“Oh my God, we’re live!”, Channel Seven’s Michael Usher says he has his own fair share of on-air mishaps
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As the leaked footage of Channel 7’s Rebecca Maddern and Mike Amor taking a swipe at Novak Djokovic continue to circulate online, network colleagues Natalie Barr and David Koch were said to be concerned that their off-air conversations may be leaked as well.
On Thursday morning, fellow 7 News anchor Michael Usher had weighed in on the issue and admitted that it was ‘entirely possible’ for such slip-ups to occur in a live TV environment.
Michael Usher said slip-ups on TV are entirely possible. Credit: Seven Network.
During a radio chat with Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa, Michael told the hosts that the leaked footage was a bit of a ‘wake-up call’ for those in the media industry.
“After that happened, we’d like to think, ‘Oh, it would never happen to me’, but it could well happen. Look at what we're doing now [on radio], with all the technology it's entirely possible,” he said.
Then, Michael proceeded to tell his fair share of these ‘on-air slip-ups’. Last year, he got caught making small talk with a fellow reporter, thinking they weren’t live yet.
He recalled: “It was about 11 o'clock at night and I'm happily chatting away. And before we go on air, you do these checks with the reporters. There was a reporter named Estelle in Melbourne.”
He added that the whole crew were a bit busy that night so he proceeded to make small talk with the reporter to check the reception.
“Estelle, how’s your day? What did you have for breakfast? You good? Can you hear me?” he asked Estelle. “Fine, off we go.”
But the TV veteran was suddenly shocked by the studio staff screaming in his ear, saying: “We are live, oh my God, we're live, we're live, keep reading we’re live!”
The talk show hosts were laughing with him as he told the story, as Michael went on to add that Rebecca and Mike's comments about the athlete have been “frank” and “candid” on their part.
“Yeah, but look, our team down there was speaking very frankly and candidly and probably saying what most people are thinking,” he said.
Then he joked about how the incident at 7News Melbourne could be used as a promo campaign for 7News Sydney, saying: “At 7News Sydney, we swear less.”
