BBC TV and Radio - Power Cut

DMC

Pity I missed this! This is the second time in two years too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3245864.stm

Fire alert interrupts BBC shows

Some of the BBC's radio and television services, including Radio 4, Five Live and News 24, were interrupted by a fire alert and a power cut on Friday.
Radio 4's Today programme was off air for 16 minutes from 0753 GMT.

News 24 had to broadcast from the BBC One Breakfast sofas before moving to the Westminster studio.

An overheating piece of machinery in Television Centre, west London, set off a fire alarm - but there was no fire - the London Fire Brigade said.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "We experienced some technical problems at TV Centre - it affected part of the building and some services were affected.

"Radio 4, Five and News 24 all went off air for a short time but they are all back running as normal.

"We're going to look into what happened but we really can't say any more at the moment."

The power cut and fire alarm forced parts of TV Centre to be evacuated twice.

BBC One's One O'Clock News is likely to be broadcast from Millbank in Westminster, with continued disruption possible throughout the day.

The Today programme was interrupted during an interview with Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, with music played in the show's place during the stoppage.

When the programme returned, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was being interviewed, joked: "It takes me back to the 1950s when they used to put the scorecard on the television.

"Maybe it's a not-so-subtle bid by the BBC for an increase in the licence fee."

BBC World had to play recorded news packages for a time.

And BBC One's Breakfast presenters had to keep broadcasting on News 24 for an extra half hour, until 0930.

After a pre-recorded edition of Hard Talk, News 24's Philip Hayton then took over presenting duties from the Breakfast studio before handing over to colleagues in Westminster.

and

http://media.guardian.co.uk/radio/story/0,12636,1095267,00.html

Power cut blamed for Today blackout

Chris Tryhorn
Friday November 28, 2003

The BBC has launched an investigation after a power cut was blamed for a 13-minute blackout this morning on the Radio 4 Today programme, Radio 5 Live and News 24.

The culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, was cut off in mid-flow and had to be moved to another studio as the apparent power failure struck at 7.52am.

Radio 5 Live's breakfast programme with Nicky Campbell was also affected, while rolling TV news service News 24 faced similar problems.

"There was a power failure this morning and it did affect some of our services" a BBC spokesman said.

Fire services were called at around 8am as managers suspected something more serious could have caused the blackout.

The blip deprived the flagship Today programme's 6.5 million listeners of coverage at a crucial point in the morning.

Ironically, Ms Jowell was being interviewed about the government's "Big Conversation" initiative by Sarah Montague when the transmission was abruptly pulled.

Contingency power supplies failed to kick in and the programme immediately broadcast classical music with intermittent announcements telling baffled listeners the programme would be back on air as soon as possible.

Montague and co-presenter Ed Stourton were forced to move to another floor in the studio complex at TV Centre in west London but services were not resumed until just after 8.05am.

Yeah I was watching BBC breakfast on BBC 1 this morning and Caroll Kirkwood had to do her forecasts from the sofa inside for a change.

mm

Greenman

Ye I was in my truck listening to R 4 and they died for about 15 secs then they started some light music. R 5 took a few minutes to do more than dead air they later started an interview with Simon Mayo and David Athenborough ( not sure on spelling ). I thought Astra 2D had fallen out of the sky I then switched to BBC WS and all was fine there.
I'm sure lessons were learnt!!!