Channel 10’s The Project was able to find the funny side in the worldwide Microsoft systems crash but the joke came back to bite them when the autocue failed leaving host Waleed Aly stumbling for words.
With the broadcaster among the many businesses and government agencies thrown into chaos by the glitch that hit Australia around 3pm on Friday, The Project posted a cheeky X promo that afternoon suggesting they might have to put a test pattern to air.
‘Tonight’s show going to be so good,’ the tweet said.
When the 6.30pm broadcast time rolled around it was the live panel show that appeared on screens rather than the static test image but it still soon became clear that not all was right.
As the panel talked about the massive tech outage that caused chaos around world, presenter Waleed Aly suddenly stopped speaking because the autocue had momentarily glitched. ‘Me thought that was the end,’ he said.
However, when Aly began giving a rundown of the day’s news starting with a wrap of the US presidential election he soon ran into much deeper trouble – speaking nonsense because the autocue was again not working properly.
‘While (Donald) Trump is flying a new low point for Joe Biden gathered serious momentum today as the man himself,’ he read before realising he wasn’t making sense.
The moment echoed a running gag in the Anchorman movies starring Will Ferrell in which the main character struggles with a malfunctioning teleprompter.
Waleed Aly ran into trouble on Friday night’s episode of the The Project when the autocue fell victim to the worldwide tech outage
Earlier on Friday The Project’s social media team managed to find some cheeky humour in the outage
Aly soon realised he was fighting an unwinnable battle with the autocue and said ‘Sorry … what am I saying?’.
‘Oh, this is what happens when the systems go down … this weird text sort of appears on the … can we get a shot of a camera so you can see how the autocue works?’ he said.
Co-host Georgie Tunny tried to interject but she and Aly ended up incomprehensibly speaking over the top of each other.
‘So, what’s happened is I started reading it and the thing told me to go back to the start and read it again,’ Aly said as the audience was given a glimpse of the wayward autocue,
‘That’s right,’ Tunny said.
‘Anyway here’s a tape that will make sense of it – roll it,’ Aly said.
After the show The Project tweeted: ‘Tonight’s The Project was brought you by: A USB stick, One computer, A broken autocue & panic. See you Sunday.’
Channel 10 News First also found a funny side to the tech crash posting a wonky childish rendition of their normal station logo for a promo on Friday afternoon.
‘Breaking: Widespread Microsoft outages have sent IT systems across Australia into a tailspin this afternoon, with banks, airlines, police, and other systems reported as being affected,’ it tweeted.
‘(And humble news social team admins too, evidently. We’re doing our best here. More to come.)’
Aly explained the autocue has looped back to the start and was telling him to read the same news item again
Channel 10 News First also displayed its creativity in posing an X comment on the crisis
Despite the chaos created by the sudden outing of many business and government digital systems many online found the funnier said.
Retired basketball star Andrew Bogut found mirth in a tweet that showed the harsh reality of doing business without the conveniences of automatic payment.
‘Mc Donald’s Berwick is only taking cash and using a old fashioned calculator to work out everyone’s change ,’ a person tweeted with a number of laughing emojis to which Bogut added a few of his own.
Satirical outfit The Chaser commented on the outage affecting only one of the .
‘Global Windows outage leaves Mac users even more smug than usual,’ the wrote.
Meanwhile another X user saw things taking an apocalyptic turn.
‘The average household has about three days of food in pantry, fridge etc,’ they wrote.
‘If this goes on, that means cannibalism around next Tuesday, I’d say. Mark it in your calendar.’
Retired basketball star and another Twitter user saw the funny side of people being forced to go back to basics in hospitality
With traditional broadcasters 10, Nine, Seven, the ABC and SBS all experiencing technical difficulties the X Bats**t Moments in Australian Politics account noted that the teenage run online news service 6News was unaffected.
‘As all our national media falls over thanks to tech outages, we once again remind international followers that one of the most relied on news outlets in Australia during moments like this is literally run by a bunch of 16 year olds,’ the account posted.
As often is the case Wikipedia received some timely edits to reflect the event after it was revealed the worldwide problems could be traced to Texas-based CrowdStrike software security provider.
Wikipedia’s entry on CrowdStrike was soon updated with the edit that ‘on the 19th of July, 2024 a CrowdStrike update crashed a billion computers worldwide and allowe AI to take over the world which lead to the second dark ages’.
In perhaps better news for humanity the edit was deleted shortly after being posted.
