Just watching the breakdowns section of TV ARK has made me wonder how such faults are dealt with today. I remember Good Morning Britain was taken off air several years ago due to a fire alarm. ITV played an emergency tape in lieu.
That was sorted out fairly quickly but does anyone know how an extended breakdown would be dealt with in terms of keeping broadcasting?
Most live programmes have a standby tape of some earlier run-through I believe, or if they're sporting events plenty of filler material (before Wimbledon had a roof, if it was raining before play started on the first day, the entire plan went out the window and what was shown could be anybody's guess!).
Otherwise, well depends on the nature of the breakdown and where it is in the chain. I believe when Elmey Moor collapsed in 1969 there was no backup, and service was out for everybody who received ITV from it, at least until a makeshift transmitter was shifted up there.
You only had to watch the live shopping channels like Sit-up and whatever else when they had power failures and the entire resulting output was like a mystery basket as all manner of test cards, slides, music and whatever else was thrown out.
You're right about Emley Moor. ITV was broadcasting an episode of "Do Not Adjust Your Set" (If that's not ironic then I don't know what is)
Returning to present day. With a lot of ITV's output (primarily daytime) emanating from London there must be some kind of backup. I don't know if the rest of the network is live outside the local news.
Most live programmes have a standby tape of some earlier run-through I believe, or if they're sporting events plenty of filler material (before Wimbledon had a roof, if it was raining before play started on the first day, the entire plan went out the window and what was shown could be anybody's guess!).
If it had been a really rainy day / couple of days - and they’d run out of matches from that years tournament they wanted to show - it always seemed to be Borg v McEnroe from 1981 that got an outing.
That was sorted out fairly quickly but does anyone know how an extended breakdown would be dealt with in terms of keeping broadcasting?
It depends how big the broadcaster - the biggest have split-site or spare playout, coding & mux and uplink facilities.
In reality there are so many things which could go bang that there's no catch-all plan. You just need to have lots of alternatives and staff who know how to cope with anything unusual you throw at them!
Returning to present day. With a lot of ITV's output (primarily daytime) emanating from London there must be some kind of backup. I don't know if the rest of the network is live outside the local news.
Output wise I suspect they'll be able to route it elsewhere (Leeds?) if needs must, much like I believe the BBC used to be able to control the output from Birmingham should an issue crop up that means London can't, but I think that's all changed now anyway and I think Red Bee handles all that, so if things go totally up the creek then...
That was sorted out fairly quickly but does anyone know how an extended breakdown would be dealt with in terms of keeping broadcasting?
It depends how big the broadcaster - the biggest have split-site or spare playout, coding & mux and uplink facilities.
In reality there are so many things which could go bang that there's no catch-all plan. You just need to have lots of alternatives and staff who know how to cope with anything unusual you throw at them!
That was sorted out fairly quickly but does anyone know how an extended breakdown would be dealt with in terms of keeping broadcasting?
It depends how big the broadcaster - the biggest have split-site or spare playout, coding & mux and uplink facilities.
In reality there are so many things which could go bang that there's no catch-all plan. You just need to have lots of alternatives and staff who know how to cope with anything unusual you throw at them!
Well as I seem to recall it was handled very well
I assume by "it" you mean the GMB fire alarm incident(s), or the Lorraine fire alarm incident.
These strictly speaking aren't "breakdowns" as such as they could have carried on, but of course only a moron would stay on air with the fire alarm going off in the background, especially if turns out to be a real fire.
The done way as has been proven (both on GMB/Lorraine and when a similar thing occurred on The One Show) is to say we're off, here's some VT to look at, run it and then head off to the fire assembly point at wherever. If the show doesn't come back it doesn't come back, and that's the network's problem.
Most live programmes have a standby tape of some earlier run-through I believe, or if they're sporting events plenty of filler material (before Wimbledon had a roof, if it was raining before play started on the first day, the entire plan went out the window and what was shown could be anybody's guess!).
If it had been a really rainy day / couple of days - and they’d run out of matches from that years tournament they wanted to show - it always seemed to be Borg v McEnroe from 1981 that got an outing.
That along with going off air entirely on BBC Two, and on BBC One having extended studio bits with McEnroe, BBC pundits and any of Sue’s old mates who were attending that day and could be dragged in a chat.