Greenwich Time Signal not allow the pips to be broadcast except as a time signal. Radio plays and comedies which have fictional news programmes use various methods to avoid playing the full six pips, ranging from simply fading in the pips to a version played on "On the Hour" in which the sound was made into a small tune between the pips. "The News Quiz" also featured a special Christmas pantomime edition where the pips went missing, and the problem was avoided there by only playing individual pips and not the whole set. The 2012 project "Radio Reunited", however, did use the pips
Greenwich Time Signal as from the Droitwich AM transmitter, which is the distance to Central London. As a pre-IRIG and pre-NTP time transfer and transmission system, the pips have been a great technological success. In modern times, however, time can be transferred to systems with CPUs and operating systems by using BCD or some Unix Time variant. Newer digital broadcasting methods have introduced even greater problems for the accuracy of use of the pips. On digital platforms such as DVB, DAB, satellite and the internet, the pips—although "generated" accurately—are not "heard" by the listener exactly on the hour. The encoding and decoding of