Viewers fume over ABC’s Gruen stuff-up
Viewers were left scratching their heads last night when the ABC aired the season premiere of popular series Gruen with its audio and visuals noticeably out of synch.
The team at the advertising-focused panel show - previously known as The Gruen Transfer - today said they were "pretty disappointed" by the stuff-up.
The unfortunate glitch had many fans of the Wil Anderson-helmed show taking to social media to see if they were the only ones having problems - they weren't:
#Gruen is badly out of sync and it's driving me mad.
— Jenna Price (@JennaPrice) September 25, 2019
Voice sync is way off on Gruen tonight. @Wil_Anderson your mouth needs to catch up with the words!
— Joel Werner (@joelwerner) September 25, 2019
Is everyone’s Gruen out of sync? #Gruen
— Radelaide Rob (@RadelaideRob) September 25, 2019
Has the ABC run out of budget? Sound and vision out of sync! #Gruen
— Linda McInally (@Linda_McInally) September 25, 2019
#Gruen out of sync. Turning off. If I want to watch people’s mouths moving with little relation to the words I’ll watch @ScottMorrisonMP
— My Harsh Words (@Myharshwords) September 25, 2019
Hey #ABCTV lousy presentation tonight. Sync on #Gruen stinks and programs running early everywhere. #mediahub having another meltdown? #amateurhour again.
— Craig Preston (@craigp_47) September 25, 2019
One job, make sure the picture and sound are in sync #Gruen pic.twitter.com/lV2FZY53Tl
— Teresa Lane (@misslane77) September 25, 2019
What's going on at @ABCTV? A few weeks ago they run the wrong ep of #MadAsHell; tonight #Gruen was out of sync.
— Brett Debritz (@debritz) September 25, 2019
The team at Gruen today released a statement across social media that read, in part:
"After 11 years roasting brands for their stuff-ups, we've had one of our own. Serves us right. Apologies to anyone annoyed by the audio synch on last night's broadcast. We'd say it was an elaborate test to check if you were paying attention, but our lovely, loyal and hardworking Gruen team were pretty disappointed too. We were so excited to show you that episode.
"As with every blunder, it's best when there's something to blame. In this case: it was a dodgy machine at the ABC. But we probably shouldn't bite the hand that feeds us or next season our panellists will be forced to sing and dance in masks. The machine has received a severe talking to from a loud and very much in synch voice."
A correctly-synched version of last night's season 11 Gruen premiere is now available to stream on ABC iView - and the show will be repeated on the ABC at 11:05pm Friday and 10:25pm Sunday.
"We hope you'll tune into the show next week. Even just to see whether or not we tackle our own PR fail," the Gruen team quipped.
The blunder comes two months after Mad As Hell host Shaun Micallef labelled the ABC "idiots" for failing to air the correct episode of his satirical current affairs show.
As a repeat aired in place of the current episode, Micallef fired off an angry tweets directed at the ABC, saying viewers missed out on a "good episode" of the popular news satire program.
"They're playing the wrong one. #idiots," he wrote.
The ABC later apologised to viewers for the "technical error".
