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Oops: Best of 2022

From hot mics to "Minor Royals" and Nell Campbell's live F-bomb -here are the best, or worst, mishaps of 2022.

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Another year of stuff-ups, gaffes and hot mics.

Technical glitches & TV News:

Footage of Seven News anchors Mike Amor and Rebecca Maddern discussing Novak Djokovic was leaked by a staffer at closed caption company Ai-Media, who was summarily dismissed. Their conversation drew international headlines including the Washington Post, NY Post, South China Morning Post, The Mirror, Times of India, and US talk shows. According to a site poll, the duo were pretty much saying what we were all thinking. Warning: language.

Nine’s Peter Overton and Tracy Grimshaw were hard-pressed to identify new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and husband Hugh O’Leary entering Westminster Abbey at the Queen’s Funeral. “Who’s this?” asked Grimshaw. “Hard to identify, maybe minor royals… I can’t identify them,” said Overton.  The gaffe led to international headlines.

Nine News reporter Elisabeth Moss wasn’t quite ready for her live cross, checking a few finishing touches when Peter Hitchener crossed to her.

Beware of typos during the erection election campaign … This tweet from 10 News First suggested it wouldn’t just be a six week campaign…

Nine’s Tony Jones can always be relied upon to make the annual Oops list. This year he was reporting on the World Cup when his Apple Watch went off Live on air.

BBC News drew some UK viewer reaction after a news ticker bizarrely declared ”Manchester United are rubbish.” An anchor apologised for the mishap two hours later.

Just as ABC Chair Ita Buttrose was giving the Andrew Olle Media Lecture and talking about the profession of journalism, someone hit the button back to the ABC news studio where preparations were underway for a bulletin.

The Today show suffered a broadcasting calamity when its audio fell silent -leading to a congaline of ads, restarts and even 9Honey broadcast in its place. Advertisements played non-stop for over 13 minutes -still without any luck- then to more ads and a 9Honey video. This clip is really long…

 

Nine News last week apologised to South Sydney player Latrell Mitchell after his image was accidentally shown when an alleged murder was being discussed. “At the beginning of our bulletin tonight we had a technical issue which led to an image of Latrell Mitchell being shown while we were previewing our lead story,” Georgie Gardner told viewers. “We have spoken to Souths and Latrell Mitchell’s management and apologised for the error”.

Live to Air mishaps:

Veteran actor Nell Campbell, who played Columbia in 1975’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, appeared on Studio 10 this morning to plug her autobiography. Angela Bishop joined her tap dancing, in heels no less, when Campbell offered a little bit of advice to viewers. Warning: language!

Carlton’s Charlie Curnow was in the moment when he had this live cross with FOX Footy…. Language again.

AUSLAN interpreter Mikey Webb was doing a fine job at a Queensland press conference when a wayward bird offered an opinion.

There was unexpected drama on Studio 10 courtesy of Craig Bennett’s mouth when he suddenly told Sarah Harris and Tristan MacManus, “Hang on, I think my tooth is about to fall out!”

Awkward audio of Insiders host David Speers deriding social media as a “horrible, horrible place” was heard on iview when Speers and panelists Katharine Murphy, James Campbell, and Samantha Maiden joined with LNP guest Jane Hume for a photo. “Let’s get a photo… just for those lovely folk on social media,” he quipped. “It’s a horrible, horrible place and after years of copping it, you just have to tell yourself there are hundreds of thousands watching and a few hundred who tweet….”

The ARIA Awards gave an award to Hard Rockers The Chats for their album “Get F***ed.” Red Carpet co-host Lucinda Froomes got the name wrong and awarded it instead for “F*** You”. Charming.

Wayward footage of Eddie McGuire talking to Rob Mills and Tara Rushton in a break during Melbourne Cup coverage was inadvertently broadcast on Sky Sports Racing channel in the UK.

And also….

In a clumsy editing fail on The Voice, coach Rita Ora gave the same audition response to two different singers. Ora had to reject Caitlin from Sydney, telling her, “I’m not used to having limits on teams… like last season it was unlimited.” It’s the same words she gave the night before to Emma from Melbourne. Video from 3:10.

In an extraordinary programming error, brand new episodes of Spicks & Specks episodes -due to premiere in August- had already played out on ABC. Bizarrely, ABC confirmed episodes were accidentally screened in an early morning slot.

When the Golden Globes forgot it awards TV as well as film…

SBS misinformed viewers with the advertised time that voting was closing for Eurovision: Australia Decides. But it maintained that voting did not close before all acts had performed. “Voting in Eurovision: Australia Decides closed when Myf and Joel announced ‘Stop voting now’ – approximately 20 minutes after the last song at 2245 AEDT,” a spokesperson told TV Tonight.

ABC and production company Thinkative TV (The Weekly, Hard Quiz, Tomorrow Tonight) confirmed executive producer Chris Walker was seen getting into a shower on a Skype call by production staff. Walker was in the UK with partner Carrie Bickmore and family when he thought he had ended a call to The Weekly staff in Australia on May 17. The Herald Sun reports the incident was witnessed by up to nine people, lasting between 40 seconds and 2 minutes.

British viewers were baffled when Channel 4 screened The Inbetweeners movie in full -but without any dialogue at all. More bizarrely, the screening included sound effects and music. Just no words.

4 Responses

  3. Many years ago, there was a compilation show of assorted errors and mishaps on TV including one that featured ‘Little Nell’ Campbell spilling out of her costume during a musical number but continuing on-she’s a theatrical pro from way back!

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