SRF: Major breakdown on Wednesday morning
All radio stations operated by Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) were off the air early Wednesday morning for up to three hours. Shortly after 6 a.m., all stations were back on the air.
The SRF radio stations went silent at 2.43 a.m., as SRF spokesman Daniel Steiner told the SDA news agency. From 4 a.m., the stations could gradually be received again. According to SRG, the transmission failure was caused by an IT component malfunction. Unexpected difficulties arose during planned night-time conversion work on SRG's IT network. A so-called "data storm" triggered an enormous amount of data traffic between two servers. These responded with a factory reset for as yet unknown reasons:
All settings were lost, which also led to a temporary loss of audio signals. SRG is now working with the suppliers to clarify how this could have happened and how such an incident can be avoided in future.
Numerous listeners had called the radio studios early in the morning to enquire about the breakdown, according to the Lausanne radio studio. All programs of the national stations of German-speaking Switzerland (DRS), French-speaking Switzerland (RSR), Ticino (RSI) and Romansh-speaking Switzerland (RTR) were affected. (SDA)
