To the point: ground glass
A squirrel gets lost in the Aubrugg substation of Zurich's electricity company, there's a short circuit, the poor animal is roasted - complete power failure in Zurich North. So far, so good, that can happen.
A squirrel gets lost in the Aubrugg substation of Zurich's electricity company, there's a short circuit, the poor animal is roasted - complete power failure in Zurich North. So far, so good, that can happen. Although the question is allowed why such an important substation is not designed in such a way that free-ranging little animals cannot cause a short circuit? After all, it could be marauding night owls or other bad guys. But let's leave that alone.
The Swiss Television site was also affected. While banks and hospitals, for which an uninterrupted power supply is vital, have an effective emergency power supply, this does not seem to be the case at the public service broadcaster SF. Leutschenbach is not equipped for such an emergency. There is an emergency power concept, but it is dimensioned in such a way that it is only capable of supporting individual broadcasts on a selective basis. If the power fails in the entire area, it won't be enough, SF spokesman Marco Meroni told the media. Great.
As a result, SF's program was interrupted for an hour and a half. So there was no Valencia GP, no Olympic closing ceremony. The TV stayed dark and the viewers migrated to the foreign channels. Maybe they stayed there. Bad luck. In any other company, such an incident would be a super-GAU. But not at Swiss television. A concerned television director apologizing in the "Tagesschau" was just about everything. An emergency power supply that would prevent an outage would only be feasible at very high cost, according to Leutschenbach. The hope that nothing would happen has caught the television administrators on the wrong foot. The whole affair is embarrassing, unnecessary and ridiculous. A station that places so much value on public service should actually be able to broadcast at any time under any circumstances. One would think.
This is dilettantism in its purest form. Only a public broadcaster that profits from compulsory fees can afford such an attitude far removed from customer orientation. It's not just about angry viewers. It's also about advertisers who wanted to have their spots broadcast in the context of the broadcasts and not sometime in the evening in a repeat with correspondingly lower viewer numbers. It can be assumed that these losses will be compensated for in the ratings, but that doesn't make the embarrassment any less.
Or maybe the whole disaster even suits the SRG as a further argument for the next fee increase. Who knows? Lucky circumstances.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
pc.meier@werbewoche.ch
The Swiss Television site was also affected. While banks and hospitals, for which an uninterrupted power supply is vital, have an effective emergency power supply, this does not seem to be the case at the public service broadcaster SF. Leutschenbach is not equipped for such an emergency. There is an emergency power concept, but it is dimensioned in such a way that it is only capable of supporting individual broadcasts on a selective basis. If the power fails in the entire area, it won't be enough, SF spokesman Marco Meroni told the media. Great.
As a result, SF's program was interrupted for an hour and a half. So there was no Valencia GP, no Olympic closing ceremony. The TV stayed dark and the viewers migrated to the foreign channels. Maybe they stayed there. Bad luck. In any other company, such an incident would be a super-GAU. But not at Swiss television. A concerned television director apologizing in the "Tagesschau" was just about everything. An emergency power supply that would prevent an outage would only be feasible at very high cost, according to Leutschenbach. The hope that nothing would happen has caught the television administrators on the wrong foot. The whole affair is embarrassing, unnecessary and ridiculous. A station that places so much value on public service should actually be able to broadcast at any time under any circumstances. One would think.
This is dilettantism in its purest form. Only a public broadcaster that profits from compulsory fees can afford such an attitude far removed from customer orientation. It's not just about angry viewers. It's also about advertisers who wanted to have their spots broadcast in the context of the broadcasts and not sometime in the evening in a repeat with correspondingly lower viewer numbers. It can be assumed that these losses will be compensated for in the ratings, but that doesn't make the embarrassment any less.
Or maybe the whole disaster even suits the SRG as a further argument for the next fee increase. Who knows? Lucky circumstances.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
pc.meier@werbewoche.ch
