There probably were instructions, just rushed through with a joke.
I've been at shows where the warm-up man has given the fire evacuation as "if there is a fire, then you'll smell the smoke first and just follow the cameramen out of the doors."
ITV's Southern Transmission Centre moved to Chiswick some time ago, so they wouldn't have been affected. Under the old arrangements I would imagine that the Northern Transmission Centre in Leeds would have played out standby programmes to the whole network until such time as TLS was able to get back to normal.
Of course in the 'real old arrangements' if a local ITV contractors site had to be evacuated their region would be fed from a neighbouring ITV contractor for the duration. Before anyone asks 'No', I don't know how they would have shared ad revenue during the shared region period. The ITV companies used to insure against loss of commercial revenue for numerous events and I'm pretty sure it would have covered a site evacuation too, so shared as revenue wouldn't likely be an issue I would have thought.
I'm not sure there was a one size fits all plan for that.
1985, HTV had a fire and the transmitters radiated the locally generated apology caption for hours (see http://www.hhg.org.uk/bds.html )
There are anecdotes here of separate incidents where a neighbouring region's output was simply rebroadcast and where a more bespoke service was provided to the region having problems.
Last edited by Steve in Pudsey on 23 October 2014 8:07pm
The extra ) at the end of that URL breaks the link I think Steve... Still, I haven't visited that site for years and while it doesn't seem to have changed in my absence it was nice to scroll through again I'd forgotten about HTV Wales' shambolic contribution to the Telethon!
You have never heard of Doors open day? ( after double checking turns out its just a Scottish thing)
Doors Open Days give you free access to hundreds of fascinating buildings across Scotland. Every weekend in September you can explore places that are normally closed to the public. Some open up once a year, some just once in a lifetime. This is your chance to discover the architecture, design, buildings, places and spaces right on your doorstep or explore a new part of the country.
STV and BBC Glasgow have both taken part in the schemes.
You have never heard of Doors open day? ( after double checking turns out its just a Scottish thing)
Doors Open Days give you free access to hundreds of fascinating buildings across Scotland. Every weekend in September you can explore places that are normally closed to the public. Some open up once a year, some just once in a lifetime. This is your chance to discover the architecture, design, buildings, places and spaces right on your doorstep or explore a new part of the country.
STV and BBC Glasgow have both taken part in the schemes.
London has those weekends too! They call it "Open House Weekend!"
I'd forgotten about HTV Wales' shambolic contribution to the Telethon!