BBC News presenter Lukwesa Burak is caught stretching live on air
Long day at work? Awkward moment BBC News presenter caught being on live broadcast before suddenly realizing she was on camera
- BBC’s Lukwesa Burak stretched her arms to the ceiling and shouted ‘OK’
- But she looked shocked when she suddenly realized the camera was still on her
A BBC News presenter was red-faced today after stretching her arms towards the ceiling and yelling ‘OK’ when she thought she was no longer on camera.
Lukwesa Burak’s face was a picture of horror when she suddenly realized the camera was still on her – and she tried to calm herself by looking at her desk.
Her silence lasted a few more moments before she spoke again – but to make matters worse, her microphone was still muted so that nothing could be heard.
The moment at 11.17am this morning was spotted and tweeted by TV critic Scott Bryan, who himself is a BBC contributor on Radio 5 Live’s Must Watch podcast.
BBC News presenter Lukwesa Burak stretches her arms to the ceiling and exclaims ‘OK’
Lukwesa Burak’s face was a picture of horror when she realized the camera was still on her
Burak had initially finished part of the program and, speaking of the BBC News titles, said: ‘All over the world and in the UK, this is BBC News.’
Then a short piece of bagpipes appeared, before Burak threw her arms up and realized the camera was still rolling and had a face of sheer embarrassment.
She paused, but finally heard it said, “One of our top stories on the program here and we followed a visit…”
Mr Bryan, who often tweets videos of funny moments in television broadcasts, described it as ‘quite a surreal minute on the BBC News Channel just now’.
He added: ‘Obviously the opt-out for UK viewers, as international viewers had a commercial break, didn’t work. Nice bagpipes, though.’
An ‘opt-out’ is when one group of viewers sees something different than the others because a version they see is no longer being broadcast from the central ‘feed’.
BBC broadcaster Victoria Valentine tweeted: ‘There by the grace of God every live broadcast presenter goes down in the history of the news. Can we also dwell on the miracle that is Lukwesa Burak?’
BBC News presenter Rich Preston added: ‘Two things strike fear in the hearts of live TV presenters. First you hear the director frantically shout ‘IN-VISION, IN-VISION!!’ in your ear when you thought you were in fact out of sight. The second appears in one of @scottygb’s Twitter ‘uh oh!’ moments.’
And BBC Radio Scotland presenter Grant Stott said: ‘Oh, the delights of live television! Something beyond your control!’