Sky News has been knocked off air amid widespread IT outages affecting businesses across the world including broadcasters, airlines and banks.
In a statement on the Sky News online page, YouTube and TV channel on Friday morning, the broadcaster apologised for the disruption.
A Sky News spokesperson said in a statement to the PA news agency: “Sky News has not been able to broadcast live TV this morning, we apologise for the interruption.
“All the news is still available online, on the Sky News app, website, and across our social media accounts.
“We are working hard to restore all services.”
Sky News sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao shared a photo of the breakfast team in a post on X, formerly Twitter, and said the team were “obviously not on air” but that they are “trying” to return.
We’re obviously not on air - we’re trying 🤞@SkyNews Breakfast pic.twitter.com/ZKvVacRgUY
— Jacquie Beltrao (@SkyJacquie) July 19, 2024
Sky briefly returned to broadcasting before it was forced off air again.
Sky News back on air but Autocue and graphics/ticker systems still not working.
— Oliver Whitfield-Miočić (@olivermiocic) July 19, 2024
Also seems like the presenters cannot go to pre-recorded elements either so are reading stories from sheets of paper. pic.twitter.com/9JIj6Mgtw8
Major institutions across the world have reported computer issues disrupting services, with some airlines warning of delays and some airports grounding flights.
Overnight, IT giant Microsoft confirmed it was investigating an “issue” with its 365 apps and operating systems, and although it said it had recovered some services, it warned that the issue was ongoing and users should expect “service degradation”, according to a status page on its website.
According to cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt, an IT issue at global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike was causing much of the outage.
