why do you say that?

Didn't some advertisers cut back on TV advertising after the strike because they had not seen any change in sales level even though no TV adverts going out.

I seem to remember that the unions' normal technique was to call a union meeting late in the afternoon so the 18:30 news programme would be lost if the management did not give in to their demands.

That was when the TV stations were more or less a closed shop, these days with so much automation in the studios, there might be a slight inconvenience but that is all.

In 1979 local TV (and I assume national too) was way overstaffed, I had a close friend who worked there and he as much admitted to me he had a dead cushy job with superb pay and not much to do. He enjoyed all this until a few years later when the company made him and many more redundant as studio automation took hold.

I find it amusing after months off air, the first programme after the news was The Muppet Show.

You'd think they'd have come back on with something really strong, but I guess no one know when programmes would return and it was a last minute schedule, hence the national presentation provided by Thames.

I am 100% sure there was a strike at the BBC near Christmas once. I recall waiting for BBC1 to start at lunchtime with my sister on Christmas Eve because there was an Elvis film going to be on. This would have been late 70's I think.

Yes, it was Dec 1978. BBC 1 and 2 were badly affected, and the four national radio networks were merged into one at the height of the dispute. It also coincided with a strike at Yorkshire TV, so people in that region had virtually no TV at all !

The ACTT (led by Alan Sapper) was a force to be reckoned with back then. As well as the ITV strike of 1979 they managed to get Border shut down for a few weeks in 1978 and again in 1982, in both cases due to rows over new technology.

There is also the famous episode a few years earlier at Yorkshire Television when instead of that evening's News at Ten viewers saw a handwritten note saying: "Yorkshire Television have threatened to sack us, we are going on strike. Goodnight."

I also refer you all to Glenn's excellent Transdiffusion article about the 1979 ITV strike which gives the background to this and other strikes which affected both ITV and the BBC:

http://www.transdiffusion.org/tv/insidetv/history/union

Which Is why bullying and intimidation at work places today
Is rife and it's thanks to her that it happens

BBC actually settled theif dispute on Christmas eve late
70s I remember sitting in front of it and the tv with my patents and brother and it came back on straigh away
The words came on like football results oops teleprinter we
All. Cherred as well I mean because other than that it would have monopoly

Reminds me of my favourite Peter Parker quote (that's not spiderman, but the Chair of British Rail)

"I was being aggressively interviewed by a reporter on the question of two men in a cab; all the time over his shoulder there were six men holding up a light!"

- ISTR as recounted to Robin Day on Question Time

Were viewers THAT angry ? Although I am sure that advertisers would not have been impressed, surely viewers of the era would have welcomed the opportunity to get out and get a life, rather than indulge some pathetic concoctions such as Crossroads or even Coronation Street.

At that time, the TV schedules weren't saturated with the soaps as they are today. Coronation Street only went out twice a week, on a Monday and a Wednesday. I seem to recall Crossroads only being broadcast three or four times a week. I'm not too sure about Emmerdale or Emmerdale Farm as it was then called. Now soaps dominate the schedules on the main channels and there is very little else on.

No, in fact my memory is no one really gave a monkey's other than the media itself.

Yes that's right! Its coming back now, the stations merging and Yorks on strike because we live in the area. No wonder we were desparate for beeb one to start.

Yorks must have been back on as well, but as you remember nobody watched ITV at Christmas then.

I am on a roll here. The ITV strike was responsible for the massive success of To The Manor Born, which started it's first series while the strike was on. It got mega ratings. I may be wrong.

What is your basis for making such an extraordinary claim?

No - it was an Avengers Mark One production although LWT co -produced their next series which was The Professionals

I wouldn't say the unions were resposnsible for Sky as Murdoch worked to his own rules and it was a long time after Sky started that they produced any signficant programmes of their own.

But the unions in the 70's were a complete joke and the ITV strike was basically the last straw that lead Thatcher to open up the industry as she did with other union lead organisations . It may have taken well over a decade to really make a difference but the advent of C4 with its publisher format rather than production showed how using independent companies could end the need for in house producers , directors etc and by the mid to late 90's much of the industry was working on a contract basis rather than for an ITV company and moving from one programme to another .
Had the unions had as much power I doubt we would have seen as many new channels starting up . Even in the 90's Equity still stood in the way of repeats and both UK Gold and Bravo had to go through the usual clearance hassle to air their archive shows.
If all the technicians and behind the scenes boys on the various channels were not on a contract basis there would still be the threat of walk outs from the unions .

Thankfully just as she did with the miners , power workers and print workers , Thatcher saw to it that the tv workers would never again be able to do something like the ITV strike.

The unions only have themselves to blame .
It may have taken over a decade after the strike but the tv workers were only one of the industries who discovered what goes around comes around.
Serves them right

What about the TVAM strikes? What was the situation there

Xmas 1978 was dark for ITV viewers in Yorkshire.
They were off air so networked YTV shows like 3-2-1 on Xmas day were replaced with infinitely better programmes like Space 1999.
But the main problem was for YTV viewers who were denied access to ITV's top Xmas shows which ended up being shown in January and February.
Strangely the Kenny Everett Xmas show that was aired on New Years Eve by ITV ended up on YTV on a saturday morning in February around 10am

BY then Thatcher had shown the country that the unions could be ignored .
Rather than stop broadcasting TVAM used amateurs and even presenters to run the station .
Once again it lead to a schedule far more interesting than what they should have been airing .
Batman , Happy Days etc got many more viewers than their usual news and chat rubbish.
IIRC the unions had to give up in the end as the workers were all sacked and slowly returned - can't remember how long it took though.
Thatcher heartily approved of Bruce Gyngells stance on the matter and when her auction format lead to TVAM losing the franchise to GMTV who grossly overbid she wrote him a letter of apology

Whilst the allocation of on-site car parking was a continuing item on the agendas of many local union-management
liaison meetings, the 'right' to a parking place was never a part of an individual Established Staff member's contract;

it is your tale that is 'absurd'.

Same as the newspaper industry, the unions only had to delay the print run for a short time and the morning papers would miss the trains so end up being pulped.

I thought the changes in the law ended much of the bullying and intimidation from the unions though it still happens in some industries, usually the ones with 'fat cat' union leaders on the highest salaries.