TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

The precedent of the morning after the Great Storm when TV-am came from Thames suggests it was at least theoretically possible. Politics and corporate pride was probably the bigger barrier, although I guess there may have been a reciprocal disaster recovery arrangement. I don't know whether Thames could used a studio gallery at Teddington as makeshift pres suite if Euston was out of action.

I think a JCB took out all of the circuits between either Thames and BT Tower on one occasion. They got back on air with help (official or otherwise) from LWT (and the height of their roof) and the BBC.

I'm assuming or presuming that TV-AM must have got permission from the IBA to use Thames' facilities as Thames didn't come on air until 9.25. Likewise Thames must have got permission to allow TV-AM to use their facilities.

This next bit is a theory but it's plausible that the IBA allowed the rules to be bent to prevent any more criticism about TV-AM.

Anyway here's the obligatory link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5i5FhsIaAg

I'm not sure Euston would have been that busy at weekends, it did their more topical stuff whereas Teddington would be more likely to be doing production then


I suppose in theory they could have gone there but there weren't standardised facilities like control rooms and VT. In fact I think when VT cassettes came along they would have had different formats.

It wouldn't have been a case of just turning up, it would have had to have been a pre-planned arrangement. There would have needed to be Thames staff there to assist


Having said that presumably there was some sort of arrangement between Thames and TVam and that was what was seen when the 1986 storm happened

The IBA handled all the line bookings, so presumably they would have had to instruct BT to route Thames rather than Eggcup House to line.

Which beggars the question what kind of backup did BT have bearing in mind that communications would have been severely disrupted across London and the South-East?

It is documented that Thames took the feed from TV-am as an input as I believe the feed from Camden Lock dropped out again at some point around 8:15am and Richard Keys was able to take over, and the output from Thames was sent in place of the normal arrangements for that morning across the network.

Think last time this came up we thought it wouldn't have been too difficult to reconfigure the network, although the studio recording on YouTube seems to suggest they weren't on air in London anyway, not that they seem to be aware of that.

I dare say it boiled down to IBA was the broadcaster, they could pull the strings to get TV-am on the air, if that involved phoning BT up at 5am to tell them to swap a couple of cables around at 6am manually, then so be it, though I suppose the speed of things depends on when somebody at Camden Lock told the IBA they had no power, though the footage implies they'd had no power since 4am so...

Would they have needed permission from the IBA? It's still TV-AM broadcasting even if they are using all of Thames' facilities to do so.

Interesting that Thames had the Elton John interview available, or someone was able to get it over to them to play out.

I think the theory is that when they returned to Camden Lock they were still routed through Thames, which is how they got back on so quickly with Richard Keys at Thames.

Could it have been, that while TV-am were able to broadcast from Camden Lock, they were playing a recording of the Elton John interview down to Thames, to record, as just in case scenario?

From my dim memory of that day, London was blacked-out that morning. I remember we had to make do with medium-wave radio!

I take it someone must have taken an armful of ads down the road to Thames so the bills could still be paid...

No they wouldn't have needed permission, the franchise belonged to TVam the company, not TVam the building. It wouldn't have mattered officially where their service was coming from.

Of course someone somewhere would have had to have made the decision and authorise what changes needed to be made. Chances are it was a planned procedure that just had to be put in to action.

I wouldn't have thought decamping to Thames wouldn't have been much good as a procedure for a power cut, the two aren't that far away geographically. Good choice for some other incidents for the same reason though

Looking at that TV-am video, my assumption is that it was recorded from Camden, seeing as it starts around the time they got power back and cuts off when they lose it again. One thing I notice when they go back to Gordon Honeycombe at Camden, after a few seconds there's a picture roll and the on-screen clock disappears. I'm presuming before that point they were reciving a feed from Thames, then once Camden goes back they switch the VTR to a local feed (before the clock generator). Is there any off-air footage out there from the first 45 minutes, and the period after power was lost again after 8:15? I'm guessing that footage isn't on the master tape, if it was being recorded in Camden.