The 2000 powercut was quite unique, luckily as Huw Edwards warned that they were probably going to go off air at any moment, so most of the Regions were on stand-by, and had to improvise the end of their own bulletins, IIRC I think Digital got a repeat of Dads Army in place of UK Today but it was all over the show. BBC2 should have been showing Star Trek but ended up showing a Great Railway Journeys instead which was transmitted from Pebble Mill.
The 2003 failure put back the News 24 relaunch by a week.
I thought that Dads Army and Great Railway Journeys appeared on analogue only, from Pebble Mill, with BBC1 digital showing a UK Direct in place of UK Today and BBC2 digital the scheduled Star Trek?
Or TV-am were routed through Euston Road for the rest of the morning in case Hawley Cres lost power again? They said they were leaving Richard Keys there just in case. It would have been easier to do it with TV-am as an outside source into Thames so they could get on air straight away if there were further problems.
Actually, yes. The usual on screen analogue clock (not the burnt in timecode ) only appears on TV-am's studio output, not on Thames's so I think you could be right.
I gather that Tv-am went to Thames as Hawley Cresc had lost power. Did they not have Emergency back up then or had this failed as well?
There was a clean cut from Thames to TV-am at 07:10, so it may have been that TV-am had enough juice
to power their gallery/MCR, but not the studio lighting until 7am.
One day I'll recapture in better quality. The recording starts at about 6.30 so presumably TV-am had no power at all until then. It also stops again at about 8.40 so good job they left Richard Keys at Thames.
The other thing to mention, the TV-am logo going into the break looks suspiciously like a video tape label to me.
The Big Breakfast almost got pulled off air in October 2000 after a severe storm over night. The programme opened with Richard Bacon showing how damp the living room carpet was by the french windows but they continued to do the programme live.
I thought that Dads Army and Great Railway Journeys appeared on analogue only, from Pebble Mill, with BBC1 digital showing a UK Direct in place of UK Today and BBC2 digital the scheduled Star Trek?
Yes, IIRC there was no back-up plan for digital at the time, it being new and analogue being the dominant platform. I suspect the idea, at least initially was to just let it go.
Therefore what digital viewers saw were the scheduled programmes coming from presentation, which in the end remained powered throughout the incident.
For me, one of the most inspiring
Show must go on
broadcasts is from radio, not TV. It's from Falklands Islands Radio (or Falklands Islands Broadcasting Station) on the night of the 1982 Argentine invasion.
There's almost two hours of recordings from the night (apparently made by a listener) which have been uploaded to youtube, which are a history lesson in themselves.
Particularly interesting excerpts are:
A few hours before the invasion, the presenter announces that the station will keep broadcasting overnight:
http://youtu.be/agX45iQ1lP8?t=2m20s
The station cuts from some ominous classical music to the Governor, who provides an update and promises to keep broadcasting for as long as possible:
http://youtu.be/agX45iQ1lP8?t=10m36s
The studio gets eventually gets taken over by Argentine soldiers who have to deal with a rather bullish presenter http://youtu.be/REGYK49DAIY?t=3m3s
I guess it's easier to keep radio on-air than TV in these circumstances? It sounds like he's the only person in the studio for most of the night.
Absolutely fascinating listening Jon0 - thank you for sharing this.
I gather that Tv-am went to Thames as Hawley Cresc had lost power. Did they not have Emergency back up then or had this failed as well?
There was a clean cut from Thames to TV-am at 07:10, so it may have been that TV-am had enough juice
to power their gallery/MCR, but not the studio lighting until 7am.
One day I'll recapture in better quality. The recording starts at about 6.30 so presumably TV-am had no power at all until then. It also stops again at about 8.40 so good job they left Richard Keys at Thames.
The other thing to mention, the TV-am logo going into the break looks suspiciously like a video tape label to me.
Amazing they managed to put breaks out at all - does that indicate that the show was indeed being run from TV-am? I'm guessing the odd looking TV-am logo is because it's all Thames had to end the part, and Camden weren't (for whatever reason) able to run the end of part bumper themselves.
I remember Paul Lavers running Friendly TV on his own, presenting the automated Flash quiz game from their gallery and operating the buttons himself too. He seemed to be the only one there. I don't think it was due to technical issue, more a lack of interest from anyone else.
There was the instance last year when the France v Ireland Six Nations match was called off at the last minute, with a full house and the band lined up ready to platy, as part of the pitch hadn't thawed out in time. There's some good footage on YouTube of RTE's coverage of the build-up and the call-off. Whereas the BBC ended their planned coverage within minutes (as obviously there was going to be no game to cover), the RTE guys kept going for around another 15 minutes until the next programme could air.
And changing sports but two recent examples with Adrian Chiles filling for over an hour on ITV - the first being the Euro 2012 when that storm hit in the Ukraine, and a second one just a few months later which was an England game which was ultimately delayed until the next afternoon for reasons I can't quite remember.
