These British industrial actions are absolutely fascinating, because when American broadcasting strikes kick in, we never get anything this dramatic. The worst we ever get is more repeats and suits from the boardroom trying to run cameras on the news and talk shows. Somehow I always feel betrayed when things don't just break down completely.
@ChangeYourLife2010 I fully agree with you about ITV,given the fact that most of what they broadcast is shit,but thankfully there are other very good channels that I would never want to see go off the air.
@altfactor I remember in the mid to late `70s when both ITV and The BBC did shut down entirely for six weeks. I was too young to appreciate any wider consequences of the industrial action.
@Meanmanmartin2007 ITV technicians were instructed to walk out on strike by members of the ACTT over their refusal to accept a pay increase from 15 to 20 per cent, mainly brought about by the 1978 Winter of Discontent, and they had to sit it out over the following eleven weeks.
@SenhorBundy lol..jumpers for goalposts etc. We used to make camps in the woods etc which you wouldn't do now as The Daily mail would have you believe a paedo lives on every street corner.
No ITV for over 2 months Im sure a lot of people lived without this channel. I didnt watch so much tv then so I didnt miss anything only when it first came as I was home from residental School.
@Forestamtul Yeah, the only TV Britain had during the ITV strike was the BBC and nothing else. No Channel Four, no Five, and definitely no cable/satellite including Sky!!
ITV should go back to showing this- given their current output most of it is about as worthwhile, even if 20 million people disagree with me for a certain show...
Later that year the BBC went on strike just before Christmas - very annoying !
Their sign was almost the same but red with yellow writing on it. I remember going to my mates house & found him staring at it just waiting for the telly to come back !
Apart from Dr Who and the other odd exceptions, ITV had all the best shows back then. The Beeb seemed stuffy and bland by comparison. Do you have the "Welcome back to ITV" song?
July 23 is exactly 30 years since this strike began with a one-day strike,then region by region started walking out on August 6,and by August 10 1979 except for Channel Television,it was all ot until October 24 1979.
From an internet search, I've found out that 10 August was a Friday. I remember in August 1979, HTV West being off the air but Westward was still going. Mid afternoon one Friday, Westward also went off the air. That must have been 10 August then.
iremember this back in the day , i was 9 years old and i remember two month that seemed like 5 years passed :D thank god i had my atari console to keep me amused lol
Our friends in St. Helier deserve a medal for struggling on for ten weeks with no ITV network - they broadcast evenings only and plenty of repeats and filler, but they did make it all the way through the legendary strike of '79.
Don't forget "IBA Engineering Announcements" still was broadcast every Tuesday at 9.00 or so, unbilled in the TV Times or newspapers as usual. For most of us, that was the only thing on ITV for nearly three months. Happy days..
Even when they came back, a limited service was initially provided - Crossroads and Corrie had narrated refresher courses (Meg and Jill for Crossroads and Bet Lynch and Len Fairclough for Corrie).
There was a dispute once that only affected Tyne Tees for about a week - they could broadcast network output - but it affected commercials, local news and any network material shown regionally - during ad breaks, local news and after News At Ten, viewers got a caption saying "INDEPENDENT TELEVISION" - then underneath that, "Programmes will return iun just a few moments. Other disputes affected Aussie soaps - a dispute at Thames meant Tyne Tees didn't see The Sullivans and Sons And Daughters ...
... for some weeks (the other Aussie soaps weren't affected) - they picked them up from where they left off when Thames returned - Tyne Tees and Thames were at the same point on Sons And Daughters and The Sullivans and at the same point as Anglia on Sons And Daughters and The Young Doctors.
Grampian, STV, Border, Tyne Tees, Yorkshire, ATV, HTV Wales, HTV West, Westward, Southern, Thames/LWT, Anglia and Channel - all except Channel went off the air - they, apparently, showed old US reruns and stuff.
Forgot to mention Ulster Television, serving Northern Ireland - they and Channel rarely had network outings, apart from maybe the occasional contribution to the "About Britain" documentary strand - even Grampian and Scottish didn't make a lot of programmes for the ITV network - STV's major contribution was Take The High Road and Grampian mostly provided the Hogmanay shows.
Are yiu sure this is the original caption? Only I seem to remember two being used, one ending with 'we will give you further information tomorrow (and as we all know, tomorrow never comes!) and another in block capitals which closed with 'THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER PROGRAMMES ON THIS CHANNEL TONIGHT'
I agree with the sentiment about fakes here - but I can assure you this is not a fake. As has been mentioned, there were several captions used during the ten week (!) strike period.
Not quite - in the Tyne Tees region, we had one that said "We are sorry, but we are unable to bring you any further programmes on this channel today. We will bring you more information tomorrow". Later, the word "further" was removed - as there had been no programmes, the word was an anachronism, and "tomorrow" was replaced with "when we can". At one point, a Tyne-Tees version of the caption was broadcast, and underneath was a message saying that there would be engineering work.
Definitely real this one. I remember seeing this coming from the Emley Moor transmitter at the start of the 1979 strike. Strangely though, the Belmont transmitter which also transmitted the Yorkshire Television service used an electronically generated version so I'm guessing that these captions were generated directly from the transmitter itself.
BBC2 literally closed down during the day - all you had was BBC1 - even they had a test card sometimes. Usually sandwiched between the schools programmes and Play School! Or they'd give English viewers unsubtitled Welsh programmes!
The only two occasions I can recall with BBC disputes was one in 1978, which prevented Tomorrow's World and Top Of The Pops going out (TW at 6:50 and TOTP at 7:20 in those days) - can't remember what went out at 6:50 - but the edition of TOTP that went out was from one year ago that week. One time b4Xmas, there was a dispute which blacked out both BBC 1 AND BBC 2 - they just broadcast apology captions with Xmas tree decorations in the background - so the only channel available was ITV.
. . . except in Yorkshire. For two days at the same time the BBC was on strike near xmas 1978, Yorkshire Television went on strike. Which meant us poor unlucky people of Yorkshire had no TV for two days!
Well if you happened to be on the edge of Yorkshire, in the overlap with a neighbouring region, AND were able to get the neighbouring ITV region (Tyne Tees, ATV, Anglia) on a spare channel button (even if at a poorer picture quality), you could at least watch that.
yeah, but in most of Yorkshire, you can barely get another ITV region. Only Tyne Tees in parts of North and East Yorkshire. Here in north Derbyshire we can get an extremely weak Tyne Tees and Central signal (just about strong enough to make out he words "North East Tonight" and "Central News east" on the pictures)
Wow! I remember that! It was an old episode that had 'don't give up on us baby' by David Soul on, if my memory serves. How can I recall that from so long ago? I must have been 7. Isn't memory a weird thing?
These British industrial actions are absolutely fascinating, because when American broadcasting strikes kick in, we never get anything this dramatic. The worst we ever get is more repeats and suits from the boardroom trying to run cameras on the news and talk shows. Somehow I always feel betrayed when things don't just break down completely.
3zy 1 month ago
ITV=cheap jack tv filled with nobody's produced on the cheap to feed the sheep
xKyn0x 3 months ago
@xKyn0x Not that the BBC's much better these days.
aph1rst 1 day ago
@ChangeYourLife2010 I fully agree with you about ITV,given the fact that most of what they broadcast is shit,but thankfully there are other very good channels that I would never want to see go off the air.
RobW581 7 months ago
@ChangeYourLife2010 ITV1 still the top channel we all miss it if these happen again
abhudson14 7 months ago
At least the BBC stayed on the air.
Otherwise, all of British television would have been shut down, and that might have become a national crisis.
altfactor 10 months ago
@altfactor I remember in the mid to late `70s when both ITV and The BBC did shut down entirely for six weeks. I was too young to appreciate any wider consequences of the industrial action.
valarmanwe 2 months ago
dont do this again no1 channel beter than beeb any day
abhudson14 1 year ago
wasn't this the best thing to come out of the winter of discontent..
gbtv2009 1 year ago
This looks authentic, I've seen so many mocks.
Feisty1967 1 year ago
ITV has never reached this height since.
djh29971 1 year ago
Can someone remind me what this strike was over?
Also, wasn't there an instance in 1994 where BBC went on strike?
Meanmanmartin2007 1 year ago
@Meanmanmartin2007 ITV technicians were instructed to walk out on strike by members of the ACTT over their refusal to accept a pay increase from 15 to 20 per cent, mainly brought about by the 1978 Winter of Discontent, and they had to sit it out over the following eleven weeks.
cwilliams1976 1 year ago
@cwilliams1976 Thanks for explaining.
Meanmanmartin2007 1 year ago
No Channel Four, No Channel Five, No Sky Television, And No Digital TV IN 1979.
shirleygibson 1 year ago
@shirleygibson just down market bbc
abhudson14 1 year ago
I seem to remember this happening over the school holidays...not good when you only had 3 channels and you were 11 years old
pawnsacrifice1 1 year ago
@pawnsacrifice1 This strike took schools programmes off the air on ITV
cwilliams1976 1 year ago
@pawnsacrifice1
I thought your generation hung out with your friends more in those days?
SenhorBundy 1 year ago
@SenhorBundy lol..jumpers for goalposts etc. We used to make camps in the woods etc which you wouldn't do now as The Daily mail would have you believe a paedo lives on every street corner.
pawnsacrifice1 1 year ago
Better than anything ITV can produce now... :)
djh29971 1 year ago
Farewell to the strike!!!!!!!!!!!!
pancakeman22 1 year ago
No ITV for over 2 months Im sure a lot of people lived without this channel. I didnt watch so much tv then so I didnt miss anything only when it first came as I was home from residental School.
Forestamtul 1 year ago
@Forestamtul Yeah, the only TV Britain had during the ITV strike was the BBC and nothing else. No Channel Four, no Five, and definitely no cable/satellite including Sky!!
johnnyafairbanks 1 year ago
ITV should go back to showing this- given their current output most of it is about as worthwhile, even if 20 million people disagree with me for a certain show...
thelyniezian 2 years ago 7
Later that year the BBC went on strike just before Christmas - very annoying !
Their sign was almost the same but red with yellow writing on it. I remember going to my mates house & found him staring at it just waiting for the telly to come back !
Nearly two weeks he waited - sad bastard !
AnElephantsChild 2 years ago
vague memories of southern and westward being off and on during the week. must say though that eleven weeks of no itv would be brilliant nowadays
grav20 2 years ago 2
Apart from Dr Who and the other odd exceptions, ITV had all the best shows back then. The Beeb seemed stuffy and bland by comparison. Do you have the "Welcome back to ITV" song?
TheQuiet1 2 years ago
I guess that's probably a matter of taste...
thelyniezian 2 years ago
...but then, I was born in '85- what do I know?
thelyniezian 2 years ago
you have drawn this from my subconcious. i remember my mum saying the telly's on strike
LollieSmith 2 years ago
Imagine this with the bland itv blue square with ITV is currently off air. Best production yet.
pistak09 2 years ago 2
Anything is better than Mr. & Mrs, even the Blue Screen of death.
TashkentFox 2 years ago 3
Without doubt, the best output ITV ever produced!
drab100 2 years ago 43
This has been flagged as spam show
no doubt there
sebzim4500 2 years ago
No come on... The Sweeney and Minder were bloody good.
airscrew1 2 years ago
July 23 is exactly 30 years since this strike began with a one-day strike,then region by region started walking out on August 6,and by August 10 1979 except for Channel Television,it was all ot until October 24 1979.
scorpiofootiemad 2 years ago
From an internet search, I've found out that 10 August was a Friday. I remember in August 1979, HTV West being off the air but Westward was still going. Mid afternoon one Friday, Westward also went off the air. That must have been 10 August then.
TumbleTower 2 years ago
In those days with only 3 channels,we was struggling for entertainment-if ITV went on strike today,nobody would notice!!!
crusher19860138 2 years ago 2
How true!
UKSazzy67 2 years ago
iremember this back in the day , i was 9 years old and i remember two month that seemed like 5 years passed :D thank god i had my atari console to keep me amused lol
psycoticbastard 2 years ago
Excellent. Bring back the good old days!
simonwhu 3 years ago
Love this one!
blackcoffeenosugar 3 years ago
Our friends in St. Helier deserve a medal for struggling on for ten weeks with no ITV network - they broadcast evenings only and plenty of repeats and filler, but they did make it all the way through the legendary strike of '79.
Don't forget "IBA Engineering Announcements" still was broadcast every Tuesday at 9.00 or so, unbilled in the TV Times or newspapers as usual. For most of us, that was the only thing on ITV for nearly three months. Happy days..
EuroAlien 3 years ago 2
For the rubbish that channel shows today ITV can go on strike permantly as far as Im concerned
charlieboy7t5 3 years ago 34
What just the worst channel BBC I dont think so
abhudson14 3 years ago
@charlieboy7t5 I agree!
2FunnyVersionIV 1 year ago
@charlieboy7t5
LMAO. True words.
PrAnG2000 1 year ago
Even when they came back, a limited service was initially provided - Crossroads and Corrie had narrated refresher courses (Meg and Jill for Crossroads and Bet Lynch and Len Fairclough for Corrie).
arthurvasey 3 years ago
There was a dispute once that only affected Tyne Tees for about a week - they could broadcast network output - but it affected commercials, local news and any network material shown regionally - during ad breaks, local news and after News At Ten, viewers got a caption saying "INDEPENDENT TELEVISION" - then underneath that, "Programmes will return iun just a few moments. Other disputes affected Aussie soaps - a dispute at Thames meant Tyne Tees didn't see The Sullivans and Sons And Daughters ...
arthurvasey 3 years ago
... for some weeks (the other Aussie soaps weren't affected) - they picked them up from where they left off when Thames returned - Tyne Tees and Thames were at the same point on Sons And Daughters and The Sullivans and at the same point as Anglia on Sons And Daughters and The Young Doctors.
arthurvasey 3 years ago
What ITV channels were in existance at the time and did they all go off the air during the strike?
headphone355 3 years ago
Grampian, STV, Border, Tyne Tees, Yorkshire, ATV, HTV Wales, HTV West, Westward, Southern, Thames/LWT, Anglia and Channel - all except Channel went off the air - they, apparently, showed old US reruns and stuff.
arthurvasey 3 years ago
Forgot to mention Ulster Television, serving Northern Ireland - they and Channel rarely had network outings, apart from maybe the occasional contribution to the "About Britain" documentary strand - even Grampian and Scottish didn't make a lot of programmes for the ITV network - STV's major contribution was Take The High Road and Grampian mostly provided the Hogmanay shows.
arthurvasey 3 years ago
STV's contributions to the ITV network were regular, mostly in the Children's ITV slot.
AidanLunn 3 years ago
Are yiu sure this is the original caption? Only I seem to remember two being used, one ending with 'we will give you further information tomorrow (and as we all know, tomorrow never comes!) and another in block capitals which closed with 'THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER PROGRAMMES ON THIS CHANNEL TONIGHT'
bassclef38 3 years ago
It looks like a fake. There are too many fake UK TV idents and captions on YouTube - the people who make them are total wankers. :p
Jamiep84 3 years ago
I agree with the sentiment about fakes here - but I can assure you this is not a fake. As has been mentioned, there were several captions used during the ten week (!) strike period.
EuroAlien 3 years ago
Maybe different regions had slightly different holding slides... or did they? I'm actually curious about this.
TheKid965 3 years ago
Not quite - in the Tyne Tees region, we had one that said "We are sorry, but we are unable to bring you any further programmes on this channel today. We will bring you more information tomorrow". Later, the word "further" was removed - as there had been no programmes, the word was an anachronism, and "tomorrow" was replaced with "when we can". At one point, a Tyne-Tees version of the caption was broadcast, and underneath was a message saying that there would be engineering work.
arthurvasey 3 years ago
Definitely real this one. I remember seeing this coming from the Emley Moor transmitter at the start of the 1979 strike. Strangely though, the Belmont transmitter which also transmitted the Yorkshire Television service used an electronically generated version so I'm guessing that these captions were generated directly from the transmitter itself.
simmo5 3 years ago
I'm Sorry Because Of The Stansted Crash On
BBC ONE IN the late 1990s, CBBC AND Neighbours Moved To BBC TWO IN The
Afternoon untill Normal Programes.
shirleygibson 3 years ago
Boy I remember this! Stuck with just BBC1 and BBC2 - and BBC2 had a test card pretty much all day!
hyperwhizzkid 3 years ago
BBC2 literally closed down during the day - all you had was BBC1 - even they had a test card sometimes. Usually sandwiched between the schools programmes and Play School! Or they'd give English viewers unsubtitled Welsh programmes!
arthurvasey 3 years ago
Happy days then!
bluesbrother37 3 years ago
Have you got when BBC went on strike?
dacrlit 3 years ago
The only two occasions I can recall with BBC disputes was one in 1978, which prevented Tomorrow's World and Top Of The Pops going out (TW at 6:50 and TOTP at 7:20 in those days) - can't remember what went out at 6:50 - but the edition of TOTP that went out was from one year ago that week. One time b4Xmas, there was a dispute which blacked out both BBC 1 AND BBC 2 - they just broadcast apology captions with Xmas tree decorations in the background - so the only channel available was ITV.
arthurvasey 3 years ago
. . . except in Yorkshire. For two days at the same time the BBC was on strike near xmas 1978, Yorkshire Television went on strike. Which meant us poor unlucky people of Yorkshire had no TV for two days!
AidanLunn 3 years ago
Well if you happened to be on the edge of Yorkshire, in the overlap with a neighbouring region, AND were able to get the neighbouring ITV region (Tyne Tees, ATV, Anglia) on a spare channel button (even if at a poorer picture quality), you could at least watch that.
TumbleTower 3 years ago
yeah, but in most of Yorkshire, you can barely get another ITV region. Only Tyne Tees in parts of North and East Yorkshire. Here in north Derbyshire we can get an extremely weak Tyne Tees and Central signal (just about strong enough to make out he words "North East Tonight" and "Central News east" on the pictures)
AidanLunn 3 years ago
I meant if you happen to be on the edge of the Yorkshire region, on the overlap with Tyne Tees, ATV (as it was called in 1979) or Anglia.
TumbleTower 3 years ago
Comment removed
racrmimbpsvc 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
but sky wasnt about in 1979. dick,
petie127 3 years ago
Oh calm down, for f**k sake! I was reffering to something else.
racrmimbpsvc 3 years ago
Wow! I remember that! It was an old episode that had 'don't give up on us baby' by David Soul on, if my memory serves. How can I recall that from so long ago? I must have been 7. Isn't memory a weird thing?
dunkiep 3 years ago 2
Superb!! Got ma beer and munchies, and goin to sit & watch this till Pro-Celeb Hanging comes oan later :)
bigmanio 3 years ago 2