Power outage at BBC Wales

They would have had access to the News Channel (possibly even a clean version) but if the playout suite in Cardiff was down, then there wouldn't have been an easy way to cut to it!

But it wouldn't have been the default feed? I think if something like this happened in a regional centre the circuits default to a bypass mode where the incoming network feed just loops back out.

I think somebody here said that a while ago BBC Scotland pres were having SPG issues, so NI's spare continuity suite became BBC One Scotland for the duration of Breakfast with Reporting Scotland as an outside source. I guess if there was somebody available to staff it they could have done the same tonight.

yes, I said that
A continuity suite in Belfast did the junction at the end of Breakfast with Scotland-branded trails and ident - but Glasgow had fixed their fault by then and coding & mux had switched back to them, so nobody but me saw it...

I wouldn't have the nations would have network versions of trails on their playout systems.

No, so why is NI the fallback for Wales, instead of just the network feed? You’d think at least Belfast could refrain from plugging Radio Ulster while they are filling in for Llandaf.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but as BBC Wales has had what's been described as a "total power failure" in Llandaf, taking out TV, radio and S4C, what is sustaining BBC Wales TV and radio channels this evening? I mean when the power cut happened at 18:15, how did they switch to BBC NI if literally the whole Llandaf complex lost power? Does Broadcasting House in London automatically take control of the BBC One & Two Wales TV feeds if Llandaff is effectively disabled?

Reading between the lines of this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49376916

If the local power company are saying they don't know of an outage, that implies it's an internal issue to the BBC.

My money's on the UPS failing

8:30pm junction, and a BBC One Wales branded service has been restored (presumably from Belfast’s spare suite, given the Norn Iron CA)

Why not Bristol?

Short answer: because its not a nation, it doesn't have a playout suite


Long answer: each region has another that can be substituted should there be a problem, or replaced by network.

The nations all have a spare playout suite (and the relevant presentation elements) so as mentioned above they can cover if there's a problem. So they are the replacement.

So it seems that the replacement for Cardiff is Belfast. Ideally the spare suite would get pressed into action and provide a Wales branded service but that will take time and also presumably depends on how many people are free to set it up/run it. If the same continuity was on in both Wales and NI then presumably its all coming from the same suite rather than them producing a bespoke one for Wales

All BBC services go through a central location (two in fact, obviously I won't say where) before going out to the various companies and departments that distribute them

One advantage of that is that if there's an issue and a service isn't available there is something downstream that can switch a replacement out

I think potentially if Belfast is doing BBC One, Scotland could be doing BBC Two.

9pm junction: Still BBC One Wales branded from Belfast.