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Oops! Live TV audio malfunction...


curleysound

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I just saw the opening of Hardball with Chris Matthews, and both the preshow tease, and the first minute of the show had all the sounds normally there, except for Chris Matthews mic! He was talking the whole time, on camera, and no sound! Having worked in live TV, I get some great Schadenfreude from seeing this and imagining the panic in the control room. I'd love to hear some stories of broadcast audio nightmares?

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And Sue Simmons, for more than 20 years one of the lead anchors for NBC4-NY, accidentally dropped the "F bomb" yesterday on the air. Howard Stern had a field day about this on his Sirius Radio show this morning.

I wonder if WNBC will get a $100,000 fine for this...

--Marc W.

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I once had a gig for Good Morning America. We where doing the opening live shot on Thanksgiving Day from Oroville Ca. We were at a turkey sanctuary at 2:00am for a 4:00am uplink. We set up in an old barn in the turkey pen. Now... these turkeys were rescued from the copping block. So they are big and fat and were bread to be eaten. They set up a table with red and white checkered table cloth about 10" off the ground and covered the edges with turkey food. Which is chicken. Anyway, the host is sitting on the ground at the table with the turkeys. It really looks great. So I wire the female talent with a hard wire lav and an IFB. All hard wire on the ground  is covered in turkey crap. I am set up on two milk crates next to the camera man and it turns out on that day the SAT truck didn't have enough Clear Com head sets. I said that was ok the cameraman can cue me.

Well it's getting close to 4am and we are about to go. it's nice and quiet in the pen. The usual cooing from the turkeys, they are snacking off the table...great shot. The crew is all quiet, nobody talking...very quiet. They were getting there standby and count down...

Then...since I didn't have a cue from my cameraman, out of nowhere, the host yells out...Good Morning America!!!!!!!!

The turkeys screamed and furiously flapped there wings and ran all over the place. Then my mixer flew sideways off the milk crate and I tipped backward off my milk crate the hosts mic went dead and everyone was screaming in a panic.

Well the turkeys had gotten there feet all wrapped up in the cables, actually ripped the mic off the host. So ABC quickly cut back to the studio to save the day. It took 15 minutes to string new cable and unwrap  the turkeys and go back live for and explanation on air to the studio. I was not only covered in turkey crap, I think I crapped myself.

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