TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

Not to mention a breakdown from ITV's westcountry region in 1996, when (kinda like Wizardora) somebody presses the wrong button and Coronation Street rewinds on itself live on air!



And speaking of Channel 4 breakdowns, here is one from 1997. (from the same user funny enough)

Very unusual to see such a specific reason given.

I suspect the "loss of service" might have been the switch across from CBeebies, there were a few times Sky had problems with this in the early days.

The sit-up channels were famous for their regular breakdowns:

I like their music (and cards) for breakdowns.

Wonder if a good quality version exists!

That same music playing endlessly for days after they were yanked off air for good.

If I remember rightly this particular one was caused by a power outage, if so something must have still been running to transmit those coloured blocks?

It doesn't necessarily mean that all power went off and stayed off, when power is restored systems need to be brought back up and things made to work. And of course some kit could be on a UPS or other back up so they can keep something on air even if the studio is off


A shopping channel like theirs will always have more outages - it's all live, and there's more than just the TV studio needed. If the back end - the phone lines and website and the graphics system that updates the details of the sale aren't working then they can't go on air.

Here's a prime example, the fun kicks off from about 06:20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc-InvLinc4

I've got another one from bid tv on an old PVR where they manage to get back on air after a power cut. Peter Simon is standing there doing one of his Larry Grayson style monologues while all the studio lights and monitors are going off and on complete with violin music in the background!

If you mean the green and magenta pattern at the start of the video, that's probably a framesync somewhere (maybe at the uplink provider) getting a bit upset at the loss of incoming video.

Revisiting the discussion about Channel 4, and the occasion that viewers in the North East heard the ads in sound only, here’s an example of something similar happening a few years later (and probably in another region). This time the ads start to play in vision only with the C4 break music audible. After a few seconds, the region opts back to the C4 holding caption then opts out “properly” in sound and vision. It’s at the very start of this clip and it’s not obvious at first glance what is happening. Where does this leave us in the speculation of how and why the regions could opt out in sound or vision only?

I don't think there is any doubt that they could cut away in vision leaving network audio or vice versa. Setting up a gallery that couldn't do that would be a challenge.