1 of 1- Glen Warren
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Global outage
Major power issues at Global's 81 BG facility... anything and everything that has a microchip in it and is connected to a UPS is presently dead in the water...
Power disruption occurred at 18:24 near the end of the Global News Toronto. Global National was affected, as wall as all BC1, and each of the newscasts for other markets.
While MCR/On Air Operations had been previously relocated to Corus Quay from Calgary, all inbound / outbound signal distribution occurs at 81 BG.
Last edited by Glen Warren (May 12, 2023 8:35 pm)
- Glen Warren
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Re: Global outage
Looks like the Toronto OTA signal is back from the CN Tower... 2.5 hours without programming and commercials = no revenue... something that Corus needs desperately.
Not sure if specialty channels were affected or not... but Global signals (conventional TV) were definitely impacted.
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Thread Starter- MJ Vancouver
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Re: Global outage
We’re getting Global National instead of the News Hour in BC, though they are live-streaming the News Hour online. Looks like the same for Calgary earlier.
Huge disadvantage of centralizing technical operations in one city.
- Glen Warren
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Re: Global outage
Ontario is also currently airing Global National as well.... they were able to record the West version, and this is what is playing back now in place of Global News Toronto 11pm cast.
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Thread Starter- ED1
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Re: Global outage
MJ Vancouver wrote:
We’re getting Global National instead of the News Hour in BC, though they are live-streaming the News Hour online. Looks like the same for Calgary earlier.
Huge disadvantage of centralizing technical operations in one city.
All of Global was fine coming out of Calgary for years. It’s since the move to Toronto that we’ve been seeing all these problems.
- Glen Warren
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Re: Global outage
...
All of Global was fine coming out of Calgary for years. It’s since the move to Toronto that we’ve been seeing all these problems.
I beg to differ... lots, and I mean lots of problems when all of Global On Air was centralized to Calgary in September 2008.... prior to this, the "west" stations (mostly former WIC outlets) were moved to Calgary in 2005 ish... Toronto was to become the east hub, and both centres were to be a back up or fail over for the other.
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Thread Starter- chrishch
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Re: Global outage
I thought it was my Plex Server that crapped out while recording Global News at 5:30. I time-shift watching the news to avoid watching ads and Plex only recorded 58 minutes on Friday. Glad to know it wasn't a problem with my Plex Server.
Hope they will fix their pixelation problem as OTA has been having issues since last September, which is still ongoing.
- Forward Power
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Re: Global outage
Toronto was to become the east hub, and both centres were to be a back up or fail over for the other.
Doesn't CTV have a similar configuration, e.g. east at Channel Nine Court, and west at CFCN Calgary?
- ED1
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Re: Global outage
Toronto was to become the east hub, and both centres were to be a back up or fail over for the other.
Doesn't CTV have a similar configuration, e.g. east at Channel Nine Court, and west at CFCN Calgary?
Yes. When CTV’s Agincourt studios experienced that power failure, it didn’t really affect the western CTV stations.
- haydenmatthews14
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Re: Global outage
Toronto was to become the east hub, and both centres were to be a back up or fail over for the other.
Doesn't CTV have a similar configuration, e.g. east at Channel Nine Court, and west at CFCN Calgary?
Yes. When CTV’s Agincourt studios experienced that power failure, it didn’t really affect the western CTV stations.
Just for curiosity when did CTV had the outage that it affected stations like Windsor, London, Kitchener and Barrie etc. From I can recall I think it happened in 2020 during the pandemic but I was lucky I was able to stream one of the local CTV newscasts for free without a login. Those were the days when COVID changed almost everything.
- markow202
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Re: Global outage
Was the outage studio issue or transmitter? What were the repeat transmitters doing airing a black screen?
- Glen Warren
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Re: Global outage
Was the outage studio issue or transmitter? What were the repeat transmitters doing airing a black screen?
Technical plant power issue... UPS problem, which prevented the standby generator from running up and transferring load to it.
The Ch. 41 Toronto transmitter was not receiving signal from the digital microwave STL from Don Mills.IT was just sitting in black. Global's Ontario transmitter network is fed by Anik Ku satellite.... probably didn't have signal as well. I'm curious to know how cable BDUs and Bell Fibe/Satellite fared... At one point Rogers and Bell had their own fibre links from 81BG due to the close proximity to their own facilities at 850 York Mills Rd. (Rogers) and Scarsdale Rd. for Bell.
Global Don Mills is also very close to a major Level 3 fibre and co-location centre at 8 Garamond St.
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Thread Starter- markow202
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Re: Global outage
Was the outage studio issue or transmitter? What were the repeat transmitters doing airing a black screen?
Technical plant power issue... UPS problem, which prevented the standby generator from running up and transferring load to it.
The Ch. 41 Toronto transmitter was not receiving signal from the digital microwave STL from Don Mills.IT was just sitting in black. Global's Ontario transmitter network is fed by Anik Ku satellite.... probably didn't have signal as well. I'm curious to know how cable BDUs and Bell Fibe/Satellite fared... At one point Rogers and Bell had their own fibre links from 81BG due to the close proximity to their own facilities at 850 York Mills Rd. (Rogers) and Scarsdale Rd. for Bell.
Global Don Mills is also very close to a major Level 3 fibre and co-location centre at 8 Garamond St.
Excellent info thanks!