Greenwich Time Signal a station jingle during Jakki Brambles' early show and Simon Mayo's breakfast show. This was not strictly crashing the pips as they were not intended to be, or mistaken for, an accurate time signal. At 8 am on 17 September 2008, to the surprise of John Humphrys, the day's main presenter on the "Today" programme, and Johnnie Walker, who was standing in for Terry Wogan on Radio 2, the pips went adrift by 6 seconds, and broadcast seven pips rather than six. This was traced to a problem with the pip generator, which was 'repaired' by switching it off and
Greenwich Time Signal tone when a pip should be sounded. This let faults on the line be detected immediately by automated monitoring for loss of audio. The Greenwich Time Signal was the first sound heard in the handover to the London 2012 Olympics during the Beijing 2008 Olympics closing ceremony. The pips were also broadcast by the BBC Television Service, but this practice was discontinued by the 1960s. To celebrate the 90th birthday of the pips on 5 February 2014, the "Today" programme broadcast a sequence that included a re-working of the Happy Birthday melody using the GTS as its base sound. The