The newsreader Fiona Bruce was given a police escort through London rush-hour traffic to film the BBC News at Six at an alternative set, after technical issues downed live broadcasts at the main BBC studios.
The presenter flagged down a passing police car after she got stuck in traffic with BBC home editor and presenter Mark Easton just 40 minutes before the news bulletin on Wednesday. Minutes later, Easton posted a photo from a police car.
Bruce eventually made it on time to present the news from the Millbank studios near parliament after technical issues stopped programming at Broadcasting House in Marylebone, west London.
Bruce told the Press Association: “I’ve never had to do that before in 19 years of presenting the news.”
In a taxi with Fiona Bruce and editor of @BBCNews at 6 heading for Millbank. Studio at BH gone down!! Traffic dreadful. Aagghhh! pic.twitter.com/MjnPDgT5Jp
— Mark Easton (@BBCMarkEaston) October 10, 2018
Now in a police car being escorted through the demo. @bbcnews is at stake! pic.twitter.com/YBu2RZTZpF
— Mark Easton (@BBCMarkEaston) October 10, 2018
The BBC News channel had to play repeats of old news after the live broadcast went down shortly after 3pm on Wednesday, and the news presenter Ben Brown appeared with the word “recorded” at the top left of the screen.
On Twitter, people questioned why the channel was showing recorded news. The channel returned to live broadcasting at 4pm, with Brown saying: “Hello there, you’re watching Afternoon Live.”
A spokesperson for the BBC said: “Due to a technical issue, we’re currently running recorded programming on our live news channels. We are working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible. The BBC News website is operating normally.”
An internal memo that has since been shared widely appears to show that the issue was down to, among other issues, the OpenMedia system, software that BBC News uses to manage scripts and audio.
BuzzFeed shared a copy of the memo, which said the London OpenMedia system was unavailable to most staff.
