Another fantasy that needs nipping in the bud.

Looking at 1985 episodes of Open All Hours, OFAH and Doctor Who doesn't deny what I'm saying.

At least, they weren't electronic captions by a long chalk!

BBC Engineering Number 84, October 1970 ANCHOR - BBC Designs Department Character Generator

Successor devices were in common usage over the next decade; changes in the role of Graphic Artists were agreed through normal channels of liason;

suggestion that any recognised Union activity had impeded the introduction and use of these devices is wide of the mark.

I can recall ANCHOR being used by Nationwide at Lime Grove quite one early on the 70s, but it took network news at TVC yonks to move away from cardboard and letraset. ITN were ahead of the game by several years there.

Not their fault because the BBC did not provide the right equipment but back in those days Brian Baker and his colleagues in News Graphics seemed to be using a John Bull printing set for the name captions.

The Thames strike of 1984 that had its roots in a dispute that led to ITV dropping their olympics coverage. Also there was the Thames production assistants strike of 1977 that led to ITV's coverage of the Silver Jubilee being cancelled.
I lived in the Border region in the late seventies and apart from the big 1979 strike, we had no ITV for three weeks in November 1978 due to a techs dispute. Also in 1982 there was another Border strike when the station suddenly went off air during a commercial break and didn't return for three weeks. Oddly enough in spite of its poor industrial relations record, Border was the most supported of the ITV regions.

Although ITV said it was the withdrawal of 16 countries from the games that made their minds up not to bother.
Worked in everyones favour though as with no Olympics to show ITV screened both of the V miniseries daily at 9pm for a whole week

I thought they introduced it earlier than that? The 1970 Election (June that year) includes electronically generated captions.

Like many things ... It takes time from when something is let loose from the development labs to when that technology is in widespread use...
Presentation moved away from cardboard captions in 1980 when pres A was refurbished ... And a chyron was installed ..
But even then all main block studios had rank cintel caption scanners (who remembers the magnetic effects when slides changed) and of course cardboard and roller captions.
But TC 3 and all following studio on refurb had cables permanently installed for a Ryley electronic caption generator to be wheeled in... This was from late 1970s.

ITV gave up covering the Olympics altogether after Seoul in 1988 because of production costs and always being beaten in the ratings by the BBC.

It really is unfair of you to pop up here now and then suggesting that 'management' may have good reasons not to dump existing technology before it was 'life expired'

its much more fun to make un-supported allegations against Trades Unions through a singularly personal interpretation of a filler on a Dr Who DVD.

But, it now looks as if I'll never discover who the other four people were who completed my 42 hour week after I had done my 8 hours.

not sure what you mean ....

Id laugh if they did that in 2013. Just imagine people not being able to watch their crappy little soaps or realitys.

The solenoid on the slide change caused the flying spot to wobble .....

So you could see that a new slide had been loaded....

On other topic ... It amazes me that there is so much expecting that the broadcasters replace everything every three years or so..... And Expect all studios etc to have the latest technology....

As you and I know it takes many years for lab prototypes to be engineered into production kit which then (may) get every where.

I don't recall ever seeing that effect. I worked on two Cintel slide scanners, I can't remember their 'mk' numbers after all these years! The first one had the two slide carousels mounted at 45 degrees to the horizontal and the two actual slide carriers at 45 degrees to that- so the slides were (properly) held at 90 degrees to the optical path. It was always important to carefully look at each slide before you put it in the carrier to ensure the emulsion and base were consistently in the same direction otherwise slides would go in and out of focus as you cut between them. The other slide scanner had the 'sprod' mechanism - not so reliable as the first one I encountered and had a tendency to jam up on occasion.

The Op. Cit. does mention dot-matrix generators being used by current affairs programmes;
I have no clear recollection of their use but when the script called for a 'name super' it was written as "TJ - Joe Bloggs"

TJ being TeleJector, a trade name derived from 'television' and 'projector', a device whereby a camera looked at the projected image of a transparency;

the use of 'TJ' was a bit like 'Hoover' and covered many devices; when ANCHOR was in service scripts moved towards "Anchor - Joe Bloggs".

A prototype many have been pressed into use for election coverage, I don't remember; my only recollection of that election was walking down the corridor
to Lime Grove canteen and being less than pleased with the result - I should think we'd just come off air with a Nationwide Special or whatever!

Imagine if a strike blacked out an entire series of The X Factor, I bet The Sun would be short of news for four months. However, an ITV strike now wouldn't make that much impact as people have so many other channels to watch.

A ten-year life was the norm, in my day, before Replacement of Worn Out Plant budgets kicked in, and even then the worn out plant was sent to the regions, or even TK38 - to try out prototype ideas;

that scheme had an ex-studio TJ machine that jammed continually and an ex-OB mixer; captioning by transparencies continued by a pair of ex-ITA Cintel scanners,
(which red16v and I have discussed in the past) but no wobbly spots there, I'm afraid.

Even the replacement film mixing area was built around the assumption of 'name super' transparencies held in SlideFile - note the name - and that was early 80s.

No resistance from the unions to Graphics folk bringing in their Astons instead!

Mention of Crossroads reminds me for some reason (I know not why) I was watching an episode, must have been back in the 70s and live. It was in the reception area when suddenly a camera with an ATV logo appeared in shot and hit the desk before retreating ! The cast carried on as if nothing had happened, old pros.

Some rejoicing if the X Factor was off air for spme reason.

B****y c**p!

We had 2 single & 1 twin bank Cintel slde scanners I think mk 2 or 3;s none of which I can recall showed that particular effect.
Maybe the CRT mounting was loose?

An interesting memory of the ITV strike of 1979 was something akin to Monty Python. HTV management in either Cardiff or Bristol locked the technicians out. A news desk along with a camera was wheeled out into a car park, along with a news reader, in an attempt to transmit a bulletin! The IBA pulled the plug on it, but I remember seeing BBC News footage that night from the car park, and just thinking of John Cleese!

and the only other big show on whould be BBCs 'Strictly Come Dancing' which would get higher than usual ratings!

I think the unions were going to put their point of view across and HTV management asked the IBA to take them off air they is how I remember it but it was a long time ago

The problem was the unions had too much power in the seventies and started to abuse it. British Leyland was a case in point, they had shop stewards with an agenda about starting a revolution and class warfare, while being bailed out by the government, and when not on strike, were producing rubbish cars that buyers began to avoid. Also to be fair managements in those days were autocratic and remote and tended to be as bad as the unions.