[James2001]

Channel 5 I believe shown this during one of their "When (insert subject) goes horribly wrong" programmes if I remember rightly.

Presumably commented on by people who'd clearly never seen it until just before they were put in front of thethe camera to talk about it.

[Andrew]

This is mentioned in one of the books about him. I'd never actually seen the clip though. It says he ad libs an apology at the end and there was another apology on the 6pm programme, which he stood down from.

Did he then reappear the next night or was he never seen again? 

I know his stint was fairly short lived and Lucy did a lot of that era alone

[lookoutwales]

Presumably commented on by people who'd clearly never seen it until just before they were put in front of thethe camera to talk about it.

Says how much I watch those shows - waited 20 years to see the clip before finding it yesterday!

Did he then reappear the next night or was he never seen again? 

I know his stint was fairly short lived and Lucy did a lot of that era alone

Don't know about the immediate aftermath but he did return - only to leave again a few months later.

IIRC, Anthony H had joined off the back of 24 Hour Party People (great film) and Granada Reports was being soundly beaten in the ratings by North West Tonight (and his mate, Gordon Burns) at this point.

Not sure whether it was his intention to stay for long but he left quietly - and it hadn't done much for ratings either way.

Lucy and Anthony H had both done the programme solo regularly at that point - and it continued when Tony Morris joined upon the September 2003 revamp (didn't do the first night, though - he could only appear briefly on a live OB because his final edition of Inside Out was going out the same night on BBC1)

Think it was only when they got the corporate set in the ITV plc era that solo presentation stopped.

As for Anthony H, he still did some non-news work for Granada (when they still had a few local programmes) but then freelanced for the Beeb as host of the Politics Show's North West opt* and weekend shows for Radio Manchester and XFM (when it was local).

One of those many books about Anthony H mentions the irony of his final words at the end of his last broadcast about handing back to "some place called London". RIP.

* Now I come to think of it, he had also done a stint on Granada's Sunday Supplement before going back to news.

[Bluecortina]

Rule number 1. You’re never alone with a microphone.

[James2001]

Just how many careers have been ruined by people assuming mics aren't live? Was it Ron Atkinson who was caught making racist remarks, which ended his punditry career. And Richard Keys and Andy Grey on Sky Sports. There was an episode of Yes Minster about it in the 80s, you'd think people would have learned decades ago.

[Keith]

Just how many careers have been ruined by people assuming mics aren't live?

More recently David Walliams has found this out to his cost with BGT. Seemingly unaware that with mics and cameras present he might get caught saying something in-between acts. Will be interesting to see how that court case / legal action ends up.

[Yorksman]

And now for something you'd never get away with.

March 2003 - the late great Tony Wilson, during a mid-afternoon Granada News bulletin, lets rip at his production crew during the lead package. Unfortunately, someone left his mic up.

Wilson apologised at the end, but was suspended - he left Granada Reports a few months later.

www.youtube.com 

NSFW, obviously.

Good find, I have always wanted to see happened with Tony Wilson and the incident that caused him to leave Granada Reports.

[Nobby]

It's interesting that the first story in that bulletin is about COVID 19. It would take other broadcasters many years to start reporting on it. Does anyone know what happened to the 64 year old business man bring treated in a North Manchester hospital with pneumonia like symptoms? What was the "mystery bug" from the far east?

[Neil Jones]

It's interesting that the first story in that bulletin is about COVID 19. It would take other broadcasters many years to start reporting on it. Does anyone know what happened to the 64 year old business man bring treated in a North Manchester hospital with pneumonia like symptoms? What was the "mystery bug" from the far east?

It was probably SARS as there was an outbreak of it at that time in that part of the world:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 

According to the table on Wiki there were only four cases and no fatalities in the UK.

But to stay on topic...  yes microphones are fatal in the wrong hands.

[Stooky Bill]

Yes Covid 19 is a more recent strain of SARS, the news in 2003 wouldn't have been talking about Covid-19, which as it's name suggests didn't appear till 2019