BBC News channels down: TV station stops working because of 'technical issue'

The BBC's live channels have been forced to play pre-recorded footage after a "technical issue" led them to break.

"Due to a technical issue we're currently running recorded programming on our live news channels," the corporation's PR team tweeted. "We're working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible. The BBC News website is operating normally."

The issue was thought to be related to the software that the channel uses to run its shows.

The station looked normal, at a glance. But a deeper look showed a small "recorded" message in the corner, marking out the fact that everything has already been shown before.

The channel had to resort to showing pictures from an hour before, though it did show the correct time.

BBC World Service is also thought to have been hit by similar problems, but ran on a backup system that meant it was broadcasting normally.