Not the nine o'clock news: strike hits BBC

BBC radio and TV programmes were disrupted yesterday as journalists across the country took part in a 24-hour strike in a row over compulsory redundancies.

About 30 members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) manned a picket line outside the BBC Scotland headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow. There were also pickets in Lerwick in Shetland, Inverness, and Edinburgh.

The NUJ has more than 200 members working in BBC offices and newsrooms across Scotland.

Programmes such as Good Morning Scotland and Newsdrive were off the air, the morning news programme replaced by Radio 4 news coverage.

Other programmes were cancelled or went ahead with different presenters.

Radio 5 listeners were given an on-air apology after the stand-in presenters mispronounced the name of the Welsh town Pontypridd.

BBC1 Breakfast programme was replaced by BBC News channel coverage, while Radio 4's Today programme began at 7am - an hour later than normal.

On 5 Live, meanwhile, regular Breakfast hosts Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden were replaced by Ian Payne and Julia Bradbury.

Members of the NUJ voted in favour of industrial action last month because a number of World Service journalists are facing compulsory redundancy.

Another 24-hour strike is planned for 29 July and the union has warned the strike will cause "widespread disruption" to radio and TV programmes.

Pete Murray, the NUJ Scotland representative at the BBC, said he hoped the strike would make the BBC "see sense".

He said: "We are concerned that the BBC just wanted to provoke this because they wanted to have a trial of strength and that's not good for the public.

"We don't think that is a responsible way to behave. We are ready to talk to them at any point."

Union general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said it was "shameful" that the BBC was "provoking" a strike over a handful of job losses.

Ms Stanistreet added that the union has offered a number of solutions to the dispute, and that an offer from the conciliation service Acas for peace talks had not been taken up by management.

"There are so many people who want to leave the BBC that this could be resolved through negotiations," she said.

"Jobs are being saved and created at management level, but journalists are losing theirs."

A BBC spokesman said the corporation was disappointed the NUJ went ahead with this strike and apologised to its audience for the disruption to services.

"Industrial action does not alter the fact that the BBC is faced with a number of potential compulsory redundancies following significant cuts to the central government grants that support the World Service and BBC Monitoring," he said.

"We will continue with our efforts to reduce the need for compulsory redundancies, however, the number of posts that we are having to close means that unfortunately it is likely to be impossible for us to avoid some compulsory redundancies."