BBC Radio 4 switches to emergency audio following fire alarm

Martha Kearney and Nick Robinson left the BBC Radio 4 studio on Monday morning following a fire alarm going off during Today at New Broadcasting House in London.

A minute of silence aired at 7.39am followed by the back-up audio playing for almost 15 minutes.

The emergency tape started with a promo followed by a message by an announcer to explain what was happening: “This is BBC Radio 4. We’re having some problems which are preventing us from continuing with our schedule programmes smoothly – many apologies for the disruption but rest assured we are doing our best to restore normal service as soon as possible.”

The pre-recorded audio faded out at 7.53am with Martha announcing: “Nick and I are back in the studio slightly breathless but we didn’t run up the stairs at least,” before Nick confirmed there wasn’t actually an emergency and everything is OK.