South East Today disappeared and was replaced by BBC London for about 6 or 7 minutes during the 6:30pm programme on Dsat and Freeview (apparently, I couldn't check as I get BBC South on Freeview) but was ok on analogue (apparently, I also get BBC South on Analogue). They welcomed us back when they reappeared and blamed technical problems which could mean anything.
SET were very quick to apologise on their Facebook page and even Polly Evans posted another apology after the show. Their use of FB is probably one of the best things they do outside of the programme.
Agreed. I would like to hear more about South East Today itself rather than news in the South East though, we have the programme and the BBC's own website for the news.
This is a nice post...
Read on if you want to know why sometimes BBC London is shown on your TV instead of BBC South East Today...
We're sorry for the recent problems where you have seen BBC London News instead of South East Today. You might be wondering how this can happen and why. Well, our distribution systems are designed so if there is a problem at our studio centre in Tunbridge Wells (or elsewhere in the transmission chain) you will automatically receive BBC London's regional programme. That's to avoid your screens going blank under fault conditions.
There are actually two separate distribution systems, one for analogue tv, the other for digital. They bring BBC One signals into our building so we can intercept them and route our programme on to satellite and to terrestrial transmitters in the South East region.
If you receive BBC London News throughout the time you would expect to see South East Today this is probably because we have a technical failure which is preventing us getting on air. Or it could be that our programme would be so impaired that we feel it's better to concentrate on sorting the problem than attempt to go live with an inferior service.
One morning last week we had an example of this - our lighting desk failed just before we were due on air. So we decided to work out a means of lighting the studio for the following bulletin rather than broadcast the next one with presenters in darkness.
Then, on Friday evening, there was a fault in a unit which controls the digital distribution. That resulted in digital viewers seeing BBC London, while South East Today continued as normal on analogue. Our engineers believe they have fixed the fault, but as it was intermittent they can't be 100% sure, so they are working on a contingency in case it fails again.
From time to time you may have seen BBC London at the start of our slot, then, about 30 seconds later, South East Today pops up. The most likely reason for this is what we call "finger trouble". In other words, someone hasn't pushed the buttons to allow live transmission. They then realise their mistake and do the necessary to put us on air. We're sorry when this happens, and try to make an apology on air as soon as we can.