The halftime show on Fox’s Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions broadcast Thursday ran into some technical difficulties. Country duo The Brothers Osborne came out to perform, Fox play-by-play commentator Joe Buck introduced them, and then…the stage power died a few words into their first song.
That led to a brief test pattern and blank screen (presumably, whatever in-close camera Fox was using at that point was hit by the power outage), then to Fox pulling back to a different camera that was still operational, and then to Buck telling viewers what was going on:
“Well, obviously we’ve had a power hit here in Detroit just a few notes into the Brothers Osborne here at halftime. We have to figure out if we’re going to send it back to New York or if we’re going to stay here if they’re able to restore power here at Ford Field.”
Buck then goes on to discuss how it’s just the stage power that’s gone out, not the stadium power. The power then comes back on, and Buck delivers an excited throw to the band:
“There it is! Hahahaha! YES! All right, enjoy it!” That’s a lot of passion for The Brothers Osborne, although some of it may be about Buck just being happy to escape the awkward situation of having to talk on air without much information on what was going on. And overall, he handled that very well, jumping in pretty quickly to explain what was happening and what they were considering doing about it. This also was only a short interruption, and to the halftime show rather than the game, so that’s not bad by the standards of broadcast technical difficulties. But it was a notable moment, and one seen by a whole lot of people thanks to it being a nationally-televised Thanksgiving Day game.
[Clippit]
