Sky News came back on air at about 9am.

Other broadcasters around the globe have also been affected by the shutdown, including Australia’s ABC, SBS and Network 10.

The traditional terrestrial UK channels, including the BBC and ITV, appear to be broadcasting as normal.

The TV blackout comes amid wider chaos caused by outages linked to Microsoft computers and applications.

Businesses around the world have been knocked offline by the outages.

The London Stock Exchange is still operating, but traders are unable to access regulatory news about companies.

Meanwhile, the IT problems have sparked global travel chaos. Ryanair warned passengers of long delays, while the Gatwick Express said there could be short-notice cancellations.

Manchester and Berlin are among the airports to have warned of longer check-in times or baggage delays.

Reports have emerged that emergency 911 lines are down in several US states, while in Australia supermarket checkouts have been knocked offline.

Cyber security engineers pointed to a problem with Crowdstrike, a piece of antivirus software, which appeared to be causing computers to crash.

In a statement on its website, the company said: “Crowdstrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows related to the Falcon Sensor.”

Microsoft said it was investigating “an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services”.

A spokesman for Sky News said: “Sky News has not been able to broadcast live TV this morning, we apologise for the interruption.

“All the news is still available online, on the Sky News app, website and across our social media accounts. We are working hard to restore all services.”