This Day in History: 2005-05-23

BBC staff go on strike from midnight on 23rd May 2005 for 24 hours. They were protesting at plans to cut 3,780 jobs and privatise parts of the Corporation. The unions said the cuts were the most damaging in BBC history. The Corporation said it regretted the decision to take industrial action.

The strike posed the most serious threat to the BBC’s programming schedule across all TV and radio networks in over a decade. BBC One and BBC News 24 news output is disrupted: the BBC News at One is presented by Susan Osman; Stephen Cole presents both the BBC News at Six and the BBC News at Ten. These programmes are simulcast on BBC One and BBC News 24 (which was not the norm in 2005).

BBC News 24 and BBC World simulcast news programmes during the day.

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