Watch Out

Many media outlets chose to focus on Today's absence from the airwaves and the hints of a subversive undercurrent running through in the programmes chosen to replace it.

These included a repeat of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and an episode of In Business which focused on the phenomenon of Pod-casting - how anyone can make their own radio shows with the help of a PC and an Apple iPod.

On BBC television, the normal Breakfast programme presented by Natasha Kaplinsky and Dermot Murnaghan was replaced by a basic service with a single presenter.

On Radio Five Live, airtime was divided between the usual mix of live news and sport and pre-recorded programmes. The station broadcast 100 Greatest Sporting Moments and a boxing documentary by Dennis Waterman instead of the early morning news

News 24, the rolling news channel, reverted to pre-recorded editions of Hard Talk shortly after midnight, interspersed with news bulletins from BBC World when only three of the 40 staff turned up.

BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland and Scottish breakfast bulletins on television are off air. Programmes in Wales and Northern Ireland also affected as are a number of regional stations.

Live coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show could also be hit today, with union members planning to mount a picket line at the venue. Newsnight on BBC Two is also expected to be a casualty as Jeremy Paxman, its presenter, and Martha Kearney, political editor, join the protests.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, said: "We have made it clear we will not accept cuts which decimate programmes, devalue the BBC, short-change licence fee payers, increase pressures on staff and worsen working conditions."

Mike Smallwood, national officer of Amicus said: "The savage cuts proposed will damage programming and will unravel British broadcasting traditions. The BBC is a unifying British institution which acts as the nation’s conscience but these redundancies will damage the UK at its core."

The BBC warned the unions that by taking industrial action they were putting at risk the corporation’s relationship with the public.

The unions have called a 48-hour strike from next Tuesday and warned of another 24-hour strike next month.They are urging Mr Thompson to reopen negotiations into the proposed re-structuring.

Mr Thompson sent a message to staff on Friday saying he wanted to return as soon as possible. He said he recognised that today's strike would present "difficult choices".

Luke Crawley, technicians' union Bectu's senior representative within the BBC, was at the picket line.

He told Times Online: "There are very few people going in, apart from the senior managers. At least 11,000 of union members have been joined by a considerable number of non-members. I think it's pretty clear that people are not prepared to be seen at work today."

He said that next week's proposed 48-hour strike was likely to go ahead as scheduled unless a new round of negotiations was begun. He added: "We are prepared to take the prospect of renewed talks seriously."

News staff at BBC's Television Centre in White City walked out at midnight, alerted by announcement the PA system calling on all union members to leave and non-union staff to join in. Pre-recorded programmes had begun an hour earlier, and a skeleton staff of senior managers - whose contracts, it is understood, contain a clause banning strike action - arrived at 11pm to maintain a basic news service.

The strikers set up a picket outside the building, and at 1am scored an early success by persuading the drivers of a newspaper delivery van, emblazoned with the masthead of the Daily Mail, not to cross the picket line.

"The thought that there weren't going to be any copies of the Daily Mail inside Television Centre really cheered us all up," said one of the strikers.

Tony Benn, who worked as a producer for the BBC before he was first elected to Parliament in 1949, joined the strikers outside Television Centre. He said: "The BBC does more for Britain that the Foreign Office. This [the redundancy programme] is a very stupid thing to do."

Theresa May, the shadow Culture Secretary, rounded on striking workers. She said: "As a public services broadcaster, the BBC and its staff have a duty to the people who fund it. The public are right to expect the services which they are forced to fund. Those who turn to alternative broadcasters for their news and current affairs today will quite rightly ask themselves what they are paying a licence fee for?

"It is therefore important that the BBC and staff quickly find a solution to what is an extremely damaging exercise for all concerned."

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