ITV has turned to the BBC to keep its Saturday night line-up on air after broadcasting unions announced a 36-hour strike.

Hit Me Baby One More Time, ITV1’s live nostalgia pop voting show, is being made at BBC Television Centre this weekend, instead of at its South Bank centre, to combat the strike called by the Bectu and Amicus unions.

ITV will hire a BBC studio and production staff to keep the show on the road. BBC One’s Strictly Dance Fever, Hit Me Baby’s live ratings rival, will be broadcast from a neighbouring White City studio.

The BBC’s Outside Broadcast units will be stretched to capacity on Saturday covering the royal wedding and the Grand National, but the corporation is able to spare one of its 11 Television Centre studios.

Ant and Dec have also been hit by the industrial action. Instead of a live broadcast, the Geordie duo’s Saturday Night Takeaway will be prerecorded.

The national strike will affect more than 700 production, technical and support staff at ITV centres in London, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and Norwich. Core ITV hits including Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Heartbeat face cancellation or delays, the unions claimed.

The strike was called after Amicus and Bectu members voted to reject ITV’s 3.3 per cent annual pay offer for 2005. They condemned the boardroom pay package awarded to Charles Allen, ITV chief executive, who received £3 million last year. ITV said that it had made a “fair and reasonable” offer to the unions.

Union picket lines will be in place from 7am tomorow at venues that include Burnden Head Farm, in Eccup, Leeds, home of Emmerdale.

An ITV spokesman said: “We have made alternative arrangements regarding studios and resources in the light of proposed industrial action. Hit Me Baby will be broadcast live as planned using BBC facilities.”

The BBC has escaped the possibility of industrial action during the general election campaign. Unions are threatening to ballot for industrial action over plans to cut about 6,000 jobs to save £355 million a year to reinvest in programming. Bectu and Amicus are meeting Mark Thompson, the Director-General, next week. The timescale required for holding a ballot and announcing industrial action means there can be no strike before May 5.

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