About 42 minutes into New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash, singer Lainey Wilson was performing when the broadcast abruptly cut to a black screen. After a few seconds, viewers saw promos for other CBS shows, including Survivor. Then, without warning, an episode of Matlock began playing in the middle of a scene.
The legal drama, starring Kathy Bates, stayed on air for several minutes. During this time, the episode was repeatedly interrupted by commercials and network promos. A message at the bottom of the screen told viewers, “We are experiencing technical difficulties,” which was later expanded to say that normal programming would resume shortly.
The interruption lasted for more than 12 minutes before the live concert finally returned. When it did, co-host Bert Kreischer addressed the issue on air. He explained that the show had lost power in Nashville, which caused CBS to drop the live feed. Fellow co-host Hardy joined in, joking that none of them had unplugged anything.
Nashville’s Big Bash aired live on CBS and Paramount+ from 8 to 10 p.m. ET/PT, then continued from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. ET/PT. Because the show ended very late on the East Coast, the network was unable to quickly edit out the disruption for West Coast viewers, who saw the full interruption during the broadcast.
Despite the hiccup, the New Year’s Eve special eventually continued as planned, leaving viewers with a memorable — and confusing — moment to ring in the new year.
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