Melburnians listening to ABC Radio were left with silence on Tuesday morning after technical difficulties forced the station into an hour-long outage. (Source: Herald Sun). ABC Radio Melbourne Mornings host Raf Epstein said the station was knocked off the air by a problem with a cable to the station’s transmitter.

The radio station, which is an official Emergency Services Broadcaster, went off air about 8.15am. Listeners were instead played a prerecorded message.

“We apologise for this disruption to programming,” it said.

“ABC radio program will be restored as soon as possible.

“Any ongoing reception difficulties should be reported to the ABC reception advice line.”

More than 162 reports were lodged with Downdetector as of 8.51am.

The outage affected Mornings host Rafael Epstein’s show which begins at 8.30am. Melburnians listening through the mobile phone app were not affected.

The station returned to air about 9:15am.

Epstein said the station was knocked off the air by a problem with a cable to the station’s transmitter.

“The cable between us and the transmitter wasn’t working,” he said on Tuesday.

“Don’t know what happened but they went out and fixed it.”

The ABC was contacted for comment.