Black and white - ITV strike circa 1970

[johnstewart]

On the subject of black and white TV in colour periods; I wondered exactly what dates the ITV strike covered around 1970 to 71 where some prgrammes had to be shot in black and white?

Obviously if a colour restoration process could be applied to ITV series such as 'TIMESLIP'; the episodes made in black and white could not be restored as they were never colour in the first place.

This was covered some time ago but I'm curious to update on the details of dates and programmes affected. I know it included some of 'Bless this house' series 1; 'Timeslip' as mentioned, and possibly 'On the Buses'.

[Peter Elliott]

It affected "Coronation Street", "The Benny Hill Show", "On The Buses", "Please Sir!" and the 1970 Carry On Christmas special to name a handful. I believe it affected all shows made during a particular period which appears to be December 1970 to February 1971. I don't have precise dates.

These three Benny Hill shows were in black and white - 23-12-70, 27-01-71 and 24-02-71.

[hartley967]

Yes it is all been covered in a thread way back when, if you can find it..
basically the union action covered the period 15/11/1970 -15/2/1971. The dispute was actually something to do with
sound technicians IIRC.

In that period all VTR material was made in black and white.
Technicians outside ITV studios were under a different union so it did not affect them . So this explains why programmes like the Persuaders (in production at that time) and Anita in Jumbleland (Thames but recorded at Shepperton) were not affected.


It would be interesting to know if they retained colour cameras or used b/w ones?

[Peter Bradford]

I can only talk for LWT. All the usual 'colour' infrastructure was obviously retained but the colour burst was switched off on the output of the proc-amp feeding the studio(s) output to VT. 'Tantalisingly' all the colour information is on the video tape but with no recorded colour burst it cannot be recovered by any simple method. However, with today's very very clever technology I would have thought it might be possible to retrieve it - it would probably require a fair bit of ingenuity and research (beyond me) but I have a feeling it could be done - perhaps a PhD project for a computer/video/electronics student.

[hartley967]

red16v said:

I can only talk for LWT. All the usual 'colour' infrastructure was obviously retained but the colour burst was switched off on the output of the proc-amp feeding the studio(s) output to VT. 'Tantalisingly' all the colour information is on the video tape but with no recorded colour burst it cannot be recovered by any simple method. However, with today's very very clever technology I would have thought it might be possible to retrieve it - it would probably require a fair bit of ingenuity and research (beyond me) but I have a feeling it could be done - perhaps a PhD project for a computer/video/electronics student.

Red16v
Thanks for confirming that,I was never quite sure if they had reverted to a B/W studio or not. So as you say it must be still in there.

I dont know if you have seen this or not but its a great peice of LWT history from the old Aquarius programme

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yWXBIooTP4

[Deleted]

red16v said:

I can only talk for LWT. All the usual 'colour' infrastructure was obviously retained but the colour burst was switched off on the output of the proc-amp feeding the studio(s) output to VT. 'Tantalisingly' all the colour information is on the video tape but with no recorded colour burst it cannot be recovered by any simple method. However, with today's very very clever technology I would have thought it might be possible to retrieve it - it would probably require a fair bit of ingenuity and research (beyond me) but I have a feeling it could be done - perhaps a PhD project for a computer/video/electronics student.

Now that's an interesting prospect. I hadn't heard that was the case before now. Is the same process required as with the method of extracting colour signal from b/w t/rs or is the colour encoded in a different way? Does anyone know if this is feasible in the same way (even if in the long-term)?

[Peter Bradford]

laurencepiper said:

red16v said:

I can only talk for LWT. All the usual 'colour' infrastructure was obviously retained but the colour burst was switched off on the output of the proc-amp feeding the studio(s) output to VT. 'Tantalisingly' all the colour information is on the video tape but with no recorded colour burst it cannot be recovered by any simple method. However, with today's very very clever technology I would have thought it might be possible to retrieve it - it would probably require a fair bit of ingenuity and research (beyond me) but I have a feeling it could be done - perhaps a PhD project for a computer/video/electronics student.

Now that's an interesting prospect. I hadn't heard that was the case before now. Is the same process required as with the method of extracting colour signal from b/w t/rs or is the colour encoded in a different way? Does anyone know if this is feasible in the same way (even if in the long-term)?

I must explain straight away that this information was passed on to me by a studio engineer who worked for LWT at the time. But, as he was an experienced and respected engineer ( the simple explanation he provided was both elegant, simple and highly effective) I would very much tend to say what he said makes 101% sense.

Video tape and Telerecordings are very dissimilar. The directly recovered signal from a VT is very unstable 'timewise' and hence requires a significant amount of electronics downstream to get usable pictures. The presence of a colour burst on the recovered signal being of absolute paramount importance. Hence without it a standard VT would simply replay the tape in monochrome (which is what the striking engineers at the time wanted to achieve). To recover the information now, with more modern, sophisticated circuitry and computer techniques may be possible (?) The PAL colour signal exhibits certain inherent artifacts and armed with this knowledge a clever engineer (or more likely a clever electronics and computer engineer) might be able to come up with something.

[Deleted]

...i'm just thinking of all those strike affected episodes of classic dramas that it would allow us to finally see in colour...Public Eye, Budgie......Would anyone technical like to comment on feasibility? I'd have thought it was worthwhile sorting out a way forward (if it's possible at all) as it would free up a lot more material for release that has been ignored uptil now as there are "awkward" b/w episodes here and there.

[Stephen Doran]

Didnt some episodes of The Worker go out in b/w although made in colour?

[StevePhillips]

hartley967 said:

Yes it is all been covered in a thread way back when, if you can find it..
basically the union action covered the period 15/11/1970 -15/2/1971.

Don't think those dates can be quite correct as the strike hit the first "Upstairs Downstairs" episode VTR on 13/11/1970.

[rjg]

I don't know the exact dates but I do remember that anything transmitted during the "strike" was in black-and-white, even if it had been pre-recorded in colour. And, for a few weeks after it was resolved, quite a number of programmes were still in monochrome because they'd been recorded during the dispute. Slightly off-topic, though connected, I've recently been watching series 1 of Hadleigh on DVD. It's interesting that the episodes screened prior to the official ITV colour date of 15/11.69 are in black-and-white. I'd have thought, given the chance it might be repeated, they'd have been made in colour, especially since Yorkshire TV was colour-capable from day one in 1968.