[Si-Co]

Here’s footage of a power cut at TVC in 1990, recorded from BBC1 Scotland. I’m not sure if footage from network BBC1 exists, and how different it would be. Here we see the Sunday evening news fall off air, a period of black, and then about 5 minutes of music follow until That’s Life begins.

Breakdown occurs about 11 minutes in.

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Credit: TELEVISION HEAVEN

[RDJ]

Great find! I was about to say there definitely seems to be a subliminal message in the first piece of breakdown music, but then I see the video description has beaten me to it!

Do we know what happened to Network that night? Presumably Pres at least will have kept going on generator power, even if it means News went into darkness.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I had a look for contemporary newspaper reports and the only thing I find was a two line PA article stating a transformer fault.

I wouldn't be surprised if it only affected part of TV Centre, the news facilities in the Spur could have been sufficiently separate from the main block that pres was fully powered.

[Dadeki]

Not a technical breakdown but more a breakdown of the presenter, who suffers a fit of sudden and uncontrollable laughter while presenting the Anglia Tonight regional news programme:

[Stooky Bill]

Something's gone wrong at Thames, and not even Philip Elsmore knows what's going on
youtu.be 

[Bennyboy84]

youtu.be 

This is an odd one, the way in which the ident freezes and the sound fades out is pretty much what happens when a computer freezes. As for Cash in the Attic, I’m imagining someone either pressed the wrong button or the system was not reacting too well to having News 24 overriding the normal programming.

[Stooky Bill]

youtu.be 

This is an odd one, the way in which the ident freezes and the sound fades out is pretty much what happens when a computer freezes. As for Cash in the Attic, I’m imagining someone either pressed the wrong button or the system was not reacting too well to having News 24 overriding the normal programming.

It does look like the system froze up on the ident. It could be that the director tried to press Take Next a few times to get it on air and then when it finally started reacting it took next out of the news and the next few items and started playing the programme. Just a guess. 

The News 24 coverage is an anniversary item so would have been planned, not a last minute thing. The automation doesn't care if the programme it's about to play isn't what's 'normally' on

[Transmission]

This is an odd one, the way in which the ident freezes and the sound fades out is pretty much what happens when a computer freezes. As for Cash in the Attic, I’m imagining someone either pressed the wrong button or the system was not reacting too well to having News 24 overriding the normal programming.

The freeze would perhaps be the automation (would've been Colossus at the time) stopping the clip at the end of the point it was supposed to no longer be on air, but the mixer hadn't cut to the next source. Can think of a few things that might have caused that, both human error and tech failure, but it'd just be speculation. Likewise, the sudden appearance of the next programme could be anything from the automation playing up to (as sometimes happens!) someone trying to fix a problem accidentally making it worse. News 24 would have been just another outside source, so nothing out of the ordinary about that.

[nwtv2003]

There was a hasty cut at the end of the Man Utd/Chelsea match on Sky Sports Main Event, as it went to a break whilst the commentators were still talking before going back to the actual coverage within about 30 seconds. There was no acknowledgment on screen, so I’m guessing this was on Main Event only and not affecting the Premier League channel.

[robertclark125]

Correct, did not affect sky sports Premier league. What I think happened was, on main event, they played out the sponsorship sting too early, as they were to go over to golf at 10.45pm, but they played it out as soon as the match finished.