Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Another embarrassing SABC News live on-air blooper as the news anchor, final control room operator and cameramen all err on the side of awful.


Another week, another embarrassing SABC News (DStv 404) blooper from the public broadcaster's 24-hour TV news channel.

This time not only does the SABC News' control room staff appear to maybe be out to lunch and unable to cut to the right channel feed for play-out while the news anchor fails to keep her eye on the monitor, but a SABC cameraman also seems to be struggling to get the angle of his camera just right.

The latest SABC News snafu was was captured by a viewer and uploaded to YouTube on Sunday, and is the latest embarrassing on-air blooper on the channel as of late.

There was last month's incident where SABC News anchor Eben Jansen went ballistic and confrontational during an interview with the EFF political party spokesperson and was immediately suspended because the SABC said he will only return when he is "emotionally fit enough" to be on air.

That was followed by a dagga smoker activist earlier this month who lit up the studio - literally - and started puffing away on the SABC News' airwaves.

In the latest SABC News production mess-up, the news channel failed to stay with the pre-recorded news package reporting about lions at the Addo elephant national park and mid-way through accidentally switched back to the Your World anchor doing what appeared to be her daily gymkana workout.

That's until she realises she's actually on live television - and starts to look around perturbingly as her behaviour changes and she appears unsure and uncertain of how to behave after being caught out.

From here the SABC News control room doesn't switch back to the news package but instead cuts to the other studio camera - the one filming the front of the anchor desk.

Ironically, the story interviews a national park's game ranger who could just as well have been talking about cooped up news anchors and final editing mix and control room operators: "It's not doing them any good to be in an enclosure that small."