[Brekkie]

Talking of CAs notice despite the pressure on funding they're persisting with the seperate announcers from Salford for the "North". That's clearly had zero benefit to the licence fee payer or the channels ratings since they began it - it's not as if they even use people with noticeably Northern accents either.

[Technologist]

There was always a CA in Salford as part of the normal playout resilience.
When the opt switches moved from the regions to,CCM…
It was seen that there was the opportunity to split the feeds
so that say the northern regions could have the Salford announcer etc…
So they did it ..as it gave what was felt to be a more relevant output at NO extra cost.

[orange]

There is no H in 'aitch'.

Hmm… but what about at the end?

[Spencer]

There was always a CA in Salford as part of the normal playout resilience.
When the opt switches moved from the regions to,CCM…
It was seen that there was the opportunity to split the feeds
so that say the northern regions could have the Salford announcer etc…
So they did it ..as it gave what was felt to be a more relevant output at NO extra cost.

I’m curious as to why resilience couldn’t have been provided by one of the other three live announcers in the nations in the first place.

I seem to remember there was an occasion when Northern Ireland provided continuity for Wales (or possibly vice versa), even despite their slightly differing schedules. Why was it seen as necessary for a continuity base in Salford to be setup as a backup to London when Cardiff, Glasgow or Belfast could have stepped in in an emergency?

[interestednovice]

I imagine the simple answer is that the setup as it is now allows for maximum redundancy.

Network (London) is the main feed that all others derive from, unless paired with Network (Salford).

Network (Salford) is a completely hot standby for Network (London) and vice-versa.

Nations then opt out of the sustaining network feed, so if they have a failure which means their opt doesn’t work, the worst that can happen is you see a sustaining feed (England’s programming) instead. Rather than a collapse of BBC One.

To cover anything other than an ad-hoc junction, the nations would probably need for equipment and personnel.

[Technologist]

The nations are not played out by Red Bee …
So there would have to be reciprocal contracts for providing this feature
And they do not use the same equipment …

The Salford (or London) feed can be put to air in under 10 seconds …
And out of peak hours either can feed the England and the sustaining feed

[lookoutwales]

In the case of the (in-house) Nations Pres operations, they operate their own 'buddy' system among themselves.

Definitely recall two occasions when Northern Ireland stepped in for Wales (in both cases, there was a power cut at the old Broadcasting House in Llandaff)

On the first occasion, it was a straight relay of BBC1 NI for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon (though I seem to recall both were following the same schedule)

The second time around, Wales had a couple of opts on a Friday night - initially, it was another BBC1 NI relay (think they were showing a Garden Rescue repeat while Wales were due to show a Weatherman Walking repeat - which had to be dropped)

But after EastEnders, NI were able to start a bespoke BBC1 Wales service from its spare Pres suite in Belfast (their head of Pres, Mark Simpson, took charge), which allowed them to show the later opt as scheduled and the timeshifted line-up, more or less as planned (Llandaff had got some of its power back by then, but the late Wales Today bulletin was rather makeshift)

Given the circumstances, it worked impressively well.

cleanfeed.thetvroom.com 

BBC Wales HQ struck down by power cut - Clean Feed
BBC Wales has been affected by a power cut this evening. BBC Wales Today failed …
  Source: cleanfeed.thetvroom.com

[Stuart]

Hmm… but what about at the end?

Haha, my bad. I meant at the beginning.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Doesn't the Salford arrangement mean that the team there isn't just going through the motions running a back up that nobody ever sees? A bit more job satisfaction for all concerned and confidence that the Salford team are definitely "match fit" to take over if required.

[Technologist]

That's why sometimes Salford plays out to the Nation..
it is a A/B not Main /Standby architecture
(as was proved to work when Red Bee blew out its disks)

The Nations or regions Buddying is a Main/ Intermittent Standby.