Now in the age of 24 hour news channels and networked news production systems, it's likely that newsrooms would find out about any impending obituary or emergency announcement through these means rather than any auxiliary emergency broadcasting system.
Thank you for your response
But couldn't the same arguments be applied to America? I mean they have 24hr news channels too so why do they still have a need to maintain an Emergency Alert System? Without meaning to turn this otherwise fascinating thread into a political discussion, what does America know that we don't that requires them to have what is essentially a direct link into the White House?
But couldn't the same arguments be applied to America? I mean they have 24hr news channels too so why do they still have a need to maintain an Emergency Alert System? Without meaning to turn this otherwise fascinating thread into a political discussion, what does America know that we don't that requires them to have what is essentially a direct link into the White House?
It's not that so much. Remember that the US is much much bigger than the UK and has no national broadcasting as we know it. Over here if there was a major event of the type that would trigger the Emergency Broadcast System it would be on the national channels.
There isn't really the need for an american type system as they aren't trying to alert lots of seperate broadcasting stations
[Didn't the aerial system get damaged in storms at one point (possibly the 1987 "don't worry there won't be a hurricane" incident) and they put the R4LW output on BBC1 over the testcard?
That happened around 1980 ISTR. Droitwich had been damaged in a storm, and in those days BBC 1 didn't have the usual daytime rubbish, just the test card until 13:00 hrs and after 14:00hrs, so it broadcast R4 audio over the test card. Hardly rocket science to arrange.
The Mill was rigged and staffed by Presentation on the night of the infamous Year 2000 bug!
Did the BBC bossed in London think that had the Millennium bug struck, it wouldn't have affected Birmingham, what with them not having computers north of Watford?
Exactly - In London, computers run the channels. The facilities in Birmingham were a couple of re-plugged edit suites manually run to playout programmes.
Millennium night was totaly belt and braces, everything was backed up several times
Yep - AIUI there was even a gallery in The Netherlands available to the BBC to co-ordinate the global international programme (event coverage with guide commentary and no in-vision BBC presenters) that the BBC provided for a large number of international broadcasters (2000 Today International) - so should TV Centre have been hit by a huge Y2K bug they would have been able to continue.
Of course what a lot of people were worried about wasn't the actual broadcast kit - it was stuff like the aircon failing... (If broadcast kit isn't cooled properly it can easily start falling over quite quickly)
The Mill was rigged and staffed by Presentation on the night of the infamous Year 2000 bug!
Did the BBC bossed in London think that had the Millennium bug struck, it wouldn't have affected Birmingham, what with them not having computers north of Watford?
Exactly - In London, computers run the channels. The facilities in Birmingham were a couple of re-plugged edit suites manually run to playout programmes.
Millennium night was totaly belt and braces, everything was backed up several times
Yep - AIUI there was even a gallery in The Netherlands available to the BBC to co-ordinate the global international programme (event coverage with guide commentary and no in-vision BBC presenters) that the BBC provided for a large number of international broadcasters (2000 Today International) - so should TV Centre have been hit by a huge Y2K bug they would have been able to continue.
Of course what a lot of people were worried about wasn't the actual broadcast kit - it was stuff like the aircon failing... (If broadcast kit isn't cooled properly it can easily start falling over quite quickly)
Indeed and in fact almost every time I've known preparations being made to move transmission to alternative locations it's been because of aircon failing. On at least one occasion a suspected legionella case within the aircon caused the packing of bags!
Thinking back to it, 2000 Today was an incredible operation by the BBC. ISTR TC1 was set to provide the uk programme. I can't remember where the international programme was being originated, but I think TC3 and TC4 were certainly involved in providing auxiliary and backup gallery support in some form. Obviously the central and international control areas were at full stretch down- and up-linking the various feeds in and out of the UK. BBC World didn't get the rights to show any of the UK Today International programme, but could show the individual feeds of celebrations from around the world as they passed midnight. It was quite a party in World because they celebrated the arrival of the Year 2000 at the top of every hour (hic!).
Certainly as far as staffing was concerned, there were literally thousands of people working that night in loads of different BBC buildings when ordinarily, a New Year's Eve would be like a ghost town. And in the end, apart from one or two slightly confused fax machines, I don't really recall anything going wrong.
Thinking back to it, 2000 Today was an incredible operation by the BBC. ISTR TC1 was set to provide the uk programme. I can't remember where the international programme was being originated, but I think TC3 and TC4 were certainly involved in providing auxiliary and backup gallery support in some form.
Two galleries were used for each programme.
2TD (2000 Today Domestic) had a studio in TC1 with a hub in another studio.
2TI (2000 Today International) used a gallery to mix the show and had a secondary gallery to hub for it.
The two hub galleries were effectively submixing OUTPUTS from the main hub matrix to feed them into the 2TD or 2TI galleries.
There were then hubs feeding INPUTS into the main hub matrix. The hub was known as FBH... I'll leave you to work out why.
So 4 galleries used to make the domestic and international shows.
In addition TC7 was used as a hub for BBC News 24's coverage - providing a mix of live and recorded pictures packaged with astons. BBC News 24 had full rights to the 2TI feeds and used them to great effect. News 24 did the hourly midnights - with a mix of 2TI and Agency pictures, maps, DVE push backs etc. BBC World co-ordinated the audio feeds for News 24, World and World Service Radio - with a clock start commentary from a reporter on-site at 1'00" to every hour ISTR.
TC7 also had access to the big hub matrix outputs.
This matrix was (supposed to be) intelligent - and when a 4:3 source was routed to the 2TD hub gallery (which was 16:9) it should have been ARCed, but not when routed to the 2TI gallery (which was 4:3), and vice versa. I think the system kept running out of ARCs - which meant BBC One got a lot of 4:3 content unARCed on-air.
News 24 had programmed a DVE to do a simple ARC - so whenever a 4:3 OS arrived unARCed they just ARCed it in Charisma.
TC7 also provided some support to BBC World - as BBC World's studio didn't have access directly to the hub.
The BBC One News studio was switched to 16:9 for that occasion - and had cameras, audio circuits etc. from TC1 feeding into it, allowing it to do news programmes from the 2TD studio floor, but using the news gallery to control it. Some cameras worked to both 2TD and the News - so had to have their talkbacks switched ISTR.
ISTR that nearly every studio was in use that day...
Quote:
Obviously the central and international control areas were at full stretch down- and up-linking the various feeds in and out of the UK. BBC World didn't get the rights to show any of the UK Today International programme, but could show the individual feeds of celebrations from around the world as they passed midnight. It was quite a party in World because they celebrated the arrival of the Year 2000 at the top of every hour (hic!).
ISTR that World had to mainly rely on agency feeds - as they didn't have rights to most of the 2TI or 2TD overseas sources.
They mainly used their hub feed from TC7 for UK feeds ISTR.
Quote:
Certainly as far as staffing was concerned, there were literally thousands of people working that night in loads of different BBC buildings when ordinarily, a New Year's Eve would be like a ghost town. And in the end, apart from one or two slightly confused fax machines, I don't really recall anything going wrong.
Though we all had standby external phones (not routed by the BBC exchange) and at the OBs there were Dolphin (RIP) mobiles that didn't use the normal GSM system (I think they were TETRA like the Emergency Service system) so that at midnight when everyone rang everyone else they could still make and receive calls? (Also to provide belt and braces in case mobiles were hit by y2k)
Interesting to hear about the mammoth operation - no wonder they didn't credit everyone at the end!
Wish more good quality material of 2000 Today was online. My VCR didn't tape any of it...more a case of me setting it up in a rush than the millennium bug though. All I can seem to find is low quality stuff on YouTube which seems to have been ripped from Mark Grindon's old site.
Interesting to hear about the mammoth operation - no wonder they didn't credit everyone at the end!
Wish more good quality material of 2000 Today was online. My VCR didn't tape any of it...more a case of me setting it up in a rush than the millennium bug though. All I can seem to find is low quality stuff on YouTube which seems to have been ripped from Mark Grindon's old site.
And sadly most of the rights agreements were one-off - so it isn't likely to ever be replayed on BBC Parliament or similar.
the only cock ups I remember was the cameras going to the wrong Peter or the wrong Michael?
and Gaby Roslin being late back from watching Eastenders
There was Dame Edna in New York being interviewed by Parky and going off on one about people masterbating in Times Square.
I was at TV Centre that night too, fantastic atmosphere. A nice little earner too, IIRC I got an extra £500 because I was working over midnight and got food vouchers too
