The cost-cutting was brought sharply into focus in the Brighton hotel bombing on the Conservative cabinet in October 1984. The night before the terrorist attack, TV-am only had one crew covering the conference and that had been called back to London the previous night to cover a train crash in Wembley. When the blast occurred in the early hours, the BBC and ITN provided immediate coverage. TV-am's response was limited to a caption of reporter John Stapleton reporting over the phone, while the BBC were showing graphic coverage of the attack. Trade union agreements at the time meant that technical staff at the local ITV station TVS could not provide cover for another commercial television company, and TV-am's previous conflicts with ITN meant that the latter would not share its footage.