| 1 | [[quoteright:350:[[Creator/{{ABC}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2020_12_22_abc_news_saddam_hussein_death_2006.png]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:350:"This is an ABC News Special Report..."]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | On occasion, [[WeInterruptThisProgram the broadcasts of television programs will be interrupted.]] Mainly this is some sort of EmergencyBroadcast, but more often than not, it's a piece of breaking news that is being reported. The channel will usually cut into whatever show is playing with coverage by their news arm of whatever event is happening. Another variation on this trope is running a news banner during the program announcing a piece of breaking news without interrupting the actual show, a common sight on Japanese networks. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | This trope is frequently used by major broadcast networks, and is rarely, if ever, done by non-news cable networks. In the digital era, mobile news app push notifications tend to have this effect. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | Compare to CommercialPopUp, when a channel uses a pop-up to advertise a show. When a news program is interrupted for breaking news, that's ThisJustIn. |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | !!Examples: |
| 11 | |
| 12 | [[index]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | * [[BreakingNewsInterruption/LiveActionTV Live Action TV]] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | [[/index]] |
| 17 | |
| 18 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[folder:In general]] |
| 21 | There are certain patterns one can observe when looking at how networks break news: |
| 22 | * In the United Kingdom, the fastest response is usually for the death of a member of UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily. The following patterns can be observed: |
| 23 | ** A standard interruption, where normal programming is replaced with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-fSTgFXblE the picture of the Union Jack and sombre music]]. The minute you see this, you know someone important has just died. More specialised networks might not necessarily interrupt their programming, but if they don't, they'll show a message telling you to turn to a news channel (but won't tell you ''why''). In some cases they've been rehearsing for years; in others, like [[http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/diana.html in the case of Princess Diana]] (who died suddenly in a car crash in 1997), it was basically combined with ThisJustIn. In all cases, no programming can just wait to finish, whether the audience wants it or not; in Australia, viewers [[https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2021/apr/12/abc-says-75-of-complaints-about-prince-philip-coverage-related-to-interruption-of-tv-drama-vera lost their minds]] when the Creator/AustralianBroadcastingCorporation interrupted ''Series/{{Vera}}'' to announce the death of Prince Phillip. |
| 24 | ** Of the major BBC channels, [=BBC1=] and BBC News were taking the story of the Queen's downturn in health live, and so the lowering of the Union Flag shown live on TV became the ''de facto'' announcement of the Queen's death. Immediately after that shot, [=BBC1=] and BBC News, as well as BBC Parliament and BBC Alba (which had been showing an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin'') switched to BBC News' announcer delivering the initial announcement. They were joined a minute later by BBC Scotland (which inexplicably dumped out of the announcement soon after to go back to regular programming briefly). BBC2 was airing a sporting event, and did not pick up the news until the BBC as a whole interrupted programming for the official news. And even then, the Welsh-language BBC waited until the program being broadcasted at that time completed to break into Welsh-language coverage of the Queen's death, roughly 5 minutes after the rest of the BBC had already started coverage. Averted by BBC Three and Four, as when they started up for the evening, both channels were suspended, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8dRXmTVxWY replaced by a slide telling viewers to switch over to BBC One for an important news announcement.]] |
| 25 | ** When UsefulNotes/ElizabethII died, Creator/{{CBBC}} - which up to that point had been continuing to air normally, while most of the BBC’s other channels had already switched their broadcasts to BBC News to cover the developing situation - continued to show the regular-scheduled broadcast of ''Series/BluePeter'', then [[https://youtu.be/ZoflHZ9N3b0 ran a brief announcement from a continuity host]] that there was important news from ''Newsround'' (the channel's news programme for children), ran a TV spot for ''WesternAnimation/ShaunTheSheep''[[note]] probably to buy a little more time for the anchor of ''Newsround'' to change into somber clothes, which was part of the section on how to announce the death of the Queen in the official contingency plan, codenamed [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge Operation London Bridge]][[/note]], then went to a special report on the Queen's death from ''Newsround'', which in keeping with its typical reports, did ''not'' [[LiesToChildren sugar coat what had happened, instead simply presenting it in a way that was more understandable for its audience]]. After the conclusion of the report, the channel went back to regular programming, possibly as a safe haven for kids to go to if the news became too overwhelming (much like some children's channels in the US and Canada did during 9/11). However, Creator/CBeebies averted this, and just played the usual goodnight song. Probably because the channel was going to close down mere minutes after the announcement, and it probably didn't want to scare its target audience during the more soothing programming block played towards the end of the day. |
| 26 | ** Radio stations (including popular music stations) play sombre and/or classical music. For example, when Princess Diana died, radio stations played light music (e.g. the ''Series/TwinPeaks'' theme) for the entire morning, with a repeating message (from Independent Radio News for the commercial stations) as explanation, this continued for two or three days, and even when normal programming resumed it seemed that {{Britpop}} had not survived the interlude, as many stations had used the downtime as an opportunity to replace the tracks they had in rotation, largely supplanting the genre's dominance. |
| 27 | ** Tributes and documentaries to the deceased, which can last for ''days''. News entities, both on TV and in print, spend years putting this material together. In many cases, viewers don't really appreciate it; when Prince Phillip died in 2021, the coverage was so extensive that Creator/TheBBC received a [[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/apr/12/bbcs-prince-philip-coverage-breaks-uk-tv-complaints-record record number of complaints about it]]. |
| 28 | ** Ongoing coverage of the aftermath. In the case of Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethII, who died in September 2022, it really was a big deal because the head of state was changing for the first time in nearly seventy years, but even for other royals it can happen. In the Queen's case, even children's programming was pre-empted; Creator/Channel5 got so many complaints about this on social media that on the day of the Queen's funeral, they made it a point not to cover it wall-to-wall and instead showed family-oriented movies like ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie''. |
| 29 | * Creator/TheBBC likes to break news with the message, "This is the BBC from London" (sometimes coupled with "Normal programming has been suspended"). This ''can'' happen with the death of a Royal (or someone else who's important like the incumbent Prime Minister), or it can serve as a prelude to an EmergencyBroadcast, as Britain doesn't technically have a separate system for it like the U.S. and other countries do. |
| 30 | * In America, the gold standard of breaking news was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; it remains CNN's record of how fast they broke a story, even though at the point when they broke it nobody had any reason to believe it ''was'' a terrorist attack and not just a horrifying and unlikely plane crash. There's plenty of footage on Website/YouTube, on all kinds of channels; it's especially eerie to see how "normally" the day started. Some regular programs took days to come back on the air. |
| 31 | * America ''loves'' interruptions for extreme weather, and there tends to be a lot of it (at least outside of perpetually sunny California). Whenever there's a big snowstorm in the Northeast, a tornado in the Midwest, or a hurricane in the South, the over-the-air networks interrupt their programming to allow local news there to cover the progress of the storm and its aftermath. Even national networks like CNN will sometimes cover a storm as if it were a local network and give advice to a national (and even international) audience as if they all lived in the affected area. This could last for the better part of a day. People occasionally complain about the preemption of normal programming, but since severe weather can actually be dangerous, they usually lose that argument[[note]]in 2019, an Ohio TV meteorologist [[https://www.facebook.com/WSYXABC6/videos/2062657480704588/?v=2062657480704588 took to Facebook]] to [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech tell off]] people complaining about weather coverage (for a series of tornadoes that killed six people) interrupting the season finale of ''Series/TheBachelorette''[[/note]]. In 1977, it also led to a CoincidentalBroadcast of sorts in Detroit, Michigan, when the series finale of ''Series/MaryHartmanMaryHartman'', whose storyline involved a tornado striking the show's setting in Ohio, was interrupted for coverage of a ''real'' tornado warning that had just been issued for several Detroit suburbs. |
| 32 | * The UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic was the first time in America that all of the major TV stations in the United States interrupted their programming at the same time to cover the same event. It started on March 16, 2020, and continued every day for weeks. Which made sense; those early months of the pandemic were quite harrowing and full of uncertainty, and the White House was giving press briefings every day on the state of the virus and what was being done about it. Sometimes those briefings would ''themselves'' be interrupted to show state or local briefings (which tended to be even more relevant given their focus on local lockdown rules and hospital capacity). One nasty tendency was for these briefings to take place during normal working hours -- when the channels were showing kids' programming, and school wasn't happening, which just made things more stressful for the younger audiences. |
| 33 | * Creator/{{PBS}} likes to stand apart from its American brethren by {{avert|edTrope}}ing this trope. It routinely airs its normal programming when the other channels have interrupted theirs. It ''occasionally'' preempts regular programming, but not nearly to the extent of the other channels and usually for things of importance to the functioning of the federal government (y'know, the entity that kinda owns the network) like congressional hearings and impeachment trials[[note]]During the [[UsefulNotes/RichardNixon Watergate hearings]], nothing was sacred on PBS -- neither ''Series/SesameStreet'' nor ''Series/TheElectricCompany1971'' nor ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood''[[/note]]. It's only the ''really'' big events that force an interruption, and even then for odd reasons; for instance, on [=9/11=] the local New York affiliate was knocked off the air because its transmitter happened to be on top of the World Trade Center, and during the Covid pandemic, some PBS children's programming was pre-empted for ''educational'' children's programming as a way to fill in for the closed schools. In some cases some (but not all) stations will break into programming for the death of someone important, but it will either be a huge deal (''e.g.'' Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethII) or related to the network itself (''e.g.'' Creator/FredRogers). |
| 34 | ** This is due at least in part to PBS' decentralized operations. While there is a default national feed to air, the local stations are the ones who can pick and choose which PBS programming to show on any given day -- often there'll be local programming mixed in, along with shows from American Public Television or other companies outside of the PBS distribution system (including imports from Britain). Ergo, running special reports is reserved largely for the biggest of news stories, as the ''PBS [=NewsHour=]'' is usually responsible for them; the ''[=NewsHour=]'' staff is only responsible for one show, as opposed to an entire news organization akin to the Big 3 or cable networks (while other news and current affairs shows run on PBS like ''Frontline'' and ''Washington Week'', these shows are all produced separately by different PBS member stations and/or outside companies), meaning it wouldn't be very practical or economical for a production crew that generally only produces one newscast a day to broadcast special reports designed to pre-empt normal programming at any time. |
| 35 | * A presidential inauguration ''always'' preempts normal programming, even on PBS. It only happens once every four years, so it's usually a pretty big event. |
| 36 | * In America, ''sports'' events are [[UsefulNotes/SportsPreemption never preempted]], and [[ThereShouldBeALaw it's actually the law]], entirely because of one event from UsefulNotes/TheSixties known as the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game Heidi Game]]". It was an [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague American Football League]] game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets that was running long; Creator/{{NBC}} decided to preempt the last few minutes so as to allow the next program to start on time, a MadeForTVMovie of ''Literature/{{Heidi}}''. They figured that there wasn't much time left and the Jets were up by three points, so [[TemptingFate nothing super dramatic would happen, right]]? Except the Raiders conjured up a MiracleRally, scored ''two'' touchdowns, and won the game. (And to add insult to injury, NBC flashed a pop-up showing the score during the movie.) NBC got a ''deluge'' of complaints about this[[note]]even before the game was finished, which is thought to have prevented them from switching back to the game, because the complaints [[NiceJobBreakingItHero tied up the phone lines and prevented them from contacting the technicians to tell them to make the switch]][[/note]], which is why nothing like this has ever happened since then -- not even on cable. If the other broadcast is sufficiently important, they'll delay it rather than preempt it[[note]]this causes weird things when a show is timed for a specific time of year, like the World Series delaying ''WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror'' so that it aired in November (breaking a long streak of October airings in the process)[[/note]]. They won't even break for news; one of the commentators usually announces it during the game (''e.g.'' the famous announcement on ''Monday Night Football'' of the assassination of Music/JohnLennon). |
| 37 | * In UK, the above situation was inverted on February 23, 1983, amid significant public and media interest in a storyline in ''Series/CoronationStreet'' involving longtime character Deirdre Barlow's affair with charming local businessman Mike Baldwin. When that evening's episode ended with Deirdre announcing her intention to stay with her husband Ken, the news was projected on the scoreboard during a Manchester United-Arsenal football game: "Ken and Deirdre reunited. Ken 1 - Mike 0". |
| 38 | * Totalitarian regimes control the news and don't especially ''like'' to break bad news. The trend is to interrupt programming and start playing [[RelaxOVision nonstop classical music]], partly to give the viewer time to prepare themselves for bad news and partly to give ''themselves'' time to work out exactly what to say. |
| 39 | ** In Nazi Germany, state radio replaced all regular programming with Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony before announcing the catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad. |
| 40 | ** The Soviet Union liked to do this; Soviet viewers were conditioned, upon hearing classical music from the TV and radio, to understand that something really bad had just happened. After UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}}, the radio played classical music for two days straight until the official announcement was prepared. During the August Coup in 1991, Soviet television played ''Theatre/SwanLake'' [[https://www.npr.org/2021/08/19/1029437787/in-1991-soviet-citizens-saw-swans-on-the-tv-and-knew-it-meant-turmoil on repeat]]. The impulse was so strong that even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian news stations would ''still'' do this, often as a sort of editorial statement; for instance, ''Swan Lake'' was played in this fashion by independent Russian TV station TV Rain after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, in protest, [[https://people.com/politics/russias-last-independent-tv-station-broadcasts-swan-lake-amid-ukraine-invasion/ right before they were taken off the air by the Kremlin]]. |
| 41 | ** In her autobiography about surviving the Rwandan genocide, Esther Mujawayo wrote that she associated classical music with political upheaval because the national radio network used this music [[RevolvingDoorRevolution each time a coup occurred]]. |
| 42 | * In Japan, the vast majority of the TV channels are part of big conglomerates, so they don't interrupt their programming so much as direct the viewer to a 24-hour news channel owned by the same conglomerate. They do this with banners called "telops", which often include a brief description of what just happened. Sometimes the interruption really is important, other times it's quite inane (''e.g.'' Fuji TV announcing that ''[[Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba: The Movie - Mugen Train]]'' had become [[WorstNewsJudgmentEver the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan]]). A few are particularly notable: |
| 43 | ** In 2016, the ''VideoGame/{{Aikatsu}}'' anime was interrupted with a [[https://youtu.be/d72Oo5-BU8A?t=134 telop announcing]] the start of retired baseball player [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuhiro_Kiyohara Kazuhiro Kiyohara]]'s trial for drug possession. Several parents complained of children upset by the news (especially give the highly taboo state of recreational drug use in Japan). Also complaining were the show's [[http://jin115.com/archives/52123496.html adult fanbase]] and [[https://twitter.com/Ryuichi_Kimura/status/710406129625346049 the director himself]]. |
| 44 | ** Creator/TVTokyo is known for its extensive use of telops, which have a bizarre tendency to [[CoincidentalBroadcast coincidentally relate]] to whatever is being shown on TV at the time. For example, an announcement of the 2004 Niigata earthquake happened to be shown during a travel program about the region. Observers have called it "[[http://2chart.fc2web.com/tereto.html the Legend of TV Tokyo]]". |
| 45 | ** [[Creator/NipponTelevision NTV]] also makes use of telops a lot, but doesn't have as much luck compared to TV Tokyo when it comes to aligning with the theme of the show that's airing at the moment. Most infamously, in 2006, they interrupted ''LiveAction/{{Shoten}}'' (which is supposed to be a comedy show) with a telop announcing finding the body of a 11yo boy who had gone missing the month before. (The telop can be seen [[https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm21600091 here]] at the 9:42 mark) |
| 46 | ** The Creator/{{NHK}} Plus print of the second episode of ''Anime/LoveLiveSuperstar'' retains an earthquake warning that occurs halfway through the episode -- which is odd, as most programs (on this and other streaming services in Japan) will remove such warnings before putting them up. |
| 47 | ** The only real exceptions where they will actually interrupt programming are ''big'' news events, usually natural disasters (''e.g.'' the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake) or the deaths of important people (''e.g.'' the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989, the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022). But even then, the kids' shows (and for whatever reason there are many in Japan) will continue airing so as not to expose the younger audience to alarming news stories. After the Tohoku earthquake, it took Japanese networks as long as a week to resume normal programming -- and when it came back, all advertising was pulled and replaced with {{public service announcement}}s. The public ''hated'' it and [[WeWantOurJerkBack asked for the commercials back]], particularly because the government didn't have a wide range of these ads so the same ones kept repeating ''ad nauseam''. |
| 48 | * Creator/TVGlobo tends to use it for celebrity deaths, disasters and such, with a rare good news edition being the ones regarding approval and arrival of the COVID vaccine. Brazil widely considers [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DYomde2YEc the breaking news broadcasts' intense opening fanfare]] to be an indicator that something terrible has happened or is about to happen. |
| 49 | * Two minutes after the death of Japanese emperor Hirohito in January 1989, NHK [[https://youtu.be/wTWOb99NXwE?t=776 automatically switched]] to a static screen reading "HIS MAJESTY, THE EMPEROR HAS DIED" in white kanji atop a black background, keeping it up for eleven seconds. |
| 50 | [[/folder]] |
| 51 | |
| 52 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 53 | * The original broadcast of the 73rd episode of ''Anime/AttackOnTitan'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS8IDWbZ6DY was interrupted 19 minutes in]] for a news report about an earthquake in Wakayama prefecture. |
| 54 | * ''Manga/HimitsuNoAkkoChan'': |
| 55 | ** The premiere of the episode "Ganmo's Perfect Rakugo Theater" of the 1988 incarnation was pre-empted by ongoing news coverage of Emperor Hirohito's death (which all channels in the country ran non-stop coverage of for at least a week). |
| 56 | ** The original series had episode 29, "The Lizard Woman Has Come!", pre-empted by news coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It would air a week later in order to make up for the interruption. |
| 57 | * [[http://home-aki.la.coocan.jp/kirby-houdou.htm According to this page]], the last few minutes of the original Japanese airing of the ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' episode "Hunger Struck" were interrupted by a news report about a strong earthquake hitting Miyagi Prefecture a few seconds before the episode ended. Due to this incident and the complaints it caused, a rerun of the episode was scheduled a week later to make up for the interruption. |
| 58 | * During the airing of the 28th episode of ''Anime/{{Mewkledreamy}}'', a telop announcing that Joe Biden won the US presidental election [[https://twitter.com/pac_amniotic/status/1325256426885804032?s=20 appeared during the Mewkle Stick sequence]]. |
| 59 | * ''Anime/PrettyCure'': |
| 60 | ** The original airing of episode 13 of ''Anime/SmilePrecure'' [[https://i.imgur.com/8xNnWXO.jpg had a breaking news bulletin about a bus crash]] displayed [[MoodDissonance during the ending theme.]] |
| 61 | ** During the airing of the 26th episode of ''Anime/HealinGoodPrettyCure'', [[https://twitter.com/newtosyo115119/status/1310002798533070849?s=20 a news banner announcing Yuko Takeuchi's suicide]] was displayed. Parents were not happy about this given the circumstances, [[https://twitter.com/pakugyu/status/1313788121197080577?s=20 to the point where one viewer filed a complaint to the BPO about it]]. |
| 62 | * On September 21, 2001, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NRC_lp_a2U a Fox Kids broadcast]] of ''Anime/TransformersRobotsInDisguise'' was interrupted for breaking news coverage regarding the events of 9/11. |
| 63 | * ''Manga/WorldTrigger'': |
| 64 | ** The sixth episode of the second season of the anime was pre-empted for coverage of the 2021 Fukushima earthquake. |
| 65 | ** The third season's 14th episode was pre-empted for coverage of a tsunami that was slated to hit Japan. |
| 66 | [[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:Film -- Animation]] |
| 69 | * A planned March 16, 1986 airing of ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' on ABC had to be postponed due to President Reagan's address about the Communist threat in Nicaragua starting at 8:00pm Eastern, an hour into the showing. As a result, ''[[Series/WaltDisneyPresents The Disney Sunday Movie]]'' had to be shortened from two hours to one that week, instead opting to show ''[[WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree]]'' and three WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck cartoons. |
| 70 | [[/folder]] |
| 71 | |
| 72 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 73 | * Outrage ensued from angry parents on social media when NBC interrupted their airing of an ''[[Literature/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girl]]'' film in favor of a news report on the Trayvon Martin case. |
| 74 | * This happened twice during the annual airings of ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' in the United States: |
| 75 | ** The February 24, 1974 airing on NBC got interrupted by a special report on the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, delaying the movie by a half-hour. |
| 76 | ** The February 24, 1988 airing on CBS was interrupted for a Special Report on a presidental conference, delaying the start time by an hour and a half. |
| 77 | [[/folder]] |
| 78 | |
| 79 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 80 | * On July 20, 1969, a young singer-songwriter named Music/JamesTaylor was performing a set at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, and had just finished playing his newly written song "Fire and Rain", when organizers stopped the festival to announce to the crowd that the Apollo 11 astronauts had landed on the moon. Taylor never got to finish his set because the festival instead showed the historic live broadcast of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon. The 1969 festival was also the last in Rhode Island until the mid-80s, and Taylor didn't return to the festival until 1997. In 2015, Taylor performed an unannounced half-an-hour [[https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/07/25/james-taylor-surprises-fans-newport-folk-fest-finally-finishes-set-from/jEVUJFOATBFNe3Au5e5MsO/story.html surprise set]] at the folk festival that he described on-stage as his make-up for his shortened 1969 set. |
| 81 | * On December 8, 1980, during a concert in Oakland, California, Music/StevieWonder announced that Music/JohnLennon had been assassinated, to much shock from the audience. |
| 82 | * Music/FrankSinatra announced the death of Music/ElvisPresley to a Wisconsin concert audience on August 16, 1977, saying "we lost a good friend today" and dedicating the rest of the show to Presley's memory. |
| 83 | * Music/{{Nas}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIwnNe3RPQA announced the death of]] Music/TupacShakur during one of his concerts, on September 13, 1996. |
| 84 | [[/folder]] |
| 85 | |
| 86 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 87 | * Extant clips circulate of a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYDg4FqlBEc pro football game]] and a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSqwZdtrZW8 New York Philharmonic concert]], respectively, getting interrupted by news reports about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. |
| 88 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfUdJleG5Yc WGBH's (Boston, MA) live broadcast of a Boston Symphony concert during the shooting of John F. Kennedy]] was unique in that the conductor, Erich Leinsdorf, broke the news of the assassination himself, instead of WGBH's reporters. After making the announcement to a shocked audience, he and the orchestra played Beethoven's Funeral March. |
| 89 | ** Website/YouTube has archived airchecks of the moment the news broke on various radio stations. A few examples: WLW in Cincinnati had just begun a program of Broadway show music during which ''Theatre/LilAbner'' was to be featured; KNX in Los Angeles aired its first bulletin during the West Coast feed of the Arthur Godfrey show (which was prerecorded); and WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut aired its first bulletin during a call-in household-hints program (where recipes for Thanksgiving, just six days away, were the main topic of conversation), which left one caller so stunned she couldn't continue and had to tearfully hang up. In Dallas itself, KLIF, a leading, top-rated pop music station, interrupted the song "I Have a Boyfriend" by The Chiffons to report only that shots had been fired at JFK's motorcade, with no word on any injuries. As did most stations, KLIF, after airing its initial reports, then returned to normal programming as the newsroom waited for further bulletins to come in. Some who were on the air at the time later recalled that they thought someone was playing a sick joke until they realized it was real and started either continuous news coverage (if the station was a network affiliate) or instrumental or religious music interspersed with news bulletins (if the station was an independent). As should be expected, the initial bulletins had some errors, like saying that the bullets tore through the limousine's detachable bubble top (after some morning rain cleared out, it was decided to not put the top on the car so Kennedy could ride in the open), and that UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson had possibly been hit in the arm by one of the bullets and was going in for treatment at Parkland Hospital alongside Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally (Johnson was unharmed, but instead went inside the hospital for a closed-door meeting with Kennedy's staff and the Secret Service to plan out their next moves in the event Kennedy died). |
| 90 | * On February 20, 1971, an Air Force employee tried to send out a Emergency Broadcast System communications test, but accidentally sent out the wrong code, being one that meant there would be a national emergency. All radio stations were supposed to interrupt their usual programs for an emergency alert. Three stations are known to have actually taken the alert seriously before realizing the error: |
| 91 | ** [=WOWO=] in Fort Wayne, Indiana interrupted a block of music, cutting off during ''Series/ThePartridgeFamily'''s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiClB1Ogcj8 "Doesn't Somebody Want to Be Wanted"]]. The staff initially did not know what was going on, but eventually learned of and then announced the mistake. |
| 92 | ** [=WCCO=] in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQZGbgipu80 initially played their EBS White Card audio, but cut it off at some point]], and then staff from the station could be heard conversing about the mistake. |
| 93 | ** WNTH, the student radio station of New Trier Township High School [East] in Winnetka, Illinois, went off the air and waited for a code they were supposed to receive under the circumstances. It took some hours before they finally received information that the alert had been a mistake and that they should resume broadcasting. |
| 94 | * In the Congo-Léopoldville, on September 5, 1960, an English lesson on the national radio network was interrupted by official announcement from Prime Minister Lumumba and President Kasa-Vubu dismissing each other. |
| 95 | * The February 17, 2021 broadcast of ''The Rush Limbaugh Show'' opened with Rush's wife announcing that he had passed away that morning from cancer. |
| 96 | * The [=IRN=] radio stations in the UK broke into their normal programming on the day Princess Diana died, broadcasting light instrumental music and ten minute announcements, with extended news bulletins on the hour and half-hour. London's Capital Radio (95.8 FM and Gold 1548) dropped out of the IRN coverage due to the feed coming in over a poor quality telephone connection (complete with beeps over the music), and instead broadcast a combined programme of light classical music with Howard Hughes announcing every ten minutes. |
| 97 | * About two minutes after the first airplane impact on 9/11, AM news station WCBS in New York went to a regularly scheduled traffic update from its helicopter reporter Tom Kaminski, who instead filed the first radio report of the attack. |
| 98 | * Another case of a radio show broadcasting a newsworthy event as it broke was with Dan Ingram, the popular afternoon DJ on WABC in New York on November 9, 1965. In the early moments of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965 Great Northeast Blackout]], WABC's turntables started running slow as electricity began getting disrupted, leading [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-kjUBpd2ks Ingram to turn on his mic]] to joke about the songs playing "in the key of R" and to report on lights blinking in the studio, before the transmitter power finally cuts out (ironically during a news update). |
| 99 | * In an unusual case of a show being interrupted by breaking news that turned out to be about another member of the station's air staff, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO1t6W6m_TI talk show host Ken Hamblin]] of KOA in Denver, Colorado discarded his original discussion topics on the night of June 18, 1984 after the station's news staff broke the story that morning host Alan Berg (whose timeslot Hamblin took over a few months earlier when Berg's show was moved) had been murdered outside his apartment (a murder eventually revealed to have been plotted and executed by a neo-Nazi group), and devoted the remainder of the show to giving further updates and taking calls from shocked listeners. |
| 100 | * On December 19, 1976; Baltimore radio station WCBM-AM 680 was in the middle of post-game coverage of the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague AFC Divisional Playoff game]] between the then-Baltimore Colts and the 2-time defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers (a game in which the Steelers won [[CurbStompBattle 40-14]][[note]]but which turned out to be a PyrrhicVictory as both starting running backs, Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, were knocked out of the game due to injuries and unable to play in the following week's AFC Championship Game, which they lost to longtime [[TheRival arch-rival]] and eventual Super Bowl XI champion Oakland Raiders 24-7[[/note]] and had just gone to commercial when a plane crashed into the upper deck of Baltimore Memorial Stadium; with postgame host Tom Davis and local radio broadcasters Chuck Thompson and former Colts defensive tackle Art Donovan [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrmYnXIMG4g&t=29s&pp=ygUUMTk3NiBiYWx0aW1vcmUgY29sdHM%3D covering the aftermath of the crash]] - all of whom noted that it was something of a blessing in disguise that the blowout loss meant that section of the stadium was essentially empty; thus no spectator injuries (all three men speculated that had the Colts won or the game been closer, there would have been a strong possibility of significant injuries or loss of life)[[note]]the pilot, a Donald Kroner, was arrested and charged with malicious destruction of property and various flying violations. Kroner was sentenced to 2 years in prison but only served 3 months[[/note]] |
| 101 | * While that varies from country to country, definitely TruthInTelevision in some state-owned media as (news) stations, that will interrupt a program to broadcast the discourse of a head of state, including a foreign one in diplomatic visit, important politician as the opposition's leader, etc. even if it's not something very serious. |
| 102 | [[/folder]] |
| 103 | |
| 104 | [[folder:Stand Up Comedy]] |
| 105 | * Creator/JeffFoxworthy discussed this in one of his standup routines when describing television when he was a kid. |
| 106 | --->"We had three channels and that was IT! And if the president was on TV, your night was shot! Us kids would be cryin' 'THE PRESIDENT'S ON!! HE'S ON EVERY CHANNEEEELLLL!!'" |
| 107 | [[/folder]] |
| 108 | |
| 109 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 110 | * Concert example: the ''[[Anime/LoveLiveSunshine Aqours World Love Live: Brand New Wave]]'' concert was interrupted after "Brightest Melody" to inform the audience of the 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake and how the show was taking a break to check for damage from it. |
| 111 | [[/folder]] |
| 112 | |
| 113 | |
| 114 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 115 | * Creator/RoosterTeeth did this twice, using the news recap show "The Know-It-All" to reveal Creator/MontyOum's hospitalization (and that there would be no videos from Rooster Teeth that weekend), then using "The Know" a few days later to reveal of his passing, again stating that there would be no videos because of it. |
| 116 | [[/folder]] |
| 117 | |
| 118 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 119 | * [[http://www.allyngibson.com/?p=6292 During an airing of]] ''WesternAnimation/BeMyValentineCharlieBrown'', a news report on the death of Music/WhitneyHouston interrupted the program. |
| 120 | * Nickelodeon, as well as most Viacom networks, interrupted a re-run of the ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrol'' episode "Pups Save A Baby Humdinger/Pups Save A Pinata" on March 14, 2018 to go off-air in support of the National Walk-Out that day. |
| 121 | * The first airing of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' on Creator/{{CBS}}'s Nickelodeon-themed SaturdayMorningCartoon block (the episode in question was "Finsterella") was interrupted on some stations halfway through for breaking news about the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion. Dan Rather began the report by telling viewers watching to please grab an adult. Some stations did air the episode as originally planned. |
| 122 | * One rerun of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Horseland}}'' episode "The Can-Do Kid" was interrupted by a CBS News discussion on the death of Osama Bin Laden. |
| 123 | * [[Creator/OneSaturdayMorningAndABCKids ABC Kids]]: |
| 124 | ** Towards the end of a broadcast of ''WesternAnimation/TheProudFamily'' on ABC Kids, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH4vrq7ZIYQ an ABC News Special Report on Hurricane Charley]] interrupted the end of show. This is to the point George Stephanopoulos ''actually tells the children watching to get their parents to come into the room because of the subject matter of the report'' (it probably didn't work, as most kids probably changed the channel in anger). After the Special Report ended, the network joined ''Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder'' already in progress. |
| 125 | ** The final broadcast day of the block was not seen on the East Coast of the United States due to news coverage of Hurricane Irene pre-empting the entire block that day. |
| 126 | ** On February 1, 2003 an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'' was interrupted midway through by a Special report on the explosion of the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'', with George Stephanopoulos once again informing children watching to get a parent into the room. |
| 127 | ** This happened for weeks on ABC Kids during the 2008 election, usually during ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewSchool'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheReplacements''. These shows would usually be interrupted at random points for news coverage on the election. |
| 128 | * On April 1, 1980, an airing of ''Daffy Duck's Easter Special'' on NBC [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmxW76rhuUw was interrupted by a NBC News Special Report regarding that year's presidential election cycle]]. According to the comments section, some kids weren't pleased. |
| 129 | * On November 25, 1986, the CBS broadcast of "Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet" was preempted for a half-hour special report on Iran-Contra, "The White House in Turmoil". The previously scheduled airing of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" went on as scheduled. |
| 130 | * On November 15 and 19th, 2019, an hour of Creator/PBSKids programming on PBS stations nationwide was pre-empted for coverage of Donald Trump's impeachment trial. This was not the first time it had happened: in the mid-'90s, coverage of congressional hearings interrupted most of the block, causing some affiliates to air it at the end of the day. |
| 131 | ** The second part of the same impeachment trial, occurring from January 21–23, 2020, interrupted 5 hours' worth of PBS programming, including several Creator/PBSKids shows, with ''WesternAnimation/CuriousGeorge'', ''Series/OddSquad'', ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'', ''WesternAnimation/NatureCat'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Cyberchase}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/MollyOfDenali'' not airing that day on many PBS stations. Some affilates, including one in Connecticut, decided to air these programs from 5 to 9 PM (with a break for ''The PBS [=NewsHour=]'' in between the first hour and the last three hours) following the trial. |
| 132 | * A presidential address by Barack Obama pre-empted ABC's original December 1, 2009 airdate for ''WesternAnimation/PrepAndLanding''. As a result, the special was rescheduled to air a week later in the slot that the annual 1-hour presentation of ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas'' held, which resulted in the latter event being canceled for the year. |
| 133 | * This has happened to ''Creator/{{One Saturday Morning|AndABCKids}}'' at least three times: |
| 134 | ** The block's premiere was originally intended for September 6, 1997, but it got pre-empted for coverage of Princess Diana's funeral across all broadcast TV channels, which in turn also pre-empted the premieres of ''Series/TheWeirdAlShow'' and ''[[Series/WheelOfFortune Wheel 2000]]'' on the then-new ''Think CBS Kids'' block and ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfCalamityJane'' on ''Creator/KidsWB''. |
| 135 | ** The December 19, 1998 airing, which notably contained the ChristmasEpisode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'', was pre-empted by the news that President UsefulNotes/BillClinton had been impeached by the U.S. House. |
| 136 | ** The April 22, 2000 airing was pre-empted by coverage of the raid on the Florida home where Elian Gonzalez was being held by his father. |
| 137 | * December 19, 1998 was also, at the time, the one and only time ''WesternAnimation/DonkeyKongCountry'' aired on Fox Kids, but it was also the day of Bill Clinton's impeachment. Because of that, especially on DC stations, only about five minutes of the show aired. |
| 138 | * Upon Princess Diana's death in 1997, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8yoVldXgJQ&t=130s one British broadcast]] of the ''WesternAnimation/AlfredJKwak'' episode "The Snowman" had the text "For a major announcement please turn to BBC News" on the bottom of the screen. |
| 139 | * A December 1993 broadcast of the ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|1987}}'' episode "A Whale of a Bad Time" in Hungary [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4fcUCw2ZQ0 was cut to announce the death of the then-serving prime minister]]. The event confused children across the country and became a defining generational moment -- they were eventually dubbed the "[=DuckTales=] Generation" and became the focus of numerous articles and cultural analyses. |
| 140 | * On April 19, 1995, the Creator/FoxKids afternoon block (with the ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' episode "Hitchcock Opening; Hearts Of Twilight; The Boids" in progress) was interrupted with President Clinton's address to the country about the Oklahoma City bombing. |
| 141 | * Similarly, the May 6, 1995 airing of ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'' on Creator/FoxKids was pre-empted for ''Talkin' It Out With John Walsh'', a special about the Oklahoma City bombing. |
| 142 | * During the premiere of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "War is the H-Word" on FOX, some affiliates on the East Coast cut off the last part of the episode due to a news report about the 2000 presidential election. Inconveniently, this was right after we learn that Farnsworth couldn't disarm the bomb that would destroy the entire world if Bender says "ass", then Bender says, "What's the point of living if I can't say 'ass'? Uh oh..." leaving the fate of the world unknown at the time the episode aired. |
| 143 | * On June 2, 2020, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. interrupted re-runs of ''WesternAnimation/TheCasagrandes'' and ''PAW Patrol'' to show the Kids' Bill of Rights for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. However, an hour before this, a screen with the text "I Can't Breathe" (which was meant to air on other Viacom networks) accidentally aired for a few seconds before a rerun of ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' and a new episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeyDuggee''. |
| 144 | * Thirteen minutes into a local broadcast of ''[[WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker The Woody Woodpecker Show]]'' on September 18, 2001 on [=WTTG=] in Washington D.C., [[https://archive.org/details/WTTG_20010918_180000_The_Woody_Woodpecker_Show/start/720/end/780 the show was interrupted]] for a White House address on the events of September 11th that lasted for nine minutes before the show resumed. |
| 145 | * On March 20, 2021, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sQTnybaZRQ a repeat of]] the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Eek, An Urchin!" on NHK E-Tele got interrupted for news of a major earthquake in Miyagi prefecture. |
| 146 | ** Similarly, an airing of ''WesternAnimation/TheBossBabyBackInBusiness'' episode "Monster Machine" on the same network got interrupted for news of another earthquake in Miyagi prefecture on May 1, 2021. |
| 147 | ** This would happen to ''[=SpongeBob=]'' again on January 15, 2022 on NHK E-Tele, this time during the episode "Sandy's Nutty Nieces", with the news story in question being the eruption of a volcano in Tonga that lead to tsunami warnings being issued. |
| 148 | * On April 20, 1999, the premiere of the ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode "Revenge of the Lutefisk" was pre-empted in Denver by local coverage of the Columbine massacre. |
| 149 | * In the UK, Creator/Channel5 [[https://telly.site/diana/ broke into their children's programming to announce the death of Princess Diana]]. |
| 150 | * In 1985, an airing of ''WesternAnimation/ItsTheGreatPumpkinCharlieBrown'' on WCAU-TV [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZbjp2GcS7U was interrupted during a commercial break]] for a special report about a suspect in a mall shooting being arrested. |
| 151 | * On December 2, 2021, airings of ''WesternAnimation/OlafsFrozenAdventure'' and ''WesternAnimation/ToyStoryThatTimeForgot'' were preempted for an ABC News special on the Creator/AlecBaldwin shooting incident on the set of the movie ''Rust''. |
| 152 | * On September 9, 2022, the Creator/Channel5 premiere of the ''WesternAnimation/PeppaPig'' episode "The Big Hill" was pre-empted for coverage of Queen Elizabeth II's death. |
| 153 | * On September 17, 1994, ABC broke into its children's programming [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtpyVjkhZ_o&t=903s to relay news of the coup d'etat in Haiti]]. |
| 154 | * The first ever rerun of the ''WesternAnimation/HeroElementary'' episode "Knot So Fast; Made In The Shade" on the PBS Kids block on January 6, 2021 was interrupted for coverage of an incident that occured at the US capitol. |
| 155 | * For months on end in 2020, the end of reruns of ''WesternAnimation/DanielTigersNeighborhood'' on CBC would usually get interrupted for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's daily address on the COVID-19 pandemic. This would usually be preceeded by a clip of one of the CBC puppets, Gary the Unicorn, telling the viewer that "special grown-up programming" was about to come on. |
| 156 | * On December of 1998, Creator/{{MTV}} ran a MTV News flash bulletin during ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrtowQRNe0Q to announce the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.]] |
| 157 | * In the Mountain Time zone, an August 2023 Creator/{{CTV}} airing of the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Pajama Day" faded out early to join the live coverage of a sporting event. The cutoff happened like this: "A nice cozy condo after a long…" |
| 158 | [[/folder]] |
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