Riddle of BBC Radio 4's missing 5 o’clock pips
LISTENERS to BBC Radio 4 may have been confused about the time yesterday when the station’s pips machine went on the blink.
The machine uses the Greenwich Time Signal – a series of six short tones broadcast at one-second intervals to mark the start of the hour. But they failed to play at 5pm.
A BBC spokesman said Radio 4 was “aware” of the problem and was getting to the bottom of what happened.
He said: “The pips didn’t play out at the 5 hour which they usually do. We don’t know exactly why yet but are looking into it.”
The pips are six short bleeps which occur on the five seconds leading up to the hour and on the hour itself.
We don’t know exactly why yet
They are used on several BBC stations after being introduced in 1924. On Radio 4 the pips are broadcast every hour, except for the 6pm and midnight news when the hour chimes of Big Ben, known as the “bongs”, are used instead.
The BBC discourages any other sound being broadcast at the same time as the pips, doing so is known as “crashing the pips”.