--- title: "Nine PBS: 50 Terabytes of History Trapped by a… | Firevault" description: "A public broadcaster lost access to fifty terabytes of archival footage, spanning seventy years of regional history, when its cloud storage supplier suddenly…" lang: en-GB json-ld: | [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization", "name": "Firevault", "legalName": "Firevault Limited", "url": "https://fire-vault.com", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://fire-vault.com/logo.png", "width": 200, "height": 60 }, "foundingDate": "2025-03", "description": "Protect what matters with Offline Secure Storage and control what moves with Control by Firevault. 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The files remain in a Denver data centre, but the contract that placed them there was with the vendor, not the station. Nine PBS is now in court trying to recover its own history. ## What Was Lost Nine PBS, the St. ", "dateline": "United Kingdom", "speakable": { "@type": "SpeakableSpecification", "cssSelector": [ "h1", ".article-summary", "h2" ] }, "isAccessibleForFree": true, "copyrightHolder": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization" }, "copyrightYear": 2026 } ] --- Recent Breaches Breaches [2026 PowerSchool 62.4M records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 DISA Global Solutions 3.3M records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Globe Life 850K records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Lidl GB Customer contact data ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Asahi Group Production systems disrupted ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Kido International 8K records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Collins Aerospace (RTX) Check-in and boarding disruptio... ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Jaguar Land Rover Production and IT systems disru... ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Peter Green Chilled Order and logistics data ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Adidas UK Customer contact details ](/learn/breaches)[2026 PowerSchool 62.4M records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 DISA Global Solutions 3.3M records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Globe Life 850K records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Lidl GB Customer contact data ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Asahi Group Production systems disrupted ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Kido International 8K records ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Collins Aerospace (RTX) Check-in and boarding disruptio... ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Jaguar Land Rover Production and IT systems disru... ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Peter Green Chilled Order and logistics data ](/learn/breaches)[2026 Adidas UK Customer contact details ](/learn/breaches) [View All →](/learn/breaches) [![Firevault - offline secure storage, physically disconnected from the internet](/assets/logo-color-DBVl0KCg.png)](/) Products Solutions [Why OSS](/why-oss) More [Help](/help)[Get started](/get-started) Overview What Was LostThe Legal BreakthroughWhy This Is a Supply Chain Probl…The Lesson for OrganisationsWhat Physical Disconnection ChangesWhat to Do NowConclusionMore Resources [Knowledge Vault](/learn/knowledge)/ [Insight](/learn/knowledge?filter=insight) Insight · 18 August 2026 # Nine PBS: 50 Terabytes of History Trapped by a Cloud Vendor That Closed A public broadcaster lost access to fifty terabytes of archival footage, spanning seventy years of regional history, when its cloud storage supplier suddenly went out of business. The files are still trapped in a Denver data centre. ![Mark Fermor](/assets/mark-fermor-aWtKNSv7.jpg) Mark Fermor Director & Co-Founder, Firevault 4 min read Share [](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2Fnine-pbs-archives-cloud-vendor-shutdown-2026)[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2Fnine-pbs-archives-cloud-vendor-shutdown-2026&text=Nine%20PBS%3A%2050%20Terabytes%20of%20History%20Trapped%20by%20a%20Cloud%20Vendor%20That%20Closed%0A%0AA%20public%20broadcaster%20lost%20access%20to%20fifty%20terabytes%20of%20archival%20footage%2C%20spanning%20seventy%20years%20of%20regional%20history%2C%20when%20its%20cloud%20storage%20supplier%20suddenly%20went%20out%20of%20business.%20The%20files%20are%20still%20trapped%20in%20a%20Denver%20data%20centre.)[](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2Fnine-pbs-archives-cloud-vendor-shutdown-2026)[](mailto:?subject=Nine%20PBS%3A%2050%20Terabytes%20of%20History%20Trapped%20by%20a%20Cloud%20Vendor%20That%20Closed&body=A%20public%20broadcaster%20lost%20access%20to%20fifty%20terabytes%20of%20archival%20footage%2C%20spanning%20seventy%20years%20of%20regional%20history%2C%20when%20its%20cloud%20storage%20supplier%20suddenly%20went%20out%20of%20business.%20The%20files%20are%20still%20trapped%20in%20a%20Denver%20data%20centre.%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2Fnine-pbs-archives-cloud-vendor-shutdown-2026) ![Cinematic broadcast archive room with film reels and tape library, illuminated by cyan and magenta accent lighting.](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/nine-pbs-archives-cloud-vendor-shutdown-2026.jpg) Cinematic broadcast archive room with film reels and tape library, illuminated by cyan and magenta accent lighting. Why it matters ## What this means for organisations holding critical data A public broadcaster lost access to fifty terabytes of archival footage, spanning seventy years of regional history, when its cloud storage supplier suddenly went out of business. The files are still trapped in a Denver data centre. In this analysis 1. 01 [What Was Lost](#section-0) 2. 02 [The Legal Breakthrough](#section-1) 3. 03 [Why This Is a Supply Chain Probl…](#section-2) 4. 04 [The Lesson for Organisations](#section-3) 5. 05 [What Physical Disconnection Changes](#section-4) 6. 06 [What to Do Now](#section-5) **On this page**[What Was Lost](#section-0)[The Legal Breakthrough](#section-1)[Why This Is a Supply Chain Probl…](#section-2)[The Lesson for Organisations](#section-3)[What Physical Disconnection Changes](#section-4)[What to Do Now](#section-5) A public broadcaster has lost access to fifty terabytes of archival footage, covering seventy years of regional history, after its cloud storage supplier suddenly went out of business. The files remain in a Denver data centre, but the contract that placed them there was with the vendor, not the station. Nine PBS is now in court trying to recover its own history. ## What Was Lost Nine PBS, the St. Louis public broadcaster also known as KETC, used Open Source Storage as its cloud storage provider. The company ceased trading and left the broadcaster without a working path to approximately fifty terabytes of irreplaceable material. The archive includes footage of the 1993 Great Flood, East St. Louis history, and local coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data still exists on physical servers inside a Denver facility operated by Iron Mountain. Because Iron Mountain's contract was with the defunct vendor, not with Nine PBS, the broadcaster was locked out of the systems that held its own archive. ## The Legal Breakthrough To prevent the archive from being deleted or overwritten, Nine PBS filed a lawsuit against Iron Mountain in Denver District Court. A judge has now ruled in the broadcaster's favour, ordering Iron Mountain to cooperate and establish a recovery pathway with the help of a third-party expert. The ruling is welcome, but it does not undo the months of uncertainty, the legal cost, or the structural failure that made the dispute necessary. ## Why This Is a Supply Chain Problem, Not a Technology Problem The incident was not caused by a cyber attack, a misconfiguration, or a natural disaster. It was caused by a supplier relationship ending. The data was stored in the cloud, but the cloud is still made of companies, contracts, and physical buildings. When one of those companies fails, the organisations that depend on it can discover that their backups are not as independent as they assumed. This is the same pattern that appears in supply chain breaches: a third party's failure becomes your failure. The difference here is that the failure was commercial rather than malicious. The result is the same. Access was lost. ## The Lesson for Organisations Outsourcing storage does not remove the obligation to retain sovereignty over the data that matters. A copy that exists only under a supplier's contract is not a resilient copy. It is a single point of failure dressed up as redundancy. The incident also shows that legal process is a slow and uncertain recovery mechanism. A court order can help, but it cannot guarantee completeness, timeliness, or that the data has not already degraded. ## What Physical Disconnection Changes [Offline Secure Storage](/offline-secure-storage)® keeps a sovereign copy physically disconnected from any supplier's network, contract, or financial health. The data sits on dedicated drives inside a Firevault Bunker, encrypted and identity-locked, accessible only through an authorised out-of-band connection. If the supplier fails, the cloud region fails, or the contract is disputed, the offline copy remains untouched. Recovery does not depend on a vendor's solvency, a court order, or a data centre's interpretation of who owns the files. ## What to Do Now - Identify the data your organisation cannot replace. Historical archives, legal records, research data, and operational gold copies are the obvious candidates. - Hold at least one copy outside any supplier's infrastructure and outside any shared network. Independence matters more than capacity. - Test recovery without relying on the supplier's portal, credentials, or support desk. If the only way to restore data is through the vendor, the backup is not independent. - Treat cloud storage as a convenience layer, not the final archive. Resilience requires a copy that survives the failure of the provider itself. ## Conclusion Nine PBS is fighting to recover seventy years of history because the vendor it trusted went out of business. The cloud did not fail. A company did. That distinction matters, because it points to a control that works regardless of the supplier: a physical, offline, sovereign copy. For organisations that hold archives, records, or any data that cannot be recreated, the question is not whether the current supplier is stable. It is whether the data would survive if the supplier disappeared tomorrow. > Source: [Cloud storage is great until your vendor goes out of business — Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/) by I. C. Campbell, 2026. About the author ![Mark Fermor](/assets/mark-fermor-aWtKNSv7.jpg) ### Mark Fermor [](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfermor) Director & Co-Founder Co-founder of Firevault, focused on offline secure storage and protecting individuals and businesses from fraud, fines, loss and damage. Speaker, owner and advisor. The Firevault view**Offline Secure Storage® keeps a clean copy beyond the reach of an attacker.**[Why #OSS →](/why-oss) Control systems and access**Cut the physical paths attackers and third parties depend on.**[Explore Control →](/solutions/control) Get started**Get started, or talk to a member of the team.**[Get started →](/get-started) How Firevault would handle this ## A recovery copy an attacker cannot reach Offline Secure Storage® keeps a clean copy of your data on hardware that is physically disconnected, so backup and recovery do not depend on systems an intruder can touch. [Get started](/get-started)[Talk to the team](/demo) **Hardware**Your copy sits on dedicated encrypted hardware **Disconnect**Offline by default, connected only when you say so **Recovery**A known-clean copy to rebuild from, on your timetable **Location**Held in a secure Firevault Bunker Related Reading ## You may also find these useful [ ![Airport WiFi sign-ups turn into a national data problem as 8.7 million customer records are accessed](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/manchester-airports-group-data-breach-2026.jpg) Insight ### Airport WiFi sign-ups turn into a national data problem as 8.7 million customer records are accessed Manchester Airports Group has confirmed that criminal hackers accessed the data of about 8.7 million customers across Manchester, East Midlands and London Stansted. Most of it came from free terminal WiFi sign-ups and from car parking, lounge and fast-track bookings. 27 Aug 2026 5 min ](/news/manchester-airports-group-data-breach-87-million-customers-2026)[ ![T-Mobile pulled the plug on Salt Typhoon. It took a car journey to get there.](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/tmobile-power-pull-salt-typhoon-2026.jpg) Insight ### T-Mobile pulled the plug on Salt Typhoon. It took a car journey to get there. T-Mobile's security chief ended months of failed software remediation by driving to the data centre, clearing ID, finding the cabinet and physically pulling the power supply from the compromised hardware. Disconnection was the right control. Firevault Control is designed to take the same action in under six milliseconds. 27 Aug 2026 7 min ](/news/tmobile-severs-network-cable-salt-typhoon-hackers-2026)[ ![Beacon breach: 1,500 charities exposed and an HIV charity's health data stolen](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/george-house-trust-beacon-charity-data-breach-2026.jpg) Insight ### Beacon breach: 1,500 charities exposed and an HIV charity's health data stolen People supported by a Manchester HIV charity have been told sensitive health information may have been stolen after a breach at Beacon, the shared database platform used by more than a thousand UK charities. One supplier, one connected database, national exposure. 26 Aug 2026 3 min ](/news/beacon-charity-database-breach-hiv-charity-health-data-2026)[ ![Iran-linked hackers shut down a UK power plant for four days](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/iran-uk-power-plant-cyber-attack-2026.jpg) Insight ### Iran-linked hackers shut down a UK power plant for four days A small British generator was taken offline for four days after an Iran-linked cyber attack, reported as the first successful intrusion of its kind against UK power generation. The grid held. The control layer did not. 23 Aug 2026 4 min ](/news/iran-linked-hackers-uk-power-plant-shutdown-2026)[ ![GTA 6 leaks: a nightmare or a blip for the biggest video game of the year?](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/gta6-leaks-rockstar-2026.jpg) Insight ### GTA 6 leaks: a nightmare or a blip for the biggest video game of the year? Unreleased Grand Theft Auto 6 footage has appeared online ahead of Rockstar's official preview, and Take-Two is now in court seeking the identities behind the accounts sharing it. The game will still sell. The material that leaked can never be unseen. 22 Aug 2026 3 min ](/news/gta-6-leaks-rockstar-development-footage-2026)[ ![French tax authority breach exposes 678,000 taxpayers and the land registry behind them](https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/french-tax-authority-dgfip-data-breach-2026.jpg) Insight ### French tax authority breach exposes 678,000 taxpayers and the land registry behind them France's Directorate General of Public Finances has confirmed that attackers used compromised access points to extract tax and cadastral data on 678,000 individuals and businesses. The same seller claims to have held a live session on the central land registry platform covering roughly 20 million people. 17 Aug 2026 3 min ](/news/french-tax-authority-dgfip-data-breach-678000-2026) ## Suggested Reading - [What is Offline Secure Storage The foundation of physical disconnection ](/how-it-works/offline-secure-storage) - [Why Offline Secure Storage The case for physical control ](/why-oss) - [Ransomware Defence Hold gold copies offline ](/oss-for-ransomware-recovery) - [Control Physical path control for IT and OT ](/solutions/control) - [Knowledge Vault All articles, guides and whitepapers ](/learn/knowledge) - [Book a Demo See Firevault in action ](/demo) [Back to Knowledge Vault](/learn/knowledge)