TV News Meltdown

A Boston TV station ran into a major technical problem right at the top of its newscast last Wednesday when the control room switcher went dead. That left the anchors scrambling on the air with no teleprompter and no way to throw it to a live shot or taped report. Apparently, they also lacked the ability to read from a script (what's on that paper they're shuffling?) or ad lib the basics of the day's top stories.

You'd think the producers could have at least sent the sports and weather guys onto the set to cover their stuff, but without graphics and hi-tech toys, they'd probably be lost, too. It went so badly that after a few minutes, they bailed out of the local newscast entirely and aired an MSNBC feed instead.

Ironically, that seems to have helped their ratings -- they were #1 25-54 that night, probably because viewers got all the latest on the Jon Benet Ramsey developments.