ITV SERVICES were not running yesterday after journalists, production and other staff went on a 24-hour strike over pay. Pickets took place across the country as well as outside the station’s annual meeting in London, where shareholders were told to support workers’ pay rise after the company’s profits rose by 23 per cent last year.

At the protest technicians’ union Bectu assistant general secretary Spencer MacDonald told the Star he was “really pleased with the turnout.”

He added: “I think overall people are quite fed up in terms of the way the company has treated them.

“[ITV] posted profits of something around three quarters of a billion pounds so they are really frustrated.”

Asked whether ITV management had made any contact since the beginning of the strike, Mr MacDonald replied: “Unfortunately no.

“We’ve kept the doors opened, we still want to talk to them and hopefully post-strike we hope they will get back around the table.

“We still want to keep the dialogue going, we still want resolving, but it takes a willingness from them to actually want to resolve it.”

In previous negotiations Bectu staff had welcomed the annual bonus of £1,200 — a 2 per cent increase for most ITV staff. But the union members saw red when they found out that ITV CEO Adam Crozier was about to receive a £250 million bonus himself.

Alongside Bectu were members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Unite who represented their own members at ITV. Martin Lewis from moneysavingexpert.com tweeted in the morning: “Sadly I won’t be doing deals of the week on Good Morning Britain tomorrow due to ITV strike. “As NUJ member I prefer not to cross picket lines.”

Advertising revenues for ITV have also reached a new high, peaking at £163 billion last year.

An ITV spokesman said that the station was “fully prepared to maintain an open dialogue with union representatives.”

He added: “ITV continues to make good progress but our focus on costs remains incredibly important across the business as we balance the need to continue to invest in growing the business, our people and the programmes that we create and broadcast.”