Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Channel 4 goes off air again as technical difficulties continue

(Lewis Whyld/PA)
(Lewis Whyld/PA)

Channel 4 has suffered more broadcast issues with the channel going off air again.

The disruption follows another major outage last month.

Viewers tuning into Steph’s Packed Lunch on Wednesday were greeted with a frozen frame of comedian Dane Baptiste on the chat show.

The issue continued for several minutes shortly after 2pm before normal service resumed with an episode of the game show Countdown.

TV Choice Awards 2019 – London
Steph McGovern hosts Steph’s Packed Lunch (Matt Crossick/PA)

A statement from Channel 4 posted on Twitter said: “We’re sorry about our tech hiccup this afternoon and hope you can now view as normal. Further updates will be posted here.”

The channel’s output has been repeatedly disrupted following a technical issue that arose last month.

Red Bee Media, which handles playout services for Channel 4 and Channel 5, previously revealed that the “activation of the fire suppression system” at its broadcasting centre triggered audio and picture problems.

Last week, subtitles began to return to Channel 4’s programmes on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and All 4.

However, Ofcom said in a statement that it remains “deeply concerned about the scale of the technical failures experienced by Channel 4 and the length of time taken to fix them”.

“These problems have caused deep upset and frustration among people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or partially sighted,” it said.

The broadcasting watchdog also criticised the broadcaster for not having “strong back-up measures”.

It said that once the issues were permanently resolved it would review Channel 4’s “equipment and facilities” and consider “what action might be required to make sure broadcasters do not find themselves in this situation again”.

Channel 4 was also criticised by the National Deaf Children’s Society, which wrote to Ofcom calling for regulatory action over its lack of subtitles, describing the situation as a “complete dereliction of duty”.