Mel & Sue

Im enjoying the first 5mins of Mel and sue, the start had a false tech breakdown.

In the old ITV font.

Its a freashing change, the cooking section.

Can ITV not stick to one font? They commissioned ITV Reem and paid a good chunk of money for it, you think they'd make sure everyone uses it. Instead, ITV Sport still use the old one and this slide has it on as well.

I get the impression for the gag, it was a case of finding 'ITV font' typing up and done.

I agree, they have got a REAL breakdown slide.

This might be a stupid question but, what are the provisions for something like that, when a show uses a fake technical breakdown slide or similar? Does it have to be flagged up before broadcast, so it doesn't make anyone working in playout/transmission panic?

No, generally whenever a programme uses fake breakdown slides; flickery pictures; colour bars; extended periods of full-field black, blue, green or magenta; or (in the olden days) static, control rooms get no advance notice and the engineers go into a panic when they spot them out the corner of their eye on the monitor stack.

Such things are usually mentioned in the programme's paperwork when it's recorded but normally it would only be playout who get to see that.

Watching the first 10 mins via itv player it looks like it should do well. There seems to be quite a lot of ad-lib, notably "find us on twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Grindr".

A wonderful show which brought back such find memories of light lunch with the updated comedic style from the bake off. A very good change for the afternoons.

I think this practice (or lack thereof) extends to other countries. Somewhere on YouTube, there's a clip from Deep Space Nine (or something similar) that seems to be a local American station recording a feed from satellite. The episode begins with picture interference from the POV of something the characters have come across. Before the show begins, at the start where the relevant details appear, a small disclaimer states that the interference is a special effect. I presume this triggered some panic from somebody else beforehand and led them to give everybody else a heads up.