Norah O’Donnell Apologizes After Control Room Glitch Wipes Out ‘CBS Evening News’ For Half Of Country

Last Tuesday, a technical glitch in the CBS Washington, D.C. control room, wiped out the Norah O’Donnell-anchored evening news show for half of the country.

When a local anchor handed the show off to O’Donnell and the well-known newscaster didn’t show up, East Coast viewers knew something was wrong.

CBS tweeted that it was “experiencing technical difficulties” on the East Coast. “We will bring you the CBS Evening News as soon as possible. We apologize for the issue,” the tweet continued.

O’Donnell also took to social media to explain the glitch. “Thanks everyone for checking in — we are fine, but a technical issue tonight prevented us from being seen on the East Coast. Good news, the show will air in the Midwest and West and will be online shortly! It’s broadcasting in the era of COVID,” her Instagram post read.

O’Donnell’s evening news program is normally filmed in Washington, then transmitted through a New York control room and is then distributed to the country. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York control facility was closed and CBS Evening News has been broadcasted through a Washington control room for the past two months. This control center experienced technical difficulties on Tuesday and had no backup.

Because of the difficulties, local stations showed a feed of the CBSN streaming service instead of O’Donnell’s usual newscast.

The evening news program was scheduled to run at its traditional time in both the Mountain and the Western time zones.