TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

That wouldn't happen to be this incident? I think it was revealed afterwards that a microwave was the cause of the alarm going off…

There was the unfortunately sited kettle* that knocked out coverage of Ed Milliband’s speech at the Labour Party Conference one year. I’ve a feeling that was a (non broadcast) contractor at fault.

(*plugged in in the wrong place, not a spillage!)

Didn't Big Brother's Little Brother fall off air once in the Dermot O'Leary days because of a misplugged kettle?

Not really a breakdown, but just now during the darts on Sky Sports, the scoreboard was showing the wrong scores before disappearing completely for about 2 minutes, meaning they had to keep cutting backwards and forwards to the actual scoreboard!

That seems to happen quite often in darts - seen them use picture in picture before to show the arena scoreboard.

Speaking of this video, it's funny how when they cut into the VT, Matt says "Hopefully we'll see you in a little while" and then right at the end of the segment they do the classic, freezeframe on screen for 3 seconds, then fading to a black screen for an unearthly amount of time before the director's cut straight into the breakdown slide!

Could you imagine what the viewer must of felt like? Must of felt very eerie being left in the dark like that, especially after hearing a fire alarm during a live show, you would of thought "Has there been an actual fire?"

Either that, or that's just me.

Could be worse, I remember one of the presentation editors once saying that his worst nightmare was them all being evacuated due to a fire at TV Centre and forgetting to take a live programme out the schedule. Then at the correct time BBC One cuts to the studio and all you can see is flames licking up past the camera!

Ok, that is scary.

Reminds me of being a kid watching Sunday Night at the London Paladium inthe 1970s.
The IRA were very active at the time, and it got taken off air due to a bomb threat.
I recall it cutting to a VT or TK of the Carpenters singing I'm on the Top of the World, while I was busy worrying about all the people in the theatre.
It was a false alarm.
To this very day when that song comes on the radio I still get that same feeling.
Bizarre.

Now on BBC One, it's a fireplace screensaver...

"We apologise for the break in this programme. While we sort things out, here is a look at the REAL FIRE in our building!"

Talking of fires, I'm just going to leave this here...