In Australia, a teleprompter on ABC News has taken on a life of its own, moving around the studio during a live broadcast.
During a recent news piece, Professor Anne Twomey was discussing the impending Voice to Parliament referendum when the gadget began creeping towards her as she sat at her desk.
The teleprompter began to slide behind her as she spoke, the autocue rolling with news of an arrest set to be read aloud.
Doing her hardest to ignore what was going on behind her, Twomey continued speaking, but soon began to smile.
Fortunately for her, just as she appeared to be about to bust out laughing, the teleprompter moved passed her, vanishing from view of those watching at home as well.
Soon later, a video of the gaffe went viral on social media, and people couldn’t get enough of it.
One person commented: ‘She did really well to keep it together… she was losing it towards the end though.’
‘I love news bloopers like this,’ someone else wrote.
Another joked that the gaffe came after ongoing cuts at the national broadcaster, writing: ‘ABC News Australia cutbacks.’
A similar occurrence occurred last year, when ABC News Breakfast anchors Michael Rowland and Lisa Millar were nowhere to be found when their show began.
Instead, when the show began, the camera got stuck looking towards an empty corner of the studio, with only the lower half of the presenters visible on screen as it attempted to reposition.
Closer to home, the Good Morning Britain team encountered a teleprompter, which caused an unpleasant gaffe owing to a spelling error.
Adil Ray was advertising the show’s 1 Million Minutes campaign in 2021 when he appeared to trip up by saying’sex’ instead of’six,’ but he was eager to explain out it wasn’t his fault.
‘It opens to people in England only if you sign up by going to our website by pledging 180 minutes a week for sex…for six… sex?’ Adil read aloud.
Co-host Ranvir Singh sat looking perplexed by Adil’s comments, to which he responded: ‘It actually says “for sex” in there! It does say that!’
