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Channel Television during the 1979 ITV Strike

How did it continue broadcasting? (June 2019)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
JK
JKDerry
Ne1L C posted:
From looking at the schedules earlier it amazes me that they provided a balanced-ish selection of programmes.

If Channel Television had a decent access to the ITV archive in 1979, they could have filled their schedules a lot more with ITV shows, which I am sure would attract advertisers.
WW
WW Update
I finally managed to scan the missing page from Martin Mayer's description of Channel Television in 1972, so here is the entire passage. I know several people here know a lot about Channel, so I'm curious what the American author got right and wrong.

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NL
Ne1L C
Fascinating document. Thanks for posting.
NL
Ne1L C
JKDerry posted:
Ne1L C posted:
From looking at the schedules earlier it amazes me that they provided a balanced-ish selection of programmes.

If Channel Television had a decent access to the ITV archive in 1979, they could have filled their schedules a lot more with ITV shows, which I am sure would attract advertisers.


I think the unions would have kicked up a stink and walked out of CTV.
MA
Markymark
JKDerry posted:
Ne1L C posted:
From looking at the schedules earlier it amazes me that they provided a balanced-ish selection of programmes.

If Channel Television had a decent access to the ITV archive in 1979, they could have filled their schedules a lot more with ITV shows, which I am sure would attract advertisers.


Apart from the politics, they had no Quad VTR facilities, so anything on tape would have been out of bounds
NL
Ne1L C
And tape to film transference would be unlikely or even impossible.
JA
james-2001
Seeing as the people in the other ITV stations who would have been needed to run the VTRs and the telerecording equipment were also on strike.
RI
Riaz
JKDerry posted:
If Channel Television had a decent access to the ITV archive in 1979, they could have filled their schedules a lot more with ITV shows, which I am sure would attract advertisers.


Was there even an ITV archive in 1979? I think that individual ITV programme contractors maintained their own archives back then.
JA
james-2001
They still do, it's just they've all merged into one, apart from STV.
NL
Ne1L C
Probably not. I would imagine that YTV et al would have kept their own files.
FB
Fluffy Bunny Feet
james-2001 posted:
They still do, it's just they've all merged into one, apart from STV.


The only material kept locally will be the news archive tapes - increasingly it's stored in the cloud.
NL
Ne1L C
Riaz posted:
JKDerry posted:
If Channel Television had a decent access to the ITV archive in 1979, they could have filled their schedules a lot more with ITV shows, which I am sure would attract advertisers.


Was there even an ITV archive in 1979? I think that individual ITV programme contractors maintained their own archives back then.


I don't think the BBC starting archiving until the mid 70's

https://web.archive.org/web/20031231051424/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/timeshift/missing.shtml

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