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| Take Two |
ITV Network Transmission Issues |
| May 31 2008 and June 13 2008 |
At around 1.20am on Saturday May 31 2008, the ITV London Transmission Centre was hit by a power outage. In normal circumstances, the UPS would have kicked in and kept things going. However, a power spike occurred just as the UPS was being triggered. This caused a complete loss of power to the entire building.
The result: ITV 2, ITV 3 and ITV 4 fell off air; ITV 1 was knocked off air briefly on digital platforms; however, ITV 1 analogue transmissions were impacted until c. 2.30am in some regions, with feeds to some transmitters being lost completely, resulting in the appearance of an apology caption, generated at the transmitter site. UTV screens went black on analogue and digital platforms from c. 1.20am; service was restored there by c. 1.40am. STV was broadcasting its own schedule during the power incident and is believed to have been unaffected. |
Above: the situation regarding ITV 2, ITV 3 and ITV 4 on DSAT shortly after 2am. Initially, ITV 2 was broadcasting a green screen. However, this later switched to black. At c. 2.00am, ITV 4 switched from a black screen to 'ITV Nightscreen' [right]. |
Above: 'ITV Nightscreen' on ITV 4 suffered a picture problem until c. 2.20am, when attempts were made to correct the fault [right]. |
Above: shortly after the 'ITV Nightscreen' picture issue was rectified, 'Nightscreen' then appeared on ITV 2 and ITV 3 as well. The time was now just after 2.20am. |
However, things changed fairly quickly. Engineers then attempted to split the channels again. Just before this happened, a series of captions was displayed - see below. |
Above: various ITV channel holding captions appeared briefly [1]. |
Above: various ITV channel holding captions appeared briefly [2]. |
Above: various ITV channel holding captions appeared briefly [3]. |
Above: by 2.23am, ident still captions appeared on each of the respective channels. |
Above: the ITV 4 logo caption, which appeared at 2.23am. |
ITV 4 programmes resumed shortly before 3.00am. We believe that ITV 2 and ITV 3 resumed a normal schedule at c. 6am.
Viewers also reported technical problems during the GMTV broadcast on ITV 1 at 6am.
At lunchtime on Friday June 13 2008, power problems struck down ITV playout once again. At around 12.20pm, ITV 1 (analogue and digital), ITV 2, ITV 3 and ITV 4 fell off air. Sound and vision on ITV 1 had been restored by 12.45pm in most regions; however, viewers across England were still reporting aspect ratio and audio issues on ITV 1 (analogue and digital) well into the afternoon.
Programmes were restored on ITV 2 and ITV 3 shortly after 12.45pm. ITV 4 programming resumed a little later, shortly after 1.05pm.
During the 1.30pm junction on ITV 1, the announcer apologised "for some of the technical difficulties we're experiencing; we're doing our best to resolve them." Reports suggest that this apology was not heard in some English regions.
STV and UTV were impacted briefly at around 12.20pm, when their network feed went down. Normal service was restored in these regions a short time later.
An ITV spokesman said: "ITV programmes were briefly interrupted at lunchtime today in the south of England as a result of a power surge which affected transmission equipment."
He added: "Engineers worked quickly and restored service to viewers. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this brief outage caused." |
Above: ITV 2 schedule disruption on June 13 2008. |
Above: ITV 3 impacted by the power surge incident on June 13 2008. |
Above: ITV 4 programming resumed shortly after 1.05pm on June 13 2008, following the power surge incident. |
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