The mysterious case of the vanishing Nine News weather
From the department of “you only had one job” comes a mysterious broadcast from Nine News Sydney.
Sunday night’s bulletin came to an abrupt – and strange – end.
Newsreader Peter Overton told his 281,000 viewers that Amber Sherlock, who some may remember from the Jacketgate saga, would be unable to tell them whether to bring a brolly to work.
Overton told viewers: “Unfortunately we’ve had some major technical problems, so Amber won’t be able to bring you the weather tonight.”
Which did seem a little mysterious given that Sherlock – wearing the same purple Overton had chosen for his tie, as it happens – had moments before the commercial break offered viewers a summary.
Amber Sherlock: No weather
And as the program went off air, viewers were for a fraction of a second shown a wider shot of the studio, which showed Sherlock ready in her usual place at the weather screen.
Sherlock, right: Seen, but not heard
Nine declined to talk about what went wrong, telling Dr Mumbo: “Last night’s bulletin experience technical difficulties which meant we were unable to present the weather”.
I wondered at the time if there’s more to the story. When I was watching they ran a promo for The Footy Show just before the usual weather segment. The promo includes a parody which alludes to shirtgate. When it was on I thought “that’s awkward that Amber will be on straight after”…only for her not to appear at all.
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Seems to me to be a timing issue. Clearly she was in the studio. Graphics were ready in the screen behind her. It would seem that someone screwed up the timing and when they were in the break, realised that they only had seconds left on air and had no time for the weather at all.
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I’m glad I don’t watch the idiot box.
I’ve never heard of or seen her before now nor do I know anything about shirtgate.
Are people really that dumb that this banal rubbish is a high point in their lives?
Apparently so.
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I agree with the comment, especially as channel 9 played the footy show advert twice by mistake and then cut the second one short.
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Must be a slow news day.
Errors and problems happen in all businesses. Media included. Especially the live media, when you often only have seconds to rectify them.
Like the Subject line in today’s email “Nine apologies to Rinehart “. I wonder why they had to make nine apologies?
Or that young lad from “Windosr” who kissed the KIIS 101.1 car for two and a half hours. I can’t find it on Google Maps.
I’m off to have a chat with the goose and the gander.
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Hi SAGH,
You’ll notice this is filed in ‘Dr Mumbo’, not ‘News’, so regardless of the pace of the day, this article would have run. We are not pretending it is hard-hitting news. Dr Mumbo points out errors, quirks, unusual happenings and mysteries in the media – much like our audience then holds us to account when we make mistakes.
The Windsor/ Windosr error was my mistake. I have now amended it. Thank you for pointing it out.
Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about the newsletter send, and I will have to try and think of nine separate apologies to justify it and then create a BuzzFeed-style listicle. You are correct, nine apologies is an awful lot, so I best get started.
Say hello to the goose and the gander for me,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Stick, you’ve exposed yourself as an idiot by getting involved in the very thing you criticised.
Dumb ass alert!
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I wonder if Amber either saw or got wind of the “ambergate” footy show promo and decided not to go on but to stomp upstairs and give vent to her unease.
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Meow
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Members of the public service’s grad program are not even slightly smug or arrogant nor do they feel or act superior, so they need an ad to tell them how great they are. It says a lot about the public service that a bunch of new grads with no work or life experience are hailed as “game changers”
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Bring back Julie Snook asap.
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