High-profile Panorama disrupted by playout error

Tonight’s much-publicised edition of Panorama – revealing evidence of racism and misogyny at one of London’s busiest police stations, Charing Cross – was disrupted by a playout error.

The programme was in its final minutes when (for viewers in England and Northern Ireland), a trail for BBC Radio 3 Unwind suddenly appeared.

A BBC One breakdown slide appeared briefly before we cut to the output from one of the BBC Sport galleries in Salford, which was due to air a live trail in the junction prior to the 10pm news.

After a few seconds, a BBC One breakdown slide appeared and remained on screen in silence for about a minute-and-a-half.

Panorama then resumed – but from a slightly later point than where we left it. This meant the programme finished slightly early, leaving BBC One Network filling with a breakdown slide again briefly, plus verbal apology from the Network announcer.

The on air fault was the result of human error at the Red Bee playout operation in London.

And it’s not the first time Panorama has been impacted by a playout issue. An edition of the programme was delayed by twelve minutes in November 2020, again due to human error at Red Bee.

Playout of BBC One in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is handled by in-house teams in each of the respective nations, though London’s output is seen there for much of the day.

Staff in Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff intervened during the breakdown:

• Northern Ireland took London’s output for the in-programme breakdown. But Belfast Playout intervened to prevent the post-programme breakdown (seen in the rest of the country) and seamlessly filled with trails up to the 10pm news.
• Glasgow was in-circuit when the breakdown occurred and so when London inadvertently triggered the next junction, Scottish viewers initially saw the BBC logo and music usually played out on the clean feed of BBC One during junctions.
  
  Scotland put the Salford Sport studio to air for slightly longer than Network before cutting up their own breakdown graphic. The Scottish announcer provided a verbal apology.
  
  BBC One Scotland returned to Panorama as soon as it was restarted by the Network director.
  
  BBC One Scotland put up their own breakdown slide again post-Panorama, filling in a similar fashion to Network, until starting the next junction ahead of the 10pm news.
• BBC One Wales, like Scotland, was on the clean feed of BBC One when the breakdown occurred but cut back to the dirty Network feed before the BBC Radio 3 Unwind trail had finished.
  
  They took the Network breakdown slide initially before cutting up their own breakdown slide, and providing a verbal apology.
  
  BBC One Wales returned to Panorama as soon as it was restarted by the Network director.
  
  After Panorama finished (earlier than originally planned), BBC One Wales put up their own breakdown slide again and provided a further verbal apology. The junction kicked in a short time later, ahead of the 10pm news.

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