Incident occurred at Red Bee Media's Broadcast Centre in London.

The 2021 London Broadcast Centre incident occurred on 25 September 2021, at Red Bee Media's broadcast centre in London. The fire extinguisher system caused damage to servers and storage devices that resulted in national television channels going off air during primetime. Channel 4, Channel 5, BT Sport, JSTV, More4, Film4, E4, 4Music, The Box, Box Hits, Kiss, Magic and Kerrang! were impacted. Live continuity announcements for BBC channels were also taken off air.[1] Accessibility services such as subtitles and audio description tracks were also severely disrupted, with some features not becoming available again until mid-November.[2] This caused several people depending on these services to complain to the UK broadcasting industry regulator Ofcom.[3][4]

Channel 4 networks

Channel 4 and several of its sub-channels went off air due to the fire. Channel 4, More4, Film4, E4, 4Music, The Box, Box Hits, Kiss, Magic and Kerrang! were impacted (4seven was not impacted), with the incident still affecting a number of the channels on 30 September 2021.[5][6] The London Fire Brigade confirmed that a gas fire prevention system at the site had been activated, but firefighters found no sign of fire.

Channel 5 networks

Channel 5 and its sister channels were knocked off air for around an hour and experienced some issues after returning. Channel 5 returned to air with an emergency system, while sister stations also returned, but subtitles would not be restored until October.[7]

Effect on subtitles, audio description

Activation of the fire suppression system caused catastrophic damage to some systems, such as Channel 4's subtitles, signing, and audio description system. An emergency backup subtitling system also failed, leaving Channel 4 unable to provide access services to viewers. This situation was criticised by the National Deaf Children's Society, which complained to the broadcasting watchdog.[8] A new subtitling, signing and audio description system had to be built from scratch.[9] The service eventually began to return at the end of October.[10]

Ofcom investigation

In June 2022 after a six-month long investigation, Ofcom found that Channel 4 had breached its broadcast licence conditions on two grounds: Missing its subtitles quota on Freesat for 2021 and failure to effectively communicate with affected audiences.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Channel 4 goes off-air after outage caused by technical problem". the Guardian. 2021-09-25. Retrieved 2021-09-26.
  2. ^ Davies, Hannah (19 October 2021). "Channel 4 subtitles to remain unavailable until mid-November". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  3. ^ "Trouble-hit TV company says sorry to deaf and blind viewers for faults". BBC News. 1 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  4. ^ Butterworth, Benjamin (6 October 2021). "Deaf and blind viewers left without subtitles on Channel 4, 5 and E4 for 10 days as fury grows over 'inaction'". inews. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  5. ^ "E4 sorry for broadcasting wrong Married At First Sight episode". BBC News. October 2021. Archived from the original on 30 September 2021. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  6. ^ "Channel 4 goes off-air after outage caused by technical problem". The Guardian. 25 September 2021. Archived from the original on 1 October 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  7. ^ "Fallout from Red Bee Broadcast Centre incident: day 5". The Clean Feed. 29 September 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  8. ^ Phillips, Alexa (22 October 2021). "Channel 4 attacked as it emerges subtitles may not be fixed until the middle of November". Sky News. Archived from the original on 9 November 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  9. ^ "Channel 4 subtitles and other services not likely to return until mid-November". BBC News. 19 October 2021. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  10. ^ "Channel 4 subtitles returning after fire disruption – BBC News". BBC News. 22 October 2021. Archived from the original on 15 November 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  11. ^ "C4 subtitle problems breached licence conditions, Ofcom finds". BBC News. 20 June 2022.
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