Apparently The Euro 2008 Feed Is Broadcast To The World Through A Single DirecTV Satellite

People throughout the world yesterday (including our Mexico City bureau chief) needed to double up their blood pressure meds when the feed for the Germany/Turkey match went out for about fifteen minutes. And it’s not like it went blank during the middle of a blowout. The picture went dark towards the end when three goals were scored and decided the game. So wha happen? Like Milli Vanilli, we can blame this one on the rain.

The problems arose in neighboring Austria, where lightning, thunder and torrential rain caused a power outage at the International Broadcast Center in Vienna, from which the telecast is beamed all over the world. ESPN cut back to its studio analysts during the outages and showed video of spectators watching at a FanFest in Basel.

Which showed them, watching themselves, getting angry and looting. How meta.

Spectators at the match in the Swiss city of Basel remained dry and unperturbed throughout. Only on Swiss TV and Al-Jazeera was the entire game available.

Oh great. So Osama could watch the game and we couldn’t. If there were any more proof needed that the terrorists have won… well, we can’t find one.
Storms disrupt TV coverage of Germany-Turkey [ESPN]
Image [Fox]