You'd think that Sit-Up would have learned their lesson by now, every time they have a power cut all three channels are a shambles for a considerable amount of time. While I'm not suggesting they could keep the channels on air during a power cut there are things they could do to help get properly back on air more quickly when power supplies do return.
I'm going to upload my various clips from this afternoon onto here and maybe YouTube later on, but I'll be away for now so if anyone else can record Bid TV, it would be appreciated.
You'd think that Sit-Up would have learned their lesson by now, every time they have a power cut all three channels are a shambles for a considerable amount of time. While I'm not suggesting they could keep the channels on air during a power cut there are things they could do to help get properly back on air more quickly when power supplies do return.
Yes, this isn't the first time.
Their channels are particularly vulnerable as they are all live and rely on their graphics for their programming and ultimately, income. Unlike a 'normal' channel they can't just get a standby VT working and shove that on until everything's sorted.... something even a rolling news channel can get away with.
However, their level of resilience they're willing to pay for depends on how much money they will lose from an outage. It's a risk they take.
It could be related, as I think Sit Up TV are still based here in Acton, West London, but on our local community forum website some residents have been reporting brief power cuts for a few hours today and Southern Electric said there was a fault on their high voltage network in the area.
They've certainly have a fair few problems. I remember a few years back they lost air conditioning on one of the summer's hottest days, ended up with an hour or so of very sweaty crew, a very long auction of some towels before calling the whole thing off at about 9pm.
Some footage of the breakdown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W7R2Sm0oUE . The caption "Thank you for your patience tune to price drop tv" smacked me as being pretty badly worded.
Unlike a 'normal' channel they can't just get a standby VT working and shove that on until everything's sorted.... something even a rolling news channel can get away with.
Surely they could stick on some of that Teleshopping rubbish they put on after 1am? Fine, probably not the best idea to do that straight away - esp as you have a full staff and a call centre (although most is automated) on duty - but certainly an idea after an hour or so of 'problems'.
I think selling a few bottles of No Wet WonderFoam would beat trying to sell a camera without any sound or graphics, and also stop your channel looking like a shoddy mess.
Unlike a 'normal' channel they can't just get a standby VT working and shove that on until everything's sorted.... something even a rolling news channel can get away with.
Surely they could stick on some of that Teleshopping rubbish they put on after 1am? Fine, probably not the best idea to do that straight away - esp as you have a full staff and a call centre (although most is automated) on duty - but certainly an idea after an hour or so of 'problems'.
I think selling a few bottles of No Wet WonderFoam would beat trying to sell a camera without any sound or graphics, and also stop your channel looking like a shoddy mess.
Can't believe they're still running that infomercial. It must be coming up to its tenth birthday!
Surely they could stick on some of that Teleshopping rubbish they put on after 1am? Fine, probably not the best idea to do that straight away - esp as you have a full staff and a call centre (although most is automated) on duty - but certainly an idea after an hour or so of 'problems'.
I think selling a few bottles of No Wet WonderFoam would beat trying to sell a camera without any sound or graphics, and also stop your channel looking like a shoddy mess.
Indeed, that's just the sort of thing they should have ready for such such a circumstance. However I'm pretty sure that Screenshop is seperate and therefore they can't show it at any other time
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 8 April 2011 2:01am
Some footage of the breakdown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W7R2Sm0oUE . The caption "Thank you for your patience tune to price drop tv" smacked me as being pretty badly worded.
That video shows the "analogue fuzzy-ness type shot of the studio" I was talking about yesterday, at 0:36.