[Former Member 443]

By 1991 they'd probably have moved onto something newer than an ACR25 (if that's the sorry of thing you're thinking by cart based system) but that's not to say that what happened in that video wouldn't have occurred no matter what system they used.


I know Thames changed from ACR25s to Panasonic MARCs library management systems  in about 1990 for both channels. Like Former Member 443 says about Tyne Tees they were reluctant to put them straight to air so compiled to tape first and played that out. I don't know how soon beforehand that was done, but I once heard a story about a slightly over zealous bit of housekeeping when someone cleared out the schedule for the next break too

Those sort of tape based systems were in their prime in the late 80s/early 90s - the MARC was used by a few ITV companies and the BBC, who all chose Panasonic format tapes. For those who used Sony tapes then there was Betacart (used a lot of news more than playout) Sony LMS and Flexicart and Odetics. Sky and BSB launched around that time and would have been using one of those.

Even in the late 90s and 2000s they were being made and installed - Channel 5 playout had two Sony LMS compiling ads into Profile servers at launch in 1997 and the BBCs playout areas had Flexicarts installed when it moved into the Broadcast Centre in the mid 2000s

I see, fair enough, I was lumping the cassette-based ones in generically with "carts" in my mind and wondering how the heck a server type system was possible in 1991 lol.