PARENTS were left panicking as a major children’s channel dropped off air.
It comes as the same issues also impacted one of a leading news broadcaster.
For part of Friday (July 19) morning, CBBC was off air after a global IT outage affected its broadcasting.
The channel launched in 2002 and is the BBC‘s programming brand for youngsters aged six to 15.
Some of its most famous shows include Blue Peter, The Story of Tracy Beaker and the Dumping Ground.
Its sister channel CBeebies, aimed at children aged 6 and under, was not affected.
Severe issues at Microsoft crashed computer systems across the world leaving major businesses, newsrooms and television networks plunged into chaos.
Writing on X, one person penned: “OMG!! My day is ruined. #CBBC is also off air thanks to this IT outage.”
A second wrote: “CBBC is down! Okay it’s time to panic folks!”
A third echoed: “Omg. Parents up and down the country will be having meltdowns as our kids cannot be plonked down in front of CBBC. #microsoft global IT outage.
“Macca Pakka is off the air. Panic!”
Sky News was also impacted, as the broadcaster’s breakfast programme found itself hit by a string of technical errors.
Presenters Gareth Barlow and Friday presenter Anna Jones were standing by to host Sky News Breakfast from 6am.
Ultimately, the show didn’t make it to air and instead broadcast a pre-recorded film while bosses scrambled behind the scenes.
Once the clip ended at around 6.45am, the station cut to an error message.
It read: “We apologise for the disruption to this broadcast.
“We hope to restore the transmission of Sky News shortly.”
The Beeb has suffered a number of gaffes recently, here we take a look at the biggest, and funniest, mishaps to date:
On X, Sky News Group’s executive chairman David Rhodes wrote: “@SkyNews have not been able to broadcast live TV this morning, currently telling viewers that we apologise for the interruption.
“Much of our news report is still available online, and we are working hard to restore all services.”
Cybersecurity software firm CrowdStrike said they identified the issue behind the global outage as a flawed anti-viral update.
Both CBBC and Sky News have since returned to screens.
