Viewers in the North were left in the dark last night as large swathes of ITV’s primetime schedule went off air.
The channel disappeared from many viewers’ sets in the Granada, Yorkshire and Border regions, showing only a blank screen just before The X Factor results were revealed.
ITV initially tweeted “Some people seem to be experiencing a few transmission problems. We’re looking into it now, so hang on in there!” before curating a hashtag for the occasion, #BlankScreenUpdate, which it used to update viewers on the live outcome of X Factor.
#BlankScreenUpdate
Rough Copy are the first act through to the semi…
#xfactor
— ITV (@ITV) December 1, 2013
Many were still complaining on Twitter of being without a signal as I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! started.
The fault is understoof to have affected ITV, ITV+1 and ITV2, although those with ITV HD found that the channel remained on air throughout.
The problems were later blamed on “technical issues” at one of the TV channel’s northern transmission centres, with ITV apologising: “Sorry to everyone who had their viewing disrupted by tonight’s technical issues, and we are working to fix the ongoing problems.”
ITV did also see the funny side however, retweeting a picture of a mocked-up t-shirt with the slogan “I Survived The ITV Blackout”.
