ITN’s headquarters at Gray’s Inn Road in London has been affected by power supply issues today. The news organisation’s back-up generator failed, resulting in disruption to programmes for a number of channels.
The first on air impact of the electrical fault was the ITV London News breakfast bulletins during Good Morning Britain.
The Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5 failed to materialise at 9.15am. Though a pre-recorded continuity announcement linked into the programme. Replacement programmes were broadcast instead.
Channel 4’s lunchtime news bulletin did make it on air, albeit not from the usual studio facility. Presenter Matt Frei also presented the weather forecast in-vision and minus the usual weather graphics. The programme suffered picture glitches and occasional full loss of picture/sound.
Channel 5’s lunchtime news update was replaced by an edition of Entertainment News on 5.
The ITV Lunchtime News was broadcast from ITV Yorkshire’s Calendar studio and was presented by Gamal Fahnbulleh.
Channel 5’s early evening news programme was forced to decamp to an alternative studio in Camden. The programme had very limited on-screen graphics.
During the afternoon, we learned that ITV’s national news programmes were relocating to Leeds for the day. Mary Nightingale presented the ITV Evening News from the Calendar studio.
The main edition of Channel 4 News came from Leeds and London. The London studio-based elements are believed to have been based at ITN’s Millbank facility. The programme is also believed to have been controlled from Millbank (vision, sound, graphics).
Lower-third graphics did not animate and weren’t quite in the usual position on screen. We also spotted the odd glitch with the large screen in the Leeds studio.
As with the ITV national news programmes earlier in the day, the ITV News at Ten came from the Calendar studio in Leeds.
Power was finally restored at Gray’s Inn Road at breakfast time on Tuesday morning. ITV London News bulletins within Good Morning Britain were again off air and replaced by updates from ITV Meridian News.
The Jeremy Vine show went out from the ITN studios at 9.15am on Channel 5. 5 News was back in its usual studio at ITN by the time its lunchtime update went on air.
ITV’s national news programmes continued to be broadcast from Leeds throughout Tuesday.
Channel 4 News at 11.30am appeared to be based at Millbank – and the weather was read in-vision by the news presenter.
The 7pm programme was back in its usual home at ITN HQ in London. There was a problem with lower-thirds initially – non-animating captions were used in the opening minutes of the programme, before the normal animated graphics returned. At one point, both forms of the lower-third appeared on screen at the same time.
By Wednesday, the Channel 4 News late-morning bulletin was back at ITN HQ. And ITV’s national news programmes had also returned to Gray’s Inn Road.
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