ITV’s evening news came to a sudden end last night when a fire alarm forced newsreader Tom Bradby and other staff to evacuate the studio live on air.
Midway-through Wednesday’s ITN News at Ten broadcast, the sound of a fire alarm could be heard in the background of the newsroom.
An unperturbed Bradby continued to read the day’s headlines, introducing a video story about President Donald Trump amid the clanging bells. However, when the programme cut back to the studio after the pre-recorded clip, he was forced to cut the broadcast short to join other staff evacuating the building.
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“As you can probably tell, we have a fire alarm,” he told viewers. “I’m really, really sorry about this, but we have to evacuate the building.
“We’ll get back to you with the rest of the programme if we possibly can, but for now it’s good night,” he said, shortly before the live feed was replaced by a ‘Sorry for the disruption’ test card.
More than ten minutes later, the channel returned to the airwaves with the weather forecast, and normal programming was resumed.
Viewers praised Bradby’s cool and collected handling of the unexpected interruption:
An exasperated Bradby later confirmed via Twitter that the incident was a “false alarm”, adding “words fail me”.
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In November 2011, NBC News anchor Brian Williams soldiered on through a live broadcast plagued by an almost-constant interruption by a faulty alarm.
