BBC Television Centre - Major Events

Major Events

Television Centre has suffered from a number of power cuts which have affected normal broadcasting; however, these are not seen as a systemic problem. One such power cut caused the launch night of BBC 2, on 20 April 1964, to be cancelled; programmes begin the next day instead.

One such large power failure occurred on the 20 June 2000 at approximately 17:00 BST. This power cut affected the whole of Television Centre resulting in many services, such as BBC Two and BBC Radio 4 to fall off the air, and BBC News 24 went off air before being relocated to the BBC's Westminster studios. The 6 O'Clock news didn't broadcast and troubles were experienced in the South East region, as Newsroom South East started later than planned. The fire alarms went off at Television Centre later that day, leaving only a skeleton crew. Eventually many programmes returned, albeit in different locations: Newsnight was presented from the main news studio with intermittent technical problems. The failure was due to a substation in Shepherd's Bush and normal services on the BBC resumed the following day.

On 4 March 2001, a bomb was placed outside the news centre of Television Centre which exploded, with no fatalities. It was attributed to the Real IRA and the culprits were eventually captured. The front of the building suffered moderate damage as a result, but was soon repaired.

On the 30 May 2006 during the live broadcast of National Lottery:Jet Set the studio was invaded by Fathers 4 Justice causing the show to go briefly off air while the protesters were removed from the set.

Just before 08:00 GMT on 28 November 2003 an electrical fault caused some equipment to overheat which set off fire alarms. Although there was no fire the fault did cause widespread power cuts and prevented backup generators from providing alternative power. Again, all output was affected with services transferred across London to alternative studios. For example, both the One O'Clock News and BBC News 24 broadcast for much of the day from the BBC's Millbank Studios, The BBC's Millbank Studios are a fall-back for news operations in the event of TVC failure, and are continually recording the last hour of the BBC News Channel output (less in-vision clock) for this purpose. and the morning radio shows the Today programme and Five Live's Breakfast fell off air for 15 minutes. This power cut came on the week prior to the relaunch of News 24, which was postponed for another week to ensure that all problems had been remedied.

For Question Time on 22 October 2009, the BBC invited the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, onto the programme for the first time causing heated public debate and strong protests outside the studios. Television Centre had its security breached with around 30 anti-fascist protesters storming the reception area and several hundred protesters gathering outside reacting to Griffin's presence on the programme. Police and security staff were forced to close gates leading into the Centre and form barriers to prevent any further breaches of security.