick up the Republic of Ireland's RTE One and RTE Two television channels as well as RTE Radio, so along with BBC One and BBC Two many in Northern Ireland had some choice when this strike was on.
At the time people were disappointed as it was all repeats apart from 321 and Coronation St. For some time afterwards it was a slow climb back to normality.
The whole country breathed a sigh of relief when ITV returned after nearly 11 weeks off air. ITV people forget were the only television channel which aired a proper daytime television service, BBC One was really fragmented schedules for daytime and BBC Two was virtually non existent during daytime hours. Only ITV were on the air most days from 9.30am.
@@scottwebb1978 or course because BBC can provide full time broadcast. They even have local news, so yeah, they could change channel to BBC 1. If BBC is on strike as well then we can use Internet for local news, but it will be harder.
@@scottwebb1978 Yes - but it was very different in those days, 'cos there were only two other channels - BBC1 & BBC2, & BBC2 went on a "trades transmission" for most of the morning, so no ITV essentially meant up to 50% less tv. Remember also that the trade unions were more powerful in those days. How many tv stations have you heard of striking since the mid 1980s??!!
@@michaeledwards8267 Yes, in 1983 breakfast television finally arrived in the UK on both BBC 1 and ITV. Some ITV companies did experiment with opening slightly earlier than 9.30am, usually at weekends, for example London's LWT sometimes started their Saturday at 8.20am.
We were only allowed to watch ITV when I was a kid - then, the ITV strike meant we watched BBC. When ITV came back we were allowed to change channels as much as we wanted. I've always found myself to be in the minority to have mourned the end of Magpie when everyone else was all about Blue Peter.
10 years old me in 1979 couldn't wait for ITV to come back! I used to get in from school, switch on our old valve telly and see; "Due to industrial action..." etc etc night after night. Apart from Grange Hill and a few other things, BBC's output didn't compare. PLUS...ITV showed adverts!! The main reason I visit this site these days. I missed all my fave shows like Ghosts of Motley Hall (wiv Arfur Inglish, sheila Steafal, etc.) The Professionals, The New Avengers, Sale of the Century, Hawaii 5 0, and the Muppets of course. But...looking at that schedule...Oh dear. :-(
Today ITV is merely an airtime sales company with very little made in-house and all independent production. Reality show after reality show after reality show, local output whittled down to news bulletins and politics, no regional individuality and everything networked...it's shameful indeed.
When ITV came back from the strike it relied on continuity from London (Thames, LWT) for a while, with the generic ITV branding. I think it’s very similar to what we have today, in a permanent occassion.
@@sillygoose635 Oh yes it is! Do you honestly think cr*p reality shows and cheap formats and a constant recycling of repeats in the ITV film archives constantly shown, many a zillion times by an automatic scheduling computer, make good television?
The music used in this is great, really shows how much people cared for ITV back then! Wish there was an instrumental but sadly there seems to be no such thing
Here is a typical emergency schedule from Channel Television during the strike - Monday 1st October 1979: 1.20pm-1.30pm Channel Lunchtime News. 5.00pm Puffin's Birthday Greetings. 5.05pm Clue Club. 5.30pm Lost Islands. 6.00pm Report at 6 Extra. 7.00pm Fishing with Bernard. 7.30pm Channel TV Documentary: The Living Land. 8.30pm TV Movie: The Abduction of St Anne. 9.50pm Channel News followed by Jericho. Closedown at around 11.00pm.
Today Thursday 24th October 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the return of ITV after the strike - what a day that was in 1979, for millions of viewers who were sick to the back teeth of the dismal offerings on BBC One and BBC Two, especially their daytime schedules (or lack of).
Wow I can remember this at the time! I was 9, and everyone was looking forward to ITV's return. After being stuck with BBC1, and BBC2 which was off for most of the day...and even when it was on would be showing horse racing most of the time!!
I was 7 at the time and remember all this vividly too. ITV wasn't blacked out as such, I recall. A blue screen with a caption (can't recall the exact wording, but it was an explanation that no ITV service because of industrial action) would be transmitted for most of the usual broadcast hours of a typical day back then (roughly 930am to 1am-ish). No music either, which I remember being a bit of a shame as I quite liked the emergency standby tunes when there was a technical breakdown (usually Stranger on the Shore or the theme from the Paper Lads - as the latter was a Tyne Tees kids' show and that was my ITV region. not sure if this music was played in Tyne Tees only? ).
+Joanne Gray I don't remember those tunes myself, must have been a regional thing! I was Thames/LWT. I miss those ITV regions and their own theme tunes - I like the very loud ATV one!
I miss all the old station idents too. Yes, ATV was one of my favourites and I also liked the Thames ident - both usually meant something worth watching like Sapphire and Steel or Crossroads (ATV) or The Tomorrow People from Thames. Happy days :)
+Joanne Gray I liked the novelty of seeing the idents of the very small regions (whose shows didn't get broadcast on Thames very often) like TVS and TSW; usually some farming programme! Ha ha loved this era!
even back then they knew their audience were so thick they had to keep repeating the schedule, not much has changed, still the only channel that had better output when it was off air, can but dream :)
I suppose that evening's schedule had been put together a day or two before ITV restarted, using programmes already "in the can" plus a film. Don't forget, there almost certainly wasn't a TVTimes for that week, so viewers couldn't look in their TVTimes for that evening's emergency schedule. The only place you would have found that evening's national schedule in print would have been a daily newspaper for that particular day; I remember the TV page of that day's Daily Mail had BBC1, BBC2 and ITV Network listings (ITV Network being what was shown on the trailer listing at the start of the evening).
I remember this I was just 12 it's funny to think my mum was a year older than I am now and my dad a year younger they have both have past away now sadly
I'm way too young (and too much a foreigner) to have known this but, knowing the context and reading comments, I guess it would have been exciting to see this on the telly screen at the time
If you call showing the occasional police appeal to help catch the Yorkshire Ripper broadcasting then I suppose Yorkshire Television still ‘broadcasted’ during the strike..,
ITV Emergency National Schedule for Friday 26th October 1979 started at 9.30am. Prime Time there was - 6.35 Crossroad 7.00 Mixed Blessings 7.30 3-2-1 8.30 Cannon and Ball Show 9.00 Best Sellers: Ike Part 3. 10.00 News at Ten 10.30 Best Sellers: Ike Part 4. 11.15 until around 12.45 Local Programming variations with close down at around 12.45am.
This isn't how I remembered it as we were about to get into the car for a trip up North. HTV had their opening sequence. Switching over to ATV on Channel 12 VHF showed their IBA ATV opening slide. Presumably, what's seen here followed the opening sequences. The next day we were in the Tyne Tees region. Their opening sequence pre-ceeded News At One presented by Martyn Lewis who said, "It's good to be back".
ITV Emergency National Schedule for Thursday 25th October 1979 started at 1.00pm. Prime Time there was - 6.35 Crossroad. 7.00 Survival Special 8.00 Best of Benny Hill 9.00 Best Sellers: Ike. 10.00 News at Ten 10.30 Best Sellers continued: Ike. 11.15 until 12.15am Local programming variation 12.15 approx Closedown.
I wonder what Channel Television showed that night as they had been on the air all through the strike. It would have been a bit odd to show all the 'welcome home' continuity.
+Robert W Yes, back in they day when no one had heard of a PC or laptop or the internet. In some ways it was better, a typewriter does not suddenly stop and crash on you, yes it might stick, but technology today seems always to be designed to annoy the crap out of you.
Over on BBC One on this night Wednesday 24th October 1979, when ITV returned their schedule was - 6.45pm: Angels. 7.10pm: Star Trek. 8.00pm: Mastermind. 8.30pm: Terry and June. 9.00pm: News. 9.25pm: The Risk Business. 10.00pm: Sportsnight. 10.50pm: Parkinson. 11.50pm: Late News and Weather with closedown at 12-Midnight. Over on BBC Two on this night there was - 6.20pm: International Snooker. 7.20pm: News. 7.30pm: Roundabouts. 8.00pm: The Book Programme. 8.30pm: Discovering English Churches. 9.00pm: M*A*S*H* 9.25pm: Ripping Yarns. 9.55pm: The Camerons. 10.50pm: International Snooker. 11.30pm: News. 11.40pm: The Grapevine with closedown around 12.05am.
Here is ITV's national emergency schedule for their first Saturday back after the strike on Saturday 27th October 1979. 9.30am: Local Programmes. 10.30am: Tiswas. 12:30pm: World of Sport. 5.05pm: News. 5.15pm: Disney Cartoons. 5.30pm: Mind Your Language. 6.00pm: Film, Gold, starring Roger Moore. 8.15: Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse. 9pm: The Professionals. 10pm: News. 10.15: Film, The Last Detail. 12.15 Closedown.
Because it was. The emergency network service was cobbled together to get ITV back on air as fast as they could, so Thames Television headquarters was the key base to use for the national schedules.
Hi - I see you have the start of the Muppets here. Do you have the opening scene of the Crossroads Episode so that I can try to work out the episode number?
You might enjoy this, a rare clip of Noele Gordon introducing the first episode after the strike. Sadly no clips or archive of the episode are available on RU-vid. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3f7UlJhi5J4.html
People watching News at Ten were angry at early cut offs on Tuesday 7th August 1979 and the technicians switched the power off because of an overtime ban by their union leaving us with nothing other than a white on blue caption apologising for the loss of service (my parody stories say that this was accompanied by music).
If the local ITV company did not provide any local content before the national startup, this is what was seen. It is known, however, that some did - HTV and YTV for sure.
The whole first week was a national network service. Usually the network ITV was really flexible but after the strike the only logical way was to have a central schedule from Thames on weekdays and LWT at weekends, which the other regions could then move around. It was early November 1979 before all regions were up and running fully again.
+Robert W Yes, ITV were usually on the air from 9.30am each day, but I think the strike only ended the day before, and it took ITV a while to get going again so 5.45pm was the time chosen to begin, also it was the time for their early evening news, and the start of prime time.
I agree with you Paul. The connuity announcer was Peter Mashall and the announcer and the clock came from Thames Television in Euston. Do you know Paul if there is video from the next morning? Disabled UK Carrer. GOD BLESS
+garry simpson I don't think there is any video, I have been searching, but nothing. Probably only this date was recorded as it was important date. ITV would have resumed at 9.30am the following day, commencing with Schools programmes as usual.
+John King Thanks John. As a 14 year old I remember the first night,but then I went back to School and partying. There were two other ITV disputes after this. A four week strike which took ITN off the air for four weeks in 1980 and a one week strike which took THAMES off the air for one week in 1983 but not LWT. Not so HAPPY DAYS. From the New Forest. GOD BLESS!
Americans look at UK television and are shocked at the amount of strike action that took place on all the channels. I remember my mum telling me of her friend from Los Angeles arriving in London in 1981 and stayed with her. One morning he came downstairs for breakfast at 7.00am, turned on the television and was shocked that there was no television on at all on the three channels. My mum had to explain him that breakfast television did not exist then in the UK, and that television in the morning on both BBC1 and ITV would not be on until 9.30am, and for the first two hours it would just be schools programming. The look on his face she said was a wonder, he said "My God, I never knew England was as far behind us by this much", as NBC, CBS and ABC all day proper daytime shows from 7.00am for many years. I think NBC launched the very first breakfast programme called Today, in 1952. Amazing isn't it?
+John King Certainly was John. As a 50 year old disabled man,I blame [the late] Alain Sapper head of the ACTT for the endless strikes on ITV during the 1970"s and 80"s. The late Lady Thatcher was right in curbing some and I stress some union rules. It cetainly helped television in the 1980"s Channel Four and the independent compnies that they spiurned,SKY,BSB,Murdoch and BT Your friend from Los Angeles would note the difference now.It also helped here in the South when Southern lost it"s franchise to TVS in 1982. Do I miss Regional ITV no it was of it"s time. What ITV Region were you in John?
I was born in Northern Ireland, so Ulster Television (UTV) was my first region, but our family moved to England, so Thames/LWT was also a region I know very well. I am from Derry, and Peter Marshal the announcer on Thames was from the same city as me,.
4:13, why is the reporter pretending to be listening to them with houses behind him where there are no houses on the other side of the road, it was the factory
@@stevek6432 After all these years it's impossible to know, but perhaps the reverse shot wasn't possible because it would have shown something behind that shouldn't have been there. I suspect time was very tight and nobody checked for continuity.
The programmes were far better than the guff that's on now. ITV INDEPENDENT TELEVISION every programme sponsored no business calling themselves itv Channel 3 would be more accurate.
You had BBC One and BBC Two, plus 4 national BBC radio stations and some local radio stations, plus the cinema. So you weren't stranded for entertainment during that summer?
