History Main / LiveButDelayed

* In UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, the [[UsefulNotes/SportInAustralia V8 Supercars]] Bathurst 1000 endurance race is usually broadcast live on television. But in 2010, viewers on [[UsefulNotes/AustralianMedia Channel 7]] (the current V8 Supercars TV broadcaster in Australia) realised by the end of the 6-hour race that the TV coverage was 20 minutes behind online broadcasts. It was then found out that Channel 7 had fit in the usual commercial breaks, but delayed the broadcast in order to do so - without telling anyone about it. This resulted in the eventual 20-minute delay. [[http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/seven-crashes-and-burns-on-live-broadcast-of-bathurst-1000/story-e6frfmyi-1225936913212 Needless to say]], Australian motorsport fans were ''not happy at all''.

* For many years the [[UsefulNotes/IndyCar Indianapolis 500]] was shown on TV on a several ''hour'' delay. The race started at 11am but it wasn't broadcast until 8pm Eastern. The last year they did this was 1985. (Radio always carried it live.) ESPN now broadcasts it live in all parts of the United States EXCEPT for Indianapolis, where the several hour broadcast delay remains , which was done with the intention of encouraging race attendance at the track.

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Delaying a BroadcastLive event by at least a few seconds so that any inappropriate material can be removed or bleeped out.

The same practice is used by all live radio stations in the UK.

* After the infamous Music/JustinTimberlake[=/=]Music/JanetJackson boob fiasco, UsefulNotes/SuperBowl halftimes are now delayed a few seconds. Their system still isn't perfect. In 2012, when Music/{{MIA}} performed as a guest for Music/{{Madonna}}'s halftime show and flipped her middle finger to the camera, the entire screen blurred a second too late.

* This trope became a plot point on ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'' when NBS was faced with a ''$73m fine'' from the FCC after a soldier and reporter (who'd just come under RPG fire in Afghanistan) used that word you can't say on American television in a live news report.
** Note that this would be incredibly unlikely in real life, as the FCC gives more latitude to news coverage featuring profanity as out of the control of any authority, and for networks it can only fine owned-and-operated stations rather than affiliates in most cases, which unless the network was completely careless and let multiple f-bombs fly, could never get anywhere near $73 million. It was based on a tentative FCC complaint where PBS's ''Frontline'' was at risk of [[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002183615_pbs18.html a multi-million dollar fine]] for the number of uses of the F-word in its special "A Company of Soldiers." Mind you, in that case, it was approximately $500,000 per incident, rather than the ludicrous fine for the instance mentioned above.
** In another episode of ''Studio 60'' they utilize the [[TitleDrop West Coast Delay]] to edit out a segment in which they inadvertently plagiarized another comic's bit; and then they had to do it again for the Hawaii feed when they had to edit the edit. The latter would never happen in real life; at that point the network would just give up and either cut the bit entirely or still-screen a boilerplate apology for the benefit of Honolulans.

** Subverted by the Academy Awards, which are ''always'' broadcast live on both the east and west coast.

* Subverted on ESPN's ''College [=GameDay=]''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M35SPhRD0Iw Lee Corso pulls out]] a cheerleading megaphone for one of his trademark prop gags. He goes to yell into it before saying "Ah, fuck it", tossing it away and putting on a University of Houston Cougar's mascot hat. Olympic athlete and Houston Alumni Carl Lewis was on set and said "Glad there's delay"...except there wasn't. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit's reactions are priceless.

* In ''Series/MidnightCaller'', Jack's radio show uses this.
-->'''Billy:''' It's on a seven-second delay, so if the caller becomes abusive or obscene, you have enough time to cut him off before the call gets on the air.\\
'''Jack:''' What if I become abusive or obscene?\\
'''Billy:''' Then I cut you off.

** Subverted by Bret Hart's infamous "Frustrated isn't the Goddamn word for it! THIS IS BULLSHIT!" speech in 1997. Vince [=McMahon=] told Hart that the delay would be active and supervised so he could get as colorful as he wanted, but he was lying and it went out as is. Muted words were noticeable over the next several months, though the censorship was inconsistent: Shawn Michaels saying "'Tough titty' said the kitty" went out as is while Hart quoting Michaels was censored a week or two later.

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[[folder:Web Original]]
* Any online video game competition, with money on the line, that is streamed live will have some sort of delay in order to prevent the players from using the stream to gain an unfair advantage.
** The mere nuances of digital video encoding will ''always'' cause delays like this to occur -- an update to the video systems of popular game streaming site Twitch [[http://www.neoseeker.com/news/24328-twitchtv-update-imposes-delay-of-up-to-60s-in-all-streams-viewer-interaction-severely-affected/ caused delays of up to 60 seconds]].

* Between an audience member flashing her boobs on camera and Jane Fonda dropping a C-bomb, it's surprising that NBC's ''Series/{{Today}} Show'' still isn't on a broadcast delay. Not that we are complaining, mind you... (All of the morning shows are usually tape-delayed for ''every'' time zone by default)

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]

* Certain ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' episodes--namely ones with very controversial hosts, like Creator/RichardPryor--run on a several-second delay. The three ''SNL'' episodes that were on seven-second delay were: the Richard Pryor episode from season 1 (1975), the Creator/SamKinison episode from season 12 (1986), and the Creator/AndrewDiceClay episode from 1990 (season 15). Creator/LorneMichaels doesn't like putting the show on seven-second delay, so it hasn't been used that much since the Andrew "Dice" Clay episode, not even on the episode hosted by Creator/MartinLawrence from season 19 where Martin goes into a monologue about women who don't wash their private parts. In the NBC rerun, that part of the monologue was cut and replaced with a series of cards that explained why Martin's monologue can never be shown in full again. Outside of that, ''SNL'' is aired on a tape delay west of the Mississippi. It's only live in Eastern Time (11:30 pm in New York) and Central Time (10:30 PM in Chicago).

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* Stand-up comic Jasper Carrott talks about how he remembers when his local radio station had to introduce a four second delay in transmission, listeners would call the sports pundit on the phone-in show a argue with him. An engineer at the station has four seconds to interject with the station jingle... "Hello, Tone? I think you should stick that microphone right up your-BRMB Radio!" Everyone listening is hoping one day the engineer will miss his cue.

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* After the infamous Music/JustinTimberlake[=/=]Music/JanetJackson boob fiasco, SuperBowl halftimes are now delayed a few seconds. Their system still isn't perfect. In 2012, when Music/{{MIA}} performed as a guest for Music/{{Madonna}}'s halftime show and flipped her middle finger to the camera, the entire screen blurred a second too late.

** One obvious example of this delay in action was Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's 2001 live speech announcing his plans for the purchase of WCW - since TNT didn't have a similar delay for the Nitro episode, the feed shown on RAW happened to be lagging several seconds behind the Nitro feed of the same speech.

** One obvious example of this delay in action was VinceMcMahon's 2001 live speech announcing his plans for the purchase of WCW - since TNT didn't have a similar delay for the Nitro episode, the feed shown on RAW happened to be lagging several seconds behind the Nitro feed of the same speech.

** Every live broadcast is delayed by 3 hours on the West Coast. Saturday Night Live? We never get to see any accidents/major screwups, they've had 3 hours to edit them out. American Idol finale? Don't go on the Internet for 3 hours prior to the announcement... you will see the answer in headlines and {{Twitter}} before you get to see it on TV. NBC does this with its Olympics coverage: despite the point of live sports being that it's live, important events are aired on three-hour tape delay. Want to see if Michael Phelps broke the record for gold medals? Too bad; you can't see it live. Heck, in Beijing, they made a huge deal about pushing the organizers to put certain swimming finals in the morning so they could show them live in U.S. primetime ... on the East anyway.

* This practice is used on ''Series/TheView''. It came in handy when Creator/WhoopiGoldberg got pissed off at BillOReilly, cursed him out, and walked off the stage along with Joy Behar.
* Certain ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' episodes -- namely ones with very controversial hosts, like Creator/RichardPryor -- run on a several-second delay. The three ''SNL'' episodes that were on seven-second delay were: the Richard Pryor episode from season 1 (1975), the SamKinison episode from season 12 (1986), and the AndrewDiceClay episode from 1990 (season 15). LorneMichaels doesn't like putting the show on seven-second delay, so it hasn't been used that much since the Andrew "Dice" Clay episode, not even on the episode hosted by MartinLawrence from season 19 where Martin goes into a monologue about women who don't wash their private parts. In the NBC rerun, that part of the monologue was cut and replaced with a series of cards that explained why Martin's monologue can never be shown in full again. Outside of that, ''SNL'' is aired on a tape delay west of the Mississippi. It's only live in Eastern Time (11:30 pm in New York) and Central Time (10:30 PM in Chicago).
* After the infamous {{Justin Timberlake}}/JanetJackson boob fiasco, SuperBowl halftimes are now delayed a few seconds.
** Their system still isn't perfect. In 2012, when Music/{{MIA}} performed as a guest for Music/{{Madonna}}'s halftime show and flipped her middle finger to the camera, the entire screen blurred a second too late.

* This trope became a plot point on ''Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'' when NBS was faced with a ''$73m fine'' from the FCC after a soldier and reporter (who'd just come under RPG fire in Afghanistan) used that word you can't say on American television in a live news report.

** {{Coast to Coast AM}} cuts to a recording of an announcer giving out the call-in number. It can be quite jarring when a conversation is suddenly interrupted by " East of the Rockies, call..."

* LiveButDelayed became a plot point on ''Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'' when NBS was faced with a $73m fine from the FCC after a soldier and reporter (who'd just come under RPG fire in Afghanistan) used that word you can't say on American television in a live news report.

* This practice is used on ''The View''. It came in handy when Creator/WhoopiGoldberg got pissed off at BillOReilly, cursed him out, and walked off the stage along with Joy Behar.

* The timezone variant is surprisingly averted in ''30Rock'' for a fifth-season live broadcast; half the country got one live performance, and the other half got a second live performance.

* Certain ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' episodes -- namely ones with very controversial hosts, like Creator/RichardPryor -- run on a several-second delay. The three ''SNL'' episodes that were on seven-second delay were: the Richard Pryor episode from season 1 (1975), the Sam Kinison episode from season 12 (1986), and the Andrew "Dice" Clay episode from 1990 (season 15). Lorne Michaels doesn't like putting the show on seven-second delay, so it hasn't been used that much since the Andrew "Dice" Clay episode, not even on the episode hosted by Martin Lawrence from season 19 where Martin goes into a monologue about women who don't wash their private parts. In the NBC rerun, that part of the monologue was cut and replaced with a series of cards that explained why Martin's monologue can never be shown in full again. Outside of that, ''SNL'' is aired on a tape delay west of the Mississippi. It's only live in Eastern Time (11:30 pm in New York) and Central Time (10:30 PM in Chicago).
* After the infamous Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson boob fiasco, SuperBowl halftimes are now delayed a few seconds.

* On one {{Atlanta}} local news channel, they will show delayed helicopter footage of things like police chases or standoffs (so that if the guy crashes or opens fire, the audience won't have to see the violence).

* Most episodes of ''Wrestling/{{WWE}} Monday Night Raw'' run this way. It's most obvious in the last episode to air on Spike TV, in which the audio suddenly drops any time the words "Creator/USANetwork" are mentioned, and a "Technical Difficulties" screen comes up any time a sign mentioning USA is seen in the crowd. As the commentators catch on to what is going on, they start having a lot of fun with trying to beat the censor, giving us a lot of surreal commentary.

* Most episodes of ''Wrestling/{{WWE}} Monday Night Raw'' run this way. It's most obvious in the last episode to air on Spike TV, in which the audio suddenly drops any time the words "USANetwork" are mentioned, and a "Technical Difficulties" screen comes up any time a sign mentioning USA is seen in the crowd. As the commentators catch on to what is going on, they start having a lot of fun with trying to beat the censor, giving us a lot of surreal commentary.