You can hear Adam angrily whisper "They're still showing it! They're still still showing it!" before it cuts here at 1:38:45
Okay, here we go.
So, we get access to broadcast the Xbox press conference live, first time since Nintendo's Gamecube announcement. This is exciting for many reasons but especially because of the Halo 3 trailer.
While I helped arrange the broadcast I never considered that we would air commercials DURING the press conference, just cut in during the Mass Effect and Modern Warfare trailers without resuming where we had left off.
That was already bad but....the FCC requires all stations (including cable, I don;t understand how) to do a station identification at 12:00 a.m every day or receive a fine...a $1k fine or something pretty small if you're a broadcaster.
So, as with all things live, the press conference is going long, we're going to hit midnight during the trailer.
Suddenly someone in my earpiece is telling me that I need to take the audience to commercial during the trailer
I am being asked to explain to the audience that we're going to break into the fucking thing we've been hyping for weeks, but we'll be back shortly
I know our audience well enough that if I said Cthulu had risen and was coming at us in Santa Monica, that would still be unacceptable.
I tried saying something into the handheld mic but couldn't. I put it down and walked away and talked into my lavolier mike that i wouldn't do it, I was not going to be the fall guy in front of the audience for the stupidest decision ever.
except I may have used a lot more profanity and invective. And I was loud. Despite putting the handheld mic down and being several yards from it, my voice was picked up faintly and someone on YouTube discovered it.
We just cut to commercial without my explanation and the internet freaked out, deservedly. When the press conference was over I timidly talked to some of the (awesome) Xbox reps we had been working with and timidly hinted that things may not have gone as desired.
THE NEXT MORNING. There were not enough fans to handle the shit flying. G4's CEO, who had personally been excited about the trailer was in a rage over the decision, Xbox wanted everyone's head and felt betrayed that we were not forthright about how we would broadcast the presser
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