Lost an additional break though it seems by crashing into part two - seems an unwillingness to cut to ads during a breakdown.
Depending on how ITV have their broadcast chain setup, cutting to the breakdown slide would have required either manually overriding the automation, or using an emergency cut after the the output from the presentation mixer. Either way as both options effectively take the automation out of action it would have made cutting back to the break more difficult and messy than usual, especailly when it involves so many regions. It's easier to wait until the problem is resolved, cut back to the programming, reset the automation to how it should be and run from there.
There were all kinds of fun and games here, it took ages for the card to come up, which as I’m watching on HD is ITV Granada
There were so many different bits, and even the breakdown slide kept going on an off, it did seem like there were multiple feeds each failing as the previous one went wrong.
Being a high profile programme, ITV would have had multiple backups via different routes in place. No doubt as it went wrong transmission would have quickly cut between all of them in hope of getting a working one on air.
It wouldn't surprise me if Leeds also had feeds going to them, given they're always on standby to take over from Chiswick if needed, so it's quite possible they tried leaving the network output on the northern regions in hope of getting something on air.
I just watched on +1 and didn’t see anything other than a picture freeze up - no colour bars or anything else. Was it region dependent? I’m in Westcountry area.
Apparently viewers on ITV HD Meridian also didn't see the colour bars or No Signal message.
Is this down to the two playout centres, or am I talking tommyrot?
In theory all regions should have been the same as they would have all been on the main network output from Chiswick. The northern regions from Leeds may have tried going to their own backups at one point, but that wouldn't affect Meridian as that comes from Chiswick, so I find it peculiar that they didn't see anything.
Perhaps Leeds (it is still Leeds, isn't it?) take their main downlinks from Salford, and Chiswick downlink their own, hence different failures.
Still Leeds for now, although the latest I've heard from some people in the know is they're looking at moving to their new site at MediaCity in Salford.
I'm not sure if Chiswick or Leeds use their own downlink, although they may well do. The appearance of the SIS bars would suggest they rely on SIS to do the downlink and send it to them, at least on some the feeds. I saw a live feed go down on ITV2 earlier in the year which showed the MediaCity bars, before quickly cutting to the backup, which would suggest they use SIS at MediaCity as the main feed downlink.
