‘Choral curse’ strikes BBC Radio 3

LONDON — Listeners of Radio 3’s Choral Evensong could be forgiven for thinking that some higher power is at work.  The show, the longest-running outside broadcast anywhere in the world, has been ‘cursed’ by a series of unrelated technical problems.  Four out of six broadcasts have dropped off air since April 25 due to a lost satellite signal, a mains electrical failure, a line going down and water tripping a circuit breaker.

Listeners have contacted Radio 4 show Feedback to register their frustration, saying it is ruining their experience of the programme – which has been running since 1926.  The first incident happened from the programme recorded at Chichester Cathedral on April 25 when satellite came off air for eight minutes severely disrupting the coverage.

Then a week later St John’s College, Cambridge, there was an electrical failure with the mains supply in the area which again made the programme disappear.Later in the month on May 23 at Wells Cathedral in Somerset the problems returned when there was a break of transmission for a few minutes after ‘a line went down’.  The following week the technical gremlins returned at New College Oxford when a deluge of water created a ‘small earth leakage’ which ‘tripped’ the amplifier system.