I believe that in the event of a major incident or emergency, BBC radio stations have a standby box marked 'Obit'. I've never worked out why it is 'Obit', but I reckon it has something to do with 'Obituary'. The Obit boxes contain music and instructions etc, which had to be radically updated after August 1997 because they weren't adequate enough.
Maybe this is why the sombre/special music on Identz are called 'Orbit' - just a mistake?
All presentation suites, both Radio & TV have an evacuation suitcase which has all the material needed to sustain a channel should they need to leave their respective suites. They contain such things as idents, CD's, mini-disks, long programmes which won't date, filler programmes and other such things.
All presentation suites, both Radio & TV have an evacuation suitcase which has all the material needed to sustain a channel should they need to leave their respective suites. They contain such things as idents, CD's, mini-disks, long programmes which won't date, filler programmes and other such things.
That's quite interesting, so when the bomb went off in March, did or has someone still got to stay and do all the technical stuff to make sure all programming goes ahead?
Well when the bomb went off, yes, i suppose thats what happened. Adrian Finighan was seen leaving is chair on the World set, and obviously Chris and Gwenan left the studio going into an unscheduled HARDtalk. After that we got World bulletins overnight from Adrian Finighan and Susan Osman (in Dateline London studio). After that, Breakfast, Maxine Mawhinney, Anita McNaught, Peter Coe, Chris Lowe, Darren Jordon & Joanna Gosling and probably a few others, from the BBC World studio!! I got quite a bit of it on tape - and found it again yesterday!
The whole idea is that you can 'grab the case and run' if you had to leave. No one would ever be expected to stay and endanger their life. We're not all John Simpson - lol.
N24 and World newsrooms did leave during the bomb, but BBC World pres was suitably far away from the bomb and continued. Then after the explosion the World news team moved back to their studio because it was safe to do so.
There are contingencies to carry on broadcasting in just about all circumstances.
All presentation suites, both Radio & TV have an evacuation suitcase which has all the material needed to sustain a channel should they need to leave their respective suites. They contain such things as idents, CD's, mini-disks, long programmes which won't date, filler programmes and other such things.
That's quite interesting, so when the bomb went off in March, did or has someone still got to stay and do all the technical stuff to make sure all programming goes ahead?
Err, no. The bomb did not warrant an evacuation of TVC, so no suitcase was involved (this is Presentation I'm talking about - I can't give details of what News do for security reasons).
But if it were, they'd grab the suitcase & run!
With the suitcase in hand, they will go to one of many designated sites and set up camp. The only thing which needs switching is the routing to the transmitters, and if they have to actually leave the building the likes of BT & NTL etc would handle the routing
(Edited by Techy Peep at 6:41 pm on Oct. 25, 2001)
(Edited by Techy Peep at 6:44 pm on Oct. 25, 2001)
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