Hitch rises above technical hitches

Melbourne’s Nine News presenter Peter Hitchener rose to the challenge yesterday when the Teleprompter went down during a live news read.

The Teleprompter failed during the very first item but the experienced Hitchener managed to switch to his notes mid-sentence. Just as he had done while being upstaged by a seagull on screen in 2009, he saved what could have been a disaster.

The technical hitch even lasted all through the news items for the night, not being rectified until the Sport segment.

“Thanks for your patience tonight during a couple of our computer problems,” Hitchener told viewers, “and now I’m going to hand the baton over to Tony Jones with Sport.”

But while Teleprompters can fail without notice for the best of them, more concerning for Nine was yet another glimpse of the Sydney News, with Peter Overton’s voice telling Melbourne viewers about the lead Sydney stories at the top of the bulletin.

This is the fourth error in weeks, not counting a visual glimpse of the Sydney team packing up at the end of last night’s bulletin, before A Current Affair began.

Nine’s technical crew needs to better support its on-air team who are clearly soldiering on in the face of too many challenges.

And the lesson for all news presenters: never go on air without your notes.