The ITV Emergency National Service was the management response to the near-complete
Independent Television technicians' strike immediately after the 1968 franchise changes took effect.
[Bowden-Smith, Kif ]
Strike Service
'' Vision On, 1 January 2002, accessed 1 June 2006
During the national ITV technicians' strike between 3 and 18 August 1968, the individual companies were off the air for several weeks and an emergency service was presented by management personnel with no regional variations. This was the first time that a uniform presentation practice was adopted across all regions. This did not happen again until ITV's first few days back on air following the
technicians' strike of 1979, which blacked out the channel for 75 days.
Presentation
All programmes played during the service were repeats or had been pre-made for forthcoming transmission. Other than continuity, there was no live material. The programmes were transmitted from the
ATV switching centre at Foley Street in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, while a team of ex-
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
announcers based in both
Teddington
Teddington is a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. In 2021, Teddington was named as the best place to live in London by ''The Sunday Times''. Historically in Middlesex, Teddington is situated on a long m ...
and Foley Street provided presentation.
The announcing team for the special service was mainly
David Hamilton, John Benson, Sheila Kennedy and
Philip Elsmore, who would all continue as
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
announcers when the regional services restarted at the end of the strike.
The service was mounted at short notice after several days of blank screens. The management team behind the emergency service had needed to create a quick and simple national presentation style. The term "Independent Television" was chosen for the temporary national station (as the term "ITV" was relatively little used until the 1970s) and a range of text-only captions also provided. No symbol was used – the
ident was simply the name in upper-case characters. A clock was borrowed from the studios at Teddington and the ABC triangle on the clock was mostly covered with tape.
Tuning signals
For the first three days of the service, an insert of the local "Picasso"
tuning signal was tried along with a
start-up tune before switching to the national output. To avoid confusion over regions, the
ITA provided the Foley Street centre with a copy of the blank "Picasso" containing no regional identifier. A version with the words "Independent Television" was commissioned but did not arrive until the final few days of the service and was only used briefly at the end of the period.
This short service was not wholly consistent in presentation, and opened on some days with Picasso card and ident, whilst on other days only the ident card appeared. A march ("Here Comes the Band" by
Robert Farnon
Robert Joseph Farnon CM (24 July 191723 April 2005) was a Canadian-born composer, conductor, musical arranger and trumpet player. As well as being a composer of original works (often in the light music genre), he was commissioned by film and ...
, which also featured in ''
The Prisoner
''The Prisoner'' is a 1967 British television series about an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village, where his captors designate him as Number Six and try to find out why he abruptl ...
'') was chosen as the daily opening music.
Advertising
With a national service being provided, all
advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
spots needed to be sold on a national basis. Therefore, a new
rate card
A rate card is a document containing prices and descriptions for the various ad placement options available from a service sector such as a media outlet.
Like the rack rate at a hotel, this is generally the maximum price that one may pay. Most a ...
was introduced, charging £2,000 for 30 seconds of advertising time before 7.00pm and £3,500 after 7.00pm.
Prior to the strike, a 30-second advert in the London region alone would have cost £1,200. Although large national companies benefited from the lower rates, local companies who had previously advertised in their relevant region only were unable to do so during the emergency national service.
As not all products or services advertised were sold nationwide,
commercial breaks were often included with a disclaimer stating that some items advertised may not be available locally.
Schedules
During the course of emergency management run to service the network would be on air each day from around 4.45pm and would continue until 11.45pm as filled with repeats, imports and movies. This would be near normal typical broadcasting hours in 1968 for ITV, as well as the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
were limited by the government to no more than eight hours per day of regular television programming in their regular daily schedules (with schools,
, religious and sporting coverages exempted from this daily limit).
Below is an example of one typical day during the strike on Thursday 8 August 1968:
* 4.40pm – ''Jimmy Green and his Time Machine''
* 4.55pm – ''
''
* 10.00pm – News from ITN
* 10.15pm – ''Cinema''
* 10.45pm – ''Destination Mexico''
* 11.15pm – ''The Variety Club'' from