Dead air

Dead air is an unintended interruption in a broadcast during which the carrier signal is unmodulated—no sound on a radio signal or a black screen on a television signal.^[1]

The term is most often used in cases where programme material comes to an unexpected halt, either through operator error or for technical reasons, although it is also used in cases where a broadcaster has 'dried up'. Among professional broadcasters, dead air is considered one of the worst things that can occur.^[2]

In the United Kingdom, any radio station which transmits dead air for more than ten minutes without rectifying the situation, broadcasting an announcement, or otherwise warning its listeners, can be penalised and may be fined up to £25,000 per minute by the independent regulator and competition authority for UK communications industries, Ofcom.

Dead air can also apply to television broadcasting, generally when a television channel has an interruption to its output, resulting in a blank screen or in the case of digital television, a frozen image, until output is restored or an apology message is broadcast.

Having dead air during commercials or sponsorship announcements can cost networks considerable advertising revenue.

Examples

An example of dead air was a Chris Evans radio transmission for the British Virgin Radio (Now known as Absolute Radio) station. As a promotional stunt, Evans did not arrive for work, and his show went to air carrying nothing for about twenty five minutes.

Another case was BBC Radio 4's failure to broadcast Big Ben's midnight chimes on New Year's Day 2003; after the chimes were announced, a technical error caused the station to fall silent for a minute. This was caused by the correct feed not being faded up. Ironically, the chimes were supposed to be coming via a new link which the BBC had installed to Westminster to avoid dead air.

On September 11, 1987, Dan Rather walked off the set of the CBS Evening News when a late running U.S. Open tennis match threatened to delay the start of his news broadcast. The match then ended sooner than expected but Rather was gone. The network broadcast six minutes of dead air before Rather was found and returned to the studio. There was considerable criticism of Rather for the incident.

See also

• Off-the-air
• Radio jamming
• Dead air (disambiguation)

References

1. ^ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dead+air
2. ^ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3407500251.html