[Jimbo2022]

Hi. Sorry if this is in the wrong place but does anyone know the reason fir BBC4 ending early tonight at 0145 rather than around 0400? 

And CBBC is meant to be closing at some point, but I thought BBC4 was untouched fir now 

All other days seem to have regular transmission hours for BBC4

Strange. Thanks

[interestednovice]

I would guess it might be for some kind of maintenance, at a time when hardly anyone would notice?

[Stooky Bill]

That's odd, I wonder if there was meant to be something on at 1:45 but it got pulled for some reason and they just didn't replace it?Thats the only thing I can think of.

Unlikely to be maintenance as I can't think what they would be maintaining that: didn't have at least one reserve, didn't effect any other channel, and couldn't wait till 4am

[Brekkie]

It's quite common once a year or so for channels to go off air for a period overnight for some engineering works or planned maintenance.

[Nobby]

That would seem less necessary on a channel that doesn't broadcast 24/7 anyway. I assume any overtime rate is the same at 01:30 as it is at 04:00. Unless whatever the work was was planned to take over 2 hours I suppose.

The other question is, did BBC Four actually go off air or did they continue to broadcast the 'Back at 19:00' slide until 6am on all platforms?

[Technologist]

The playout is 24/7 as BBC4 and Cbeebies share the suite
thus it seems reasonable that if something needed to be done ,
Red Bee would take down the suite and its inherent resilience

[Transmission]

Hi. Sorry if this is in the wrong place but does anyone know the reason fir BBC4 ending early tonight at 0145 rather than around 0400? 

The programme originally scheduled for 01:45 was dropped a week or so before TX. It was just a repeat of a classical music documentary. It was also scheduled for 21:00ish but the Proms Unmissable Moments programme has its duration increased to 2 hours so that airing was dropped and I guess the thinking of the schedulers was that if that went, then the later repeat also had to go.

[Stooky Bill]

The playout is 24/7 as BBC4 and Cbeebies share the suite
thus it seems reasonable that if something needed to be done ,
Red Bee would take down the suite and its inherent resilience

Not really, that's the point of having resilience.... you can work on one side while the other continues.

There's multiple playout engines, two sets of suites in two cities and at least two sets of everything downstream of that.

There's no need these days to stop a channel  to do maintenence work

[soulfulscotsman]

Not really, that's the point of having resilience.... you can work on one side while the other continues.

There's multiple playout engines, two sets of suites in two cities and at least two sets of everything downstream of that.

There's no need these days to stop a channel  to do maintenence work

Tell that to RT... ;-)

[Stooky Bill]

It's quite common once a year or so for channels to go off air for a period overnight for some engineering works or planned maintenance.

It really isn't. 

Years ago transmitters regularly used to have periods of being off-air or reduced power, but now they're rarely interrupted. Thimgs are much more reliable and need less maintaining. 

The nearest you get to a channel going off air are the overnight tests on BBC Radio. But even there it's only for a few minutes and only on one platform.

A lot of work takes place all the time - things go wrong, things are replaced, tested etc but it's not something you'd notice on air. Switching is designed, and generally is seamless