BBC Breakdown

Well I saw the breakdown... I knew it was going to happen at some point! Maybe the cold weather got the better of the big dish on the BBC OB truck...

Gary Lineker apologised at half time for the "blips in vision" and said he hoped it hadn't spoiled our enjoyment and hoped it wouldn't happen again... how wrong he was!

I feel for that poor girl doing the announcements... she's probably getting orders in her ear from about 10 different people during the break in programmes and then has to repeat the same thing over and over again as she hasn't got a full blown speech prepared, and then the music runs out, so she has to hit the repeat button, it does help when the tracks are a bit longer, I think the max time for the music is about 3 mins (that's what it is to fill 15 mins of Pages from Ceefax anyway) .

I think she was probably thinking about all the irate fans watching up and down the country, especially those in the pubs (flying barstools all over the place and punch-ups with the land lord... ooh err!)

Come to think of it, this is the 2nd televised Liverpool match by the BBC that has suffered from a technical breakdown - the last time was in the match against Arsenal when the Crystal Palace transmitter broke down...

Maybe Liverpool are bad luck for the BBC?

You said about them taking 5 Live commentary during the break in transmission, well I think it was during a World Cup qualifier a few years ago or something that BBC1 lost the feed and had an apology caption up and the announcer was able to keep us updated on the match as well as the situation with being able to get back to it... (it's on TheTVRoom i think)

I seem to remember a loss of a cricket match on the BBC (obviously some time ago) and a slide coming up with Radio 4 commentary, which was handy as I didn't have a LW radio to hand at the time

I remember that too - it worked very well. Henry Blofeld was told that he was broadcasting to BBC One as well as LW listeners and it was good fun, and kept everyone up to date.

It just so happened that I'm one of these people who listen to 5Live commentary while watching the TV (especially when it's Barry Davies and Mark Bright - uggh).

They should really have broacast that feed on the tv, but I don't know how quickly they can do that, though I think everyone saw it coming...

Another thing, everytime we get a breakdown like this, I always get annoyed by the over long announcement that the feed is back and we can very happily now return... and isn't it great that everythings back to normal..and...and... Can we just get back to the scheduled programme please?

as Banksey would probably say, this is when the skill of the announcer shows through, and if they can't say something decent whilst the breakdown is taking place, they shouldn't be in the job, a standard apology shouldn't be that hard anyway. I didn't see it so I'm not sure what she actually did say

Any how, a big embarrasment for the BBC, and with it being football, I wonder if it will get a mention in the papers!

I'd have thought it was as easy as playing a CD during a breakdown, I would have thought that pres at TVC would have (or could quite easily arrange to have) 5 Live as an audio source ready to fade up

10 people, at that time on a Sunday aftrenoon, there's probably only 10 people in the whole department!



I remember that and IIRC they were very close to setting up the 5 Live feed when the picture came back!

The music used seemed #very# similar to the type of synthesiser tracks we use on the Tea Cup ride at Paultons Park...
Even more annoying with having to play music like that is when you only have 2 CDs to play all day!

It appears to have only been the BBC's own feed that had a problem.

The Dutch Canal+ Blauw channel was also carrying the match live - with the BBC time/score logo in the top-left.

While the picture was pixelation on BBC1 - the C+ picture was fine - when the BBC1 singal went off for a few minutes, C+ carried on with no interference.

LOL @ the BBC!

unless it has been mentioned in the forums already, they were laughed at on Century 105.4FM this morning. He played the parts with the C/A talking over the radio. I almost burst into hysterics on the college coach, the dude next to me thought i was warped.
Thanks Tony!!!!