This Morning breakdown

Nothing like timing...there I was just flicking through the channels and caught This Morning having some sound problems - you could barely hear Phil and Fern and instead some people in the background.

They realise, Fern apologises (with microphone held up!) and says we're going to a break. Cue a silent in to break sting and Phil and Fern apologising to the guests - unfortunately quite a serious item at the time. Someone then pulls the plug leaving black for a while before Presentation stick up the static ITV1 caption (the nighttime/bike one FWIW) and some music while the anno apologises. A few minutes later they're back, sound desk had completely crashed and they then carry on with their interview.

Trouble is the news had to be on at 11.10 so they've had to mess the guests around a bit. I take it there's no way This Morning/ITV could ask ITN to delay the news?

Cheers, Asa

Well at least they have corrected by going straight to the regional inserts now, but as I'm not a regular viewer of TM I don't know whether it normally happens at this time.

When the sound when down, they should have just cut away to the competition, and left that slide onscreen till the fault was resolved:



Edit - Oh yeah....ITV don’t do comps now cos their 'responsible' unlike Channel 4, BBC, S4C, UTV, STV, Five.....who in other words must be ‘irresponsible broadcasters’?


Failing that, it’s always a good idea to go back to continuity when there is a breakdown in programming.
My fave breakdown was when Granada News had problems will all of their 'reports', nothing was playing, so the presenter said - "we're having a few technical problems here so we're now going over to Yorkshire.................oh.....err….we can now bring you the rest of today’s news" Priceless


BTW - what about UTV/STV - did they get a nice ITV1 logo on screen for then to enjoy?

I doubt it.

If ITV can't be botherered having live continuity presenters then there is no reason why they can't have a pre-recorded group of messages which can be played out under different circumstances.

Years ago the main channels would never go more than about 10 secs without a CA coming on to explain. It shouldn't really be much different now.

UKTV manage to have some system of back-up with RED BEE so that they don't end up with blank screens for very long.

UTV had a mute UTV slide, STV had a still of the STV logo, with a crawler saying normal programming will resume as soon as possible, and different music to the network.

Er, it wasn't - there were frequent apologies from the announcer (who believe it or not is live from 9.25 through to around 2330/0000!).

UTV haven't had regular live weekday daytime continuity for around 10 years now... it only happens in special cases such as Bank Holidays, elections or ad hoc schedule changes due to major news events.

Yep - quite correct - although the anno was quiet against the sound level of the music.

So say if there was [god forbid] a newsflash... no CA on the scene... no announcement?? Or are there some recorded annos?

I just caught it at the right time when they had sound problems at 11am! How very funny it was, such a shame they were discussing a very serious topic however. Fern looked very p!ssed off with it all..

You could hear the Emmerdale actor in the background speaking, and you couldn't hear Fern and Phil introducing the next guests.

It should be a franchise requirement, not just for UTV but all broadcasters.

I have the whole thing recorded, and it will be online shortly (provided technology doesn't pack in like it did for This Morning).