The Newsroom

Fire alarm at News at ten!

(January 2018)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
HC
Hatton Cross
Errm.
Not sure if I was working in one side of the atrium, and looked over the other side of the atrium and saw a fire, or heavy smoke (that clearly wasn't a dry ice special effect) I'd be saying "y'know what. As this part of the building has a differing evacuation plan, I'm perfectly safe.

I think I'd be grabbing my coat, unplugging my phone from the USB charger cable in my pc, and trying to remember which fire door to head for once the wailing sirens started ringing.
EY
the eye
1 news in here in NZ had a fire alarm too, here how it was handled ft. A bit of Dan Corbett

Mouseboy33, NYTV and dbl gave kudos
IS
Inspector Sands
That's very slick. Assuming the playout was also evacuated it looks like had a pre-made caption and just put it and the standby in as the next items in the schedule before they got out the building.

Nice way to do it, I don't think anywhere in the UK would have the foresight to do that
DB
dbl
Credit to TVNZ, that is extremely slick and well thought out.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Seems from Twitter that TVNZ have quite a bit of experience of live programming falling off air due to fire alarms, including one incident when somebody was doing burnouts in their car in the underground car park and set the alarms off(!)
DB
dbl
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Seems from Twitter that TVNZ have quite a bit of experience of live programming falling off air due to fire alarms, including one incident when somebody was doing burnouts in their car in the underground car park and set the alarms off(!)


Indeed





Ad and promo break goes out as usual, but a breakdown slide to fill the gap until the next programme.
LL
Larry the Loafer
madmusician posted:
Chris Evans had to evacuate from his breakfast show three years ago. He explained when they came back on air that they had a silent two-stage alarm in the studio. It had sat on ‘amber’ for a while (the first stage) but it turned ‘red’ during an interview, so as soon as the feature had finished he played the next track and they all left the studio.

As you’d expect, the alarm wasn’t heard on air. That was a criticism of the new studios at Salford (see the Football Focus video upthread) that they did have audible fire alarms that disrupted the on-air output.


There was a time a good few years back then Chris Moyles' breakfast show on Radio 1 was interrupted by a fire alarm twice during the same show. The first instance was covered by an emergency tape, but on the second instance the bell was audible in the background (prompting Chris to pretend it was an alarm clock and encouraged everybody to get out of bed). When he returned he explained that the bell was a "get out right now" signal. So whether the procedures differ from studio to studio, I don't know.
DA
davidhorman
Inspector Sands posted:
Nice way to do it, I don't think anywhere in the UK would have the foresight to do that


Earthquakes might be why they did.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Larry the Loafer posted:
madmusician posted:
Chris Evans had to evacuate from his breakfast show three years ago. He explained when they came back on air that they had a silent two-stage alarm in the studio. It had sat on ‘amber’ for a while (the first stage) but it turned ‘red’ during an interview, so as soon as the feature had finished he played the next track and they all left the studio.

As you’d expect, the alarm wasn’t heard on air. That was a criticism of the new studios at Salford (see the Football Focus video upthread) that they did have audible fire alarms that disrupted the on-air output.


There was a time a good few years back then Chris Moyles' breakfast show on Radio 1 was interrupted by a fire alarm twice during the same show. The first instance was covered by an emergency tape, but on the second instance the bell was audible in the background (prompting Chris to pretend it was an alarm clock and encouraged everybody to get out of bed). When he returned he explained that the bell was a "get out right now" signal. So whether the procedures differ from studio to studio, I don't know.


I think it was explained that the first time it had just been the orange and red flashing lights in the studio so they got away with finishing the news by which point the red light was on and they just went into the emergency tape. The second time it went straight to audible alarm so they couldn't cover it up, and had to play the same emergency tape again.
MA
madmusician
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Larry the Loafer posted:
madmusician posted:
Chris Evans had to evacuate from his breakfast show three years ago. He explained when they came back on air that they had a silent two-stage alarm in the studio. It had sat on ‘amber’ for a while (the first stage) but it turned ‘red’ during an interview, so as soon as the feature had finished he played the next track and they all left the studio.

As you’d expect, the alarm wasn’t heard on air. That was a criticism of the new studios at Salford (see the Football Focus video upthread) that they did have audible fire alarms that disrupted the on-air output.


There was a time a good few years back then Chris Moyles' breakfast show on Radio 1 was interrupted by a fire alarm twice during the same show. The first instance was covered by an emergency tape, but on the second instance the bell was audible in the background (prompting Chris to pretend it was an alarm clock and encouraged everybody to get out of bed). When he returned he explained that the bell was a "get out right now" signal. So whether the procedures differ from studio to studio, I don't know.


I think it was explained that the first time it had just been the orange and red flashing lights in the studio so they got away with finishing the news by which point the red light was on and they just went into the emergency tape. The second time it went straight to audible alarm so they couldn't cover it up, and had to play the same emergency tape again.

I did make a recording of the Evans evacuation in February 2015 (I've edited out the emergency tape but you hear Evans' announcement that the show was going off air and then his explanation when they came back) and here it is: https://up.metropol247.co.uk/madmusician/Evacuation;%20February%202015.mp3
AN
Ant
madmusician posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Larry the Loafer posted:

There was a time a good few years back then Chris Moyles' breakfast show on Radio 1 was interrupted by a fire alarm twice during the same show. The first instance was covered by an emergency tape, but on the second instance the bell was audible in the background (prompting Chris to pretend it was an alarm clock and encouraged everybody to get out of bed). When he returned he explained that the bell was a "get out right now" signal. So whether the procedures differ from studio to studio, I don't know.


I think it was explained that the first time it had just been the orange and red flashing lights in the studio so they got away with finishing the news by which point the red light was on and they just went into the emergency tape. The second time it went straight to audible alarm so they couldn't cover it up, and had to play the same emergency tape again.

I did make a recording of the Evans evacuation in February 2015 (I've edited out the emergency tape but you hear Evans' announcement that the show was going off air and then his explanation when they came back) and here it is: https://up.metropol247.co.uk/madmusician/Evacuation;%20February%202015.mp3

And the Moyles alarm from back in the day: https://chrismoyles.net/soundvault/soundvault.php?fileid=1088

12 days later

AS
Asa Admin
Just as a footnote to all this, and mentioned in the Radio Times this week: 800,000 viewers stuck with ITV for the last ten minutes with the breakdown caption. Shocked

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