Tim Minchin vs SSO vs ABC2 audio
Update: Severe audio problems for Tim Minchin's live Opera House concert, but ABC2 is hoping to reschedule.
- Published by David Knox
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What was to have been a musical treat last night fell apart as ABC2 Live Presents Tim Minchin vs the Sydney Symphony Orchestra found itself plagued by audio problems.
The live performance by the barefoot Minchin at the Sydney Opera House fell victim to technical problems within the first 10 minutes of the show.
A deafening noise errupted several times during the early musical numbers until things went from bad to worse. Some twenty minutes into the show the audio track from the top of the show began to replay over the live Minchin.
On Twitter “Tim Minchin” became a top-trending topic in Australia. #ABC2 began trending worldwide.
Trouble persisted for around 20-30 minutes (making viewing impossible) until ABC switched to an alternative programme: a pre-recorded performance by Minchin. Curiously, it was introduced by Minchin who had clearly recorded an introduction in the case of technical issues during the live broadcast.
“Hi, Tim here. Sorry this is a video that we’re recording to play to you in the event of my death or if not my death, the death of the broadcast,” he said somewhat prophetically.
“Apparently if a large ship sails past the Opera House during the broadcast it can make it all fall in a heap. So I’m here to entertain you while they’re running around like geese trying to fix the problem.”
Eventually ABC2 switched back to the live performance for Act II which, thanks to Minchin’s eclectic cabaret finesse, was an absolute treat. Fittingly he ended with a standing ovation to thunderous applause.
Yes ABC2 Live mucked up.
But to bring us a live performer of this calibre was to die for.
UPDATE: ABC Statement: On last night’s ABC2 broadcast of Tim Minchin Vs The Sydney Symphony, there were some significant audio problems which disrupted the broadcast.
Stuart Menzies, Controller of ABC2 said “ABC TV apologies to both viewers and Tim Minchin for the disruptions to a fantastic show, which we are very proud to be associated with.”
ABC2 is currently working with Mr Minchin’s management to secure a repeat screening of the program at the earliest possible opportunity.
Iain Knight, the show’s executive producer said “The first disruption was caused by the failure of a digital decoder. The second and more significant disruption was caused by a fault in the audio setup, which resulted in two sources of audio being fed to air simultaneously.
“When it was clear the program audio could not be rectified immediately, a stand-by program was played. We were able to get the problem solved and put the second half of the concert to air.
“These faults affected the broadcast of the concert in all states except Western Australia,” said Knight.
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35 Responses
I am a Huge Tim Minchin fan, and I’m a huge support of ABC, but this was appalling. I loved what I saw of his show, but I’ve got to say ABC2’s screw up not only ruined the first half of the broadcast but it completely destroyed the ‘flow’ of the entire broadcast. I found it hard to get ‘back into it’ when it resumed. I was in a bad mood from the headache inducing signal.
Honestly I can appreciate that technical issues occur, but I don’t understand how it was so terribly bad. Those ‘speaker breaking’ glitches were horrible. But if that wasnt enough, How is it that two clashing audio channels were feeding into the same mix for 20+ minutes without someone doing something about it. Did no-one notice? Or they noticed and thought it ‘wasnt that bad’? It was just utterly ridiculous and in my opinion not forgivable. Poor form.
And then the ‘backup footage’ that was screened didn’t really ‘flow’ at all, it was the wrong mood for where the live broadcast left off and Then the last ‘backup’ song that was aired was same song he sang when the show resumed! It was enough to put anyone off (and through no fault of TIms)
…One good thing about the sound stuff-up, was that it cut out out a heap of the bad language that this “fowl” mouthed put out…..the thing about the supposed back-uptape was that it was the same stuff but years earlier with a few more F’s in it…..Edinbourough can keep him………surely he has got the hint by now that it is garbage………
It must have been staged as some sort of elaborate arty joke, considering that he had already prepared for the occurrence.
Jason: No. As it was a live broadcast ABC had made contingency plans. I doubt they expected, or wanted, to use them.
Saw him live in Brisbane – beyond brilliant.
Was gutted that the live schemozzle fell to pieces just before “Thank You God (For Saving The Cataracts Of Sam’s Mum)” which, shatteringly, isn’t available on YouTube.
Disappointed again when the filler program (which I also deeply love) finished just before “Bears Don’t Dig On Dancing” and “The Phil Daoust Song”.
Felt robbed not once, but twice.
I was there last night and there was no indication in the theatre that anything was amiss. For all of you at home, I hope there is a replay – it was an awesome concert. I’d love to see it again!
@Trix – even tho’ they said it was live, it was a delayed telecast for Perth. Tim is a very smart man. He obviously thought to himself that he better have a back-up plan if MediaHub were going to have anything to do with it.
Well planned of ABC2 to have some backup material prepared. They should have switched to this much earlier once the issues were apparent. All live shows should have planning in place for technical issues.
I find it very strange that Tim Minchin would do an introduction if it all went wrong.
Was it expected to go wrong then?
I heard The Age Green Guide editor Nicole Brady mentioning this on 3AW this morning. She said the concert would be replayed on ABC2 at a later date.
Such a shame. I went to the show on Thursday 24th and I was laughing soo hard I was crying during the 1st part (which we missed!) The second part was not as funny at all:(
A great shame that the first 40 minutes of the broadcast had totally butchered audio, the feedback and overlaying of the soundtrack made it impossible to listen to. Having seen the live show in Brisbane i was looking forward to hearing ‘thankyou god for fixing the cataract’ again, too bad that was in the first half,. Perhaps they should have recorded the show here, not too many ships going up and down the Brisbane river..
Looking forward to a retransmission with decent audio.
Really surprised they felt the broadcast was so risky that they should record an apology. If it was such a challenge why didn’t they just record it to play at a later time? We can get live pictures and sound from the middle of the Libyan war zone, but the ABC can’t get them out of the middle of Sydney.
After the initial problems what a great show. The follow up of the Biog piece Rock and Roll Nerd was also wonderful and higlighted TIm’s great talent.
Must have been popular, as we tried to get tickets, and were told there were two left, one on each side of the Opera House :-). I recorded this when I heard it was on so I can watch it. Damn shame they had issues. As others said, I hope it can be replayed without the issues.
Any word as to a replay of this? Or is it stuffed for good?
That’s very strange. I watched it here in Perth and didn’t notice any awful loud noises in the first few minutes, and continued watching right through to the second half, without a cut to a pre-recorded program. The only thing that seemed odd was Tim announcing his last song before the break, then it cutting straight to the start of Act 2. Was it only Sydney that was affected?
Inexcusable that the error was allowed to run for so long. And then to super up the crawl, ‘live prgram to be returning shortly“ then to take it off and replace with, “live progam,” shows the incompetence of the team. Get it right or don’t do it.
Inexcusable that the error was allowed to run for so long. And then to super up the crawl, ‘live prgram to be returning shortly “then to take it off and replace with, “live progam,” shows the incompetence fo the team. Get it right or don’t do it.
It was very disappointing, I had to change the station out of pure frustration, and I didn’t go back. Hopefully the ABC can play the show again soon, with the fixed audio.
Yes David I agree – it was a stunning show. Pity we had to miss some of it.
sounded to me like a tape or replay channel was open for the whole first act, everytime that channel went back into record mode the loud feedback occured.
what a mess, but I still hung around to get the second act.
‘where is the line between rocking and shaking’ lmfao
I do hope ABC2 do schedule an encore broadcast of this (error free) at a later date. Did the non AEDT states receive the same problems or did ABC2 use the pre recorded version?
Any word on whether they will replay the entire thing?
Not knowing anything about this guy I was going to watch, but it nearly killed my ears and my TV speakers, so watched something else
Valiant effort – loved Tim’s “you’d have thought they could have got a copy of the shipping news”. Just nice to see something like this – let’s hope we can have more broadcasts like this (without the dramas).