BBC Blackout Prompts Migration To ITV

An investigation is underway after the main BBC channels were forced off air during peak time viewing on Saturday night due to a technical fault.

Viewers watching BBC1 were left with nothing but a blank screen for twenty minutes, between 9.25pm and 9.45pm, as a power failure at the White City complex in west London caused a transmission failure.

The blackout caused 1.8m viewers to abandon the station in the middle of the Richard Gere movie, Red Corner, which was showing at the time. Ten minutes before the blackout 3.5m viewers were tuned into the BBC, but this figure had dropped to 1.7m by 9.30pm, leaving the BBC with only 9.5% of the audience share.

During this time ITV, which was showing Get Shorty , saw its audience increase by 1.2m with its share rising to 41.4%. 3.4m viewers tuned in to see the BBC come back on air at 9.45pm and ITV’s audience dropped to 5.9m

A spokesman for the BBC today explained that the black out was caused by a fault with the uninterrupted power supply, which has since been resolved. He said: “At the BBC we do work to a very high standard and problems such as thus are extremely rare. Unfortunately its just one of those things, no one is to blame.”

The black out comes at a difficult time for Greg Dyke, who is expected to come under fire over the BBC’s falling audience figures when the corporation’s annual report is published on Wednesday.

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk

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