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ITV1 "blackouts" on Sky Digital

Posted: November 20th, 2003.
Updated: December 13th, 2003.
Updated: December 25th, 2003.
Updated: February 2nd, 2004.

In the last 2-3 months, ITV1 on Sky Digital has been blighted by brief blackouts lasting less than a second. This has happened primarily in the Granada region (although on occasion others have commented on seeing the same thing in their region), and it happens on ITV1 only, so it is not the fault of any individual's satellite equipment.

Complain to Sky and they say it's not their problem because the signal leaves Granada's playout centre and goes to NTL for uplink to Astra 2D.

Complain to ITV and they say it's not their fault, first blaming a "sunout" (occurred on 12/13th October) followed more recently by an unusually high level of sunspot activity, which can cause intermittent interruption to the satellite signal - despite the fact that the problem has been going on since before this.

They added: "You are correct in your statement that the Uplink path for ITV1 is from Granada, here in Manchester, via NTL uplink to the satellite. However, I our monitoring indicates that this has been secure, and we have received no other complaints (which we would if there was a general uplink problem affecting all viewers)."

So, they claim they have received no complaints to date, and I said I'd collate a list of names and comments (your email address can remain private) and then present that to them. Please also state in your comments which ITV1 region you are viewing.

I shall announce this petition in both uk.media.tv.misc and uk.media.tv.sky but please feel free to mention this petition wherever you feel its appropriate and hopefully we can get this annoying problem resolved.

Saturday December 13th:

And yesterday it appears to have been solved. I received an email from Chris Hearn at Granada who said:

"We believe we have now traced, identified and fixed the issue with momentary breaks of black or grey screens on the Granada ITV1 DSat feed. So if you see any further occurrences from now on, please let me know.

The cause appears to be software-related, in a piece of equipment in the route from Manchester to the satellite uplink site."

Thursday December 25th:

The problem has been happening again, and I contacted Chris Hearn at Granada who replied yesterday:

"Our distribution contractors are investigating as a matter of urgency, and have already changed one item of equipment and software version. I believe we are on the right track. Please advise any further occurrences that you note."

Monday February 2nd:

Further to some more of the same problems occuring over Xmas, I understand from Chris that the problem is now fixed.

So if anyone in the Granada area, or other affected areas as shown up in the petition, sees the same effect happening, please tell me and I'll chase it up.

Thanks again to everyone who joined the petition. It shows that us mere TV viewers can make a difference!

Click here to view and sign the petition

News page content input by Dominic Robinson, 2003.

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