Post by Hollow Sun on Jan 14, 2007 1:53:21 GMT
Listening to Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 programme today...
The BBC have just had a load of their radio studios refurbished with shiny new digital ones ... a fairly hefty investment of licence payers' money - and one crashed horribly this morning ... live on air!!! Everything went totally pear-shaped - channels went wildly out of phase, channels were muting at random whilst leaving some open (where you could hear muffled back-chat during records playing - nothing profane unfortunately!) and the EQ on the vocal mics turned to a preset obviously called 'Mud'! There was panic in the studio coz no-one could control or reset it.... it seemed to take on a life of its own!
After a few abortive attempts, the airwaves went dead ... then some anonymous engineer obviously started just playing records whilst everyone transferred to another studio... this time a simple voice-over place normally used by news readers, etc. - in other words, a simple analogue mixer and a few mics!
Jonathan and team handled it all very well and professionally and with excellent humour and whilst I have heard some technical problems live on air before, none as spectacular (and amusing) as this ... usually just a record that stuck or a CD that skipped. And I've heard a few mistakes happen because of presenters having trouble since the change-over with the new multi-function digital devices but this was ... well ... spectacular - about 15 minutes of live, on-air technical mayhem!!
I bet the people that proposed/designed the change-over to an all-digital broadcast studio system will be sleeping uneasily tonight as they await a dressing down on Monday
In fairness though, I can't fault or criticise the BBC for this one-off - they normally output flawless 24-hour multi-channel broadcasting on AM, FM, DAB and internet without a hitch but this one was gloriously ... ermmm ... spectacular!
But hats off to Ross and his sidekick, Andy, though - consummately professional and unphased throughout the incident and took it all their stride.
Steve
The BBC have just had a load of their radio studios refurbished with shiny new digital ones ... a fairly hefty investment of licence payers' money - and one crashed horribly this morning ... live on air!!! Everything went totally pear-shaped - channels went wildly out of phase, channels were muting at random whilst leaving some open (where you could hear muffled back-chat during records playing - nothing profane unfortunately!) and the EQ on the vocal mics turned to a preset obviously called 'Mud'! There was panic in the studio coz no-one could control or reset it.... it seemed to take on a life of its own!
After a few abortive attempts, the airwaves went dead ... then some anonymous engineer obviously started just playing records whilst everyone transferred to another studio... this time a simple voice-over place normally used by news readers, etc. - in other words, a simple analogue mixer and a few mics!
Jonathan and team handled it all very well and professionally and with excellent humour and whilst I have heard some technical problems live on air before, none as spectacular (and amusing) as this ... usually just a record that stuck or a CD that skipped. And I've heard a few mistakes happen because of presenters having trouble since the change-over with the new multi-function digital devices but this was ... well ... spectacular - about 15 minutes of live, on-air technical mayhem!!
I bet the people that proposed/designed the change-over to an all-digital broadcast studio system will be sleeping uneasily tonight as they await a dressing down on Monday
In fairness though, I can't fault or criticise the BBC for this one-off - they normally output flawless 24-hour multi-channel broadcasting on AM, FM, DAB and internet without a hitch but this one was gloriously ... ermmm ... spectacular!
But hats off to Ross and his sidekick, Andy, though - consummately professional and unphased throughout the incident and took it all their stride.
Steve
