TV Pickup

Posted by EndXA 10 hours ago

Comments

Comment by JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago

“Such sudden huge surges in demand tied to the TV schedule are unique to the United Kingdom.”

Why? (The text source doesn’t make this claim.)

Comment by pulvinar 8 hours ago

Jump down to the Cause section. Millions of high-powered electric kettles being switched on during a popular show's break.

Comment by JumpCrisscross 8 hours ago

But why is that unique to the UK? Plenty of other cultures use electric kettles and follow soaps. (Also did streaming dent the effect?)

Comment by ben_w 51 minutes ago

Streaming probably dented it, but likely so did satellite and cable.

For much of my childhood there were only four (and briefly before the boom, five) TV channels. Major events like football would have a significant proportion of UK households all watching, and in those breaks a signficiant fraction would switch on an extra 1.5-2 kW device.

If the average household was four people, and 50% of households used a kettle in the same ad break, that would've been a surge of around 60e6*0.25*0.5*2kW = 15 GW in a nation whose mean load is about 40 GW.

Comment by 7 hours ago

Comment by jambalaya8 6 hours ago

You vastly underestimate the consumption of tea in the United Kingdom. It's funny that America is almost the only country that does plug-in drip coffeemakers, though, since most people that follow "their shows" in the United States probably would be much less likely to trip a circuit suddenly.

Comment by nom 7 hours ago

1. it is a cultural thing, many are doing it 2. they have very powerful kettles

Comment by inigyou 6 hours ago

Do they still occur now that nobody is watching linear TV?

Comment by fragmede 5 hours ago

Yes. There are still large culturally significant events, such as the World Cup, that enough people gather around over to be of note.

Comment by kotaKat 8 hours ago

Further linked within was an old BBC article; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6981356.stm

"... there aren't very many examples of sudden decreases in demand triggered by TV programmes. A rare example would be the two minutes' silence at 11am on Remembrance Sunday, but this occurs during daylight hours so is nowhere near comparable."

I'm remembering when the Queen passed now - it was very interesting to see a lot of systems at some major retailers lose their minds because of a super sharp order volume drop from normal expectations. It fired off all sorts of automations to investigate service outages... only for a few tickets a few minutes later to pop in to announce the death of the Queen and how to work that onto the homepage.