I wonder why this is. I thought Red Bee/BBC would have all kinds of clever equipment that would automatically put subtitles to air for pre-recorded shows like this.
Yes and no...
Some broadcasters use subtitles in the vertical blanking (line 21, IIRC), which will be on the tape that's delivered to playout, and on server, and so on. Red Bee do it a different way, and keep their subs in a separate file, which is then inserted into the broadcast chain using a data bridge.
To play prerecorded subs, someone will need to find the appropriate file, and play it out at the same time as the programme. If the programme is coming off tape (as I think standby programmes are still done), or the mixer was in emergency cut mode, then perhaps the subtitle server wasn't able to see the timecode and it wasn't synced properly.
(this is partly speculation - some of the subtitling system is a bit of a mystery to me)
Maybe for this kind of programme they ought to have a back up ISDN circuit so that the programme could at least continue in sound only?
Perhaps a more robust uplink?
Higher profile OBs do have ISDN backups - for example, if the BBC's Grand Prix feed fails, then the first standby is the EBU multilateral feed with ISDN commentary. (And should both of those fail, then it's 5 Live and a slate)
