‘Sonic wave’ that took Channel 4 off the air continues to disrupt programmes and infuriates Sunday Brunch presenter Tim Lovejoy
- Channel 4 and others went dark on Saturday following fire at a server in London
- Smoke triggered a safety measure which removed all the oxygen out of the room
- However it also caused a ‘sonic boom’ which caused the servers to shut down
A ‘sonic wave’ which took Channel 4 off the air at the weekend is continuing to disrupt programmes after infuriating Sunday Brunch presenter Tim Lovejoy.
The broadcaster, among others, first went dark on Saturday night following a fire at a Red Bee server centre in White City, west London.
The smoke from the flames triggered a safety measure which sucked all the oxygen out of the room – which in turn caused a so-called sonic wave, causing the servers to shut down, sources told the Times.
Channel 4 does not know when normal service will resume while Red Bee Media, which also broadcasts for the BBC and Channel 5, is racing to solve the issue.
The broadcaster was forced to switch to an emergency backup system Sunday but issues have persisted.
A visibly ticked off Lovejoy told viewers on Sunday morning: ‘Things keep happening that shouldn’t be happening’.
The BBC avoided the worst of the disruption as it was able to switch its operation to Salford.
In an update on Twitter, Channel 4 said: ‘We continue to experience disruption to our services due to technical issues.
A visibly ticked off Tim Lovejoy (pictured left) told Sunday Brunch viewers: ‘Things keep happening that shouldn’t be happening’
‘We’re working hard to resume our normal services and appreciate your continued understanding and patience.’
Red Bee, which is owned by the Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson, said it was looking into the issue.
‘We are continuing to work to restore all services and remedy any issues caused by this incident,’ Red Bee said.
The BBC, Channel 5 and S4C, the Welsh-language broadcaster, also experienced issues related to the server shutdown.
A spokesperson for Channel4 previously confirmed the channel came off air ‘over technical issues and steps were made to right it as soon as possible’.
They added there is no timeline in place as of yet for a full-fix, but engineers are working to resume normal service.
A spokesperson for Red Bee Media confirmed staff were evacuated after a fire at their Broadcast Centre in West London.
They said: ‘As a result of this incident and the automatic safety measures set in motion at the time, several services originating from the Broadcast Centre have been disrupted.
‘London Fire Brigade attended the scene, and once they had determined that the building is safe, people were allowed to return to the building.
Downdetector reported more than 3,000 outages on Channel 4 from approximately 6.30pm to 8pm Sunday
‘We are continuing to work to restore all services and remedy any issues caused by this incident.
‘To avoid speculation, we will not make any further statements until all services have been fully restored and we have concluded a full investigation of the cause.
‘We apologise for any inconvenience for our customers and their viewers.’
Downdetector reported more than 3,000 outages on Channel 4 from approximately 6.30pm to 8pm Sunday.
Thousands of viewers were left to watch adverts that had frozen or blank holding screens in lieu of their favourite programmes.
Separately, Channel 5 was also said to be faced with technical issues and went off air on Saturday.
Some viewers said they were only shown a message on the channel which said: ‘We apologise for the interruption. We’ll be back with you as soon as we can.’