ITV Colour Strike

The ITV Colour Strike was one of the more unusual union disputes faced by the ITV group of companies in the 1960s and 1970s.

Starting on Saturday 15th November 1969, the ITV companies had started to record and transmit in full colour although due to the high costs involved in the conversion of studios and transmitters, the roll out of colour television had, by November 1970, not been across the entire country with viewers in the regions covered by Westward Television, Border Television, Grampian Television and Channel Television still watching ITV in black and white.

In addition to the costs of electronics, colour television cameras at the time presented problems with changing hues and shades and longer recording time was needed. This, combined with the view by the main union involved – the ACTT (Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians) – that using new equipment should be monetarily rewarded by a 5% pay rise, led to an agreement to negotiate and also an understanding that technical staff would revert back to working with black and white equipment three months after the introduction of colour if a final agreement had not been reached.

By Friday 13th November 1970, just two days short of the first anniversary of colour, ACTT members refused to work with colour equipment and all recording and transmission – even of material previously recorded in colour – was in black and white from that day onwards.

As only a small percentage of viewers possessed colour sets, the main effect on the ITV companies was that they would not be easily able to sell their programmes to foreign television stations if the material was in black and white and this valuable income stream would be affected. Indeed, London Weekend Television were only able to sell the five episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs recorded during the dispute to PBS television in the United States of America in 1988, fourteen years after the colour episodes had made their debut there.

The strike was finally off on Tuesday 2nd February 1971 although colour transmissions didn’t re-start until Monday 8th February and even then material recorded during the dispute had to be shown in black and white, including episodes of famous series such as Please, Sir!, Budgie and A Family at War.

Coronation Street had two important storylines running during the dispute and viewers with colour sets had to watch the siege of Joe Donelli in No.5 and the death of Val Barlow in monochrome.