M-Net's power failure which saw its channels on DStv go dark last week the fault of City Power Johannesburg, says pay-TV broadcaster.

The power failure which saw M-Net's channels on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform unexpectedly disappear off the air last Wednesday morning when M-Net's broadcasting complex in Randburg was plunged into darkness, is the fault of City Power Johannesburg, the South African pay-TV broadcaster tells TV with Thinus.

This past Wednesday morning the M-Net channels were cut which created a crisis within the Randburg headquarters of M-Net as technicians scrambled to fix the problem and restore power and the M-Net channels.

According to insiders the third Wednesday of the month, at 10:00, used to be the scheduled power outage test at the MultiChoice complex. "Odd that this would take out M-Net and not the other DStv channels," whispered one.

"The power failure and subsequent break in transmission for 10 minutes was the result of an unforeseen, out-of-the-ordinary electrical spike from City Power Johannesburg," says M-Net.

But why did the power generator not automatically kick in?

"The power generators could not be used as the electrical systems common to both City Power and the generator - that facilitates automatic switch-over - was damaged," says M-Net.

"Kudos to our fantastic engineers who managed to fix the damage in a remarkably short time," M-Net tells me.