The Six goes tits up

The power cut that took the six off air is the only incident of that I can remember, and even then wasn't it the regions doing their own thing in the absence of talkback?

I guess pres would sustain with an apology caption or a filler programme if news were to go horribly pear shaped? Or if N24 or World was still operational simulcast with them?

I think that after one of the power cuts when the Six went off-air, the regions were asked to opt out slightly early and yes, that's the only occasion I can think of too. They shouldn't opt out in the absense of talkback.

Ordinarily, it's up to pres to fill should any programme not be able to sustain its broadcast slot. In the case of News though, there are several sources that Pres could take in place of the Six. If they're still operational BBC News 24 or BBC World could be carried. There was a fire alarm in Stage 6 (the News centre) recently that caused the first 10 minutes of the One O Clock News to be replaced by BBC World News. This is because the BBC World News studio isn't in Stage 6 so wasn't evacuated. Should the whole of the news operation be affected, News move to the Westminster studios and mount a single news service for News24, World and National television, as happened after the IRA bomb at TVC.

I had this thought the other day! How can we investigate?!

And that would explain everyone's inboxes on Metropol which are mostly full of comments "structured from previous posts" of that user...

Interesting theory...

Yes. They'd be unlikely to call the opt more than a few minutes early.

Wouldn't really explain how he could reply to private messages, though, would it.

As much as I would like it to be true, it isn't.

He does occasionally do spontaneous. In the CBC thread he asked "What happened to Barbara Frum?" when she had not been mentioned in the conversation. So, unlikely.

So some form of robot, but with the occasional human nudge to help it look a tiny bit credible?

But the question still remains about where the human nudge comes from, and my bet's still Florida.

Well I was given the whole and very interesting story of the man behind "Corin" by Corin himself. So send him a PM and he might tell you about himself.

I had quite a lengthy PM converataion with it/him, back in the early days, DAS, and the messages sent to me are the direct basis for my current assumptions about the user.

Fair enough then. I can't say I've ever felt him to be robotic... but one of my many PMs was entitled "9 out of 10 viewers agree Hutton washes whiter than DAZ". Could a robot be that witty, topical and have such an extensive knowledge of washing powder advertising campaigns of the 1990s featuring Shane Ritchie and Danny Baker - all at the same time?

Oh, that one again.

I think you'll find the Daz reference comes from here!

Yep - I've seen that particular edition.

However you are mistaken - they hadn't stopped using video-tape at all. They weren't playing out from a digital server system. However they WERE using a digitally controlled VT playout system (similar to the Betacart mentioned in the LNN posts) - the playout system failed.

Until Betacart/Flexicart/Odetics cart machines were introduced VT playout meant people putting tapes into VTRs, cueing them up and then pressing the play button, then after the report had aired they'd eject the tape manually. This is how it still works in some areas - even now. Betacart et al allowed you to put the cassettes into a rack (often with a barcode on the side) and then the system would track the cassette, automatically retrieving it and loading/cueing it under computer control. (Effectively a robot arm would pull the tape from a rack and push it into a VT machine!)

However if the playout system that tracked the cassettes and loaded/ejected them went haywire you were left with all of your material in a rack with no labels...

Central weren't using digital hard disc servers that early in the 90s - they came about 5 years later when HTV West, and the News 24, adopted Omnibus/Columbus and Profile servers.

Central South (along with HTV and GMTV) did move to Quantel Clipbox servers and Editbox for editing in the late 90s - and were very cautious with the move...

(Look North Newcastle and Look East Norwich are now up and running on the latest Quantel system - ServerQ and QCut editing I believe)