The Winter programme kicked the 1978 series off in February with a new idea. Jokers were not played this year, but the Parallel Slalom game (which was 1977’s Winter Fil Rouge) was played before each of the six other games, and the winning team of each slalom run had their score for the next game doubled. The result was that it was now theoretically possible for a team to score double points on every regular game they played.

On the home front, the BBC began the It's A Knockout series transmissions with possibly the most unusual of all the It's A Knockout specials: It's A Miners Knockout. Coal miners and their female relatives from England, Scotland and Wales battled it out for a trophy presented by future It's A Knockout presenter, Keith Chegwin.

Stevenage were one of the British teams who won through into the International Series. The team contained three members of the 1977 St. Albans team which had narrowly missed out on qualification for Europe, these competitors being Tony Mizsei, Tony Smith and Judi Nardi. Smith had captained St. Albans the previous year, but in 1978 ceded to Mizsei who assumed the role in the Stevenage team. All three would return to It's A Knockout in 1979, back representing St. Albans. Tony Smith would of course go on to become a familiar face behind the scenes when he returned as Course Referee in the 1999 and 2000 It's A Knockout series transmitted on Channel 5 Television in Great Britain.

JSFnetGB Series Guide pages researched by
Alan Hayes, David Hamilton, Neil Storer, Christos Moustakas, Philippe Minet,
Sébastien Dias, Ischa Bijl, Paul Leaver and JSFnet Websites