There is a big diffrence between a power cut where the grid goes down (such as in the US) and the fault at the BBC last week. If the grid goes down, but all the electrics in the building are fine then a back up generator is sufficient. The BBC thing was an internal fault, you can't run 2 seperate sources of electricity to every single bit of equipment.
As for using a regional centre to cover for news, apart from LDN they are all too far away and if you're going there you'd might as well go to Millbank. You can't just suddenly start up a national news service from Leeds. For a start they won't have any pictures to broadcast and with the News Centre down - no way of getting any pictures or scripts
...in which case the relaunch would not be at 9.00am as expected, but could be as early as before or after The World Today. That would be a kick in the knickers for all those who are setting their VCR for 9 on monday morning.
The mere idea of so many people crying into their specially prepared Kleenex because they missed that first glimpse of a new News 24 just doesn't bear thinking about...
The mere idea of so many people crying into their specially prepared Kleenex because they missed that first glimpse of a new News 24 just doesn't bear thinking about...
No, it's the idea of what they'll be doing into their Kleenex on Monday morning that doesn't bear thinking about
Slightly OT but as some people have mentioned the possibility, or not, of a backup news operation from BBC London, where does LDN news come from? I always assumed it was from TV Centre, but the address on the BBC London website is Marylebone High Street...is this for TV, radio or just the website?
Slightly OT but as some people have mentioned the possibility, or not, of a backup news operation from BBC London, where does LDN news come from? I always assumed it was from TV Centre, but the address on the BBC London website is Marylebone High Street...is this for TV, radio or just the website?
The whole tri-media service comes from Marylebone High Street
Slightly OT but as some people have mentioned the possibility, or not, of a backup news operation from BBC London, where does LDN news come from? I always assumed it was from TV Centre, but the address on the BBC London website is Marylebone High Street...is this for TV, radio or just the website?
As has been pointed out, LDN isn't based in TV Centre, but you might be getting confused because before LDN TV News existed, there was a programme called 'UK Today' which was a selection of regional stories from across the UK, and this programme was made at TVC for the network version of BBC One. Thus, it was the backup for the regions if they had any problems. When LDN came along, however, the backup operation no longer came from TVC.
I'm not sure why BBC News "went dark"...and I want to know why, because I'm suspicious it was some sort of negligence.
Furthermore, when the power did go out, they couldn't "roll with the punches" and some services sufferred noticeably (evidence: 1 O'Clock News taking over Millbank and having taped news go out on the live news channels).
This is really bad form -- you'd never see CNN do this. And the BBC has news studios across the country that are operational anyway. Why is it that national services can only come from London? Why couldn't the Wales or Scotland, or even the Look North studio stand in for any of the services (BBC1, BBC News 24, BBC World) in the event of a power failure at TVC?
Granted all of the fancy electronics might not be setup. But the newswires could easily be redirected and I assume these regional studios could take live-feeds from elsewhere. Why isn't there the flexibility to do this.
Again, you'd never see an American or Canadian network "go dark" like this.
When we had the massive power blackouts in the northeast US/southeast Canada in August, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS all had comprehensive news specials and regular news output--the main evenings programmes were also on air. NBC had output on the main network and MSNBC and CNBC. CBCtv and CBC Newsworld were both on the air.
CBC even maintained its schedule and the national news was broadcast...tiles, graphics and all, from an otherwise dark downtown Toronto.
So in spite of the fact that my comments may come across as insensitive and ignorant (which I regret), I still would like to know why the BBC is the only major broadcaster in the Western world were a power failure could land the networks "on-their-arse" for so long?
To be honest I agree with some of the points Phillias Fogg has made and if you acknowledge the remarks made by some BBC executives there were lessons to be learned from what happened., thus the BBC accept that things could have prevented the loss in services. The BBC is the biggest news gathering operation in the world and it is totally unacceptable fo it to go dark be it for 20 minutes or whatever solely due to an internal power loss within the BBC. After the last 'power cut' you would haev thought they'd learnt their lesson and created a fool prrof back-up plan. An emergency generator for example, or enough stoered power to equip the news services.
it is totally unacceptable fo it to go dark be it for 20 minutes or whatever
Is it? Why? So long as it doesn't happen more than once a year or so, does it really justify huge spending on backup systems?
Plus, BBC News didn't "go dark". Breakfast carried on (admittedly they were fortunate that the presenters on shift that day had the ability to carry it off), and News 24 provided a near normal service, just from different studios (Breakfast and Millbank). 30 minutes of recorded HardTalk was not ideal, but it allowed them to bring viewers a full bulletin of news at the top of each and every hour as usual. I imagine few viewers actually noticed any difference to the service.
I think the BBC News team did a good job under very difficult circumstances, and the news channels kept running at all times.
I'm not sure why BBC News "went dark"...and I want to know why, because I'm suspicious it was some sort of negligence.
Furthermore, when the power did go out, they couldn't "roll with the punches" and some services sufferred noticeably (evidence: 1 O'Clock News taking over Millbank and having taped news go out on the live news channels).
This is really bad form -- you'd never see CNN do this. And the BBC has news studios across the country that are operational anyway. Why is it that national services can only come from London? Why couldn't the Wales or Scotland, or even the Look North studio stand in for any of the services (BBC1, BBC News 24, BBC World) in the event of a power failure at TVC?
Granted all of the fancy electronics might not be setup. But the newswires could easily be redirected and I assume these regional studios could take live-feeds from elsewhere. Why isn't there the flexibility to do this.
Again, you'd never see an American or Canadian network "go dark" like this.
When we had the massive power blackouts in the northeast US/southeast Canada in August, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS all had comprehensive news specials and regular news output--the main evenings programmes were also on air. NBC had output on the main network and MSNBC and CNBC. CBCtv and CBC Newsworld were both on the air.
CBC even maintained its schedule and the national news was broadcast...tiles, graphics and all, from an otherwise dark downtown Toronto.
So in spite of the fact that my comments may come across as insensitive and ignorant (which I regret), I still would like to know why the BBC is the only major broadcaster in the Western world were a power failure could land the networks "on-their-arse" for so long?
To be honest I agree with some of the points Phillias Fogg has made and if you acknowledge the remarks made by some BBC executives there were lessons to be learned from what happened., thus the BBC accept that things could have prevented the loss in services. The BBC is the biggest news gathering operation in the world and it is totally unacceptable fo it to go dark be it for 20 minutes or whatever solely due to an internal power loss within the BBC. After the last 'power cut' you would haev thought they'd learnt their lesson and created a fool prrof back-up plan. An emergency generator for example, or enough stoered power to equip the news services.
Eugh. I'm so sick of hearing this "BBC is the biggest newsgathering operation in the world" all the time. Accidents happen. Mistakes happen. And no matter how much you prepare for something, the contingency won't always go smoothly, and it won't always work. Of course it's less than brilliant that - having had a dry run a few years ago, from which people promised that lessons would be learnt - things more or less fell apart on Friday.
However, while it isn't entirely unreasonable to hold the BBC to a higher standard, it's sheer stupidity to expect 'foolproof back-ups' because it simply isn't possible in
any
organisation - there is always the possibility that something will go wrong. And as has been well documented, the BBC does have back-up generators, which were in fact operable on Friday - the problem was the failure of systems which would have enabled those generators to supply power to the affected areas.
As has been pointed out, LDN isn't based in TV Centre, but you might be getting confused because before LDN TV News existed, there was a programme called 'UK Today' which was a selection of regional stories from across the UK, and this programme was made at TVC for the network version of BBC One. Thus, it was the backup for the regions if they had any problems. When LDN came along, however, the backup operation no longer came from TVC.
Although the arrival of UK Today and the launch of LDN weren't connected, the 2 events occured a long time apart.
UK Today was introduced due to the lack of regional news on Digital BBC1, by 2001 DTT had regional news and when the original BBCi 5 region service started UK Today wasn't needed.
If LDN hadn't have happened Newsroom Southeast would have been carried by network just like it was before digital
Slightly OT but as some people have mentioned the possibility, or not, of a backup news operation from BBC London, where does LDN news come from? I always assumed it was from TV Centre, but the address on the BBC London website is Marylebone High Street...is this for TV, radio or just the website?
As has been pointed out, LDN isn't based in TV Centre, but you might be getting confused because before LDN TV News existed, there was a programme called 'UK Today' which was a selection of regional stories from across the UK, and this programme was made at TVC for the network version of BBC One. Thus, it was the backup for the regions if they had any problems. When LDN came along, however, the backup operation no longer came from TVC.
Nope - UK Today continued for quite a while after LDN launched. It was the introduction of the BBCi regional service (which carried BBC One South, West Midlands, North West and North between 1759 and 1902ish) that brought the requirement for UK Today to an end.
UK Today was only introduced in November 1998 when the BBC required a service to fill the regional opt-out slots on BBC One England on Satellite (and at one point DTT and DCab as well) - once regional services could be carried on satellite the reason for UK Today was gone.
(Prior to Nov 1998 the BBC One Network feed had always carried Newsroom South East from Elstree, London Plus from Lime Grove, or the previous SE regional opt or filler)
