MAYBE Channel Ten’s autocue operators were still recovering from the station’s 50th birthday over the weekend, but you’ve got to spare a thought for sports presenter Nick Butler and anchor Rebecca Morse.

The Adelaide newsreaders stumbled through more than two minutes of excruciatingly awkward live-to-air television on Monday night when the autocue failed.

What transpired was an incredibly awkward sequence that saw Nick fumbling through papers, trying the find the missing script, and then a camera pan to Bec who looked both bemused and angry all at once.

Bec laughed off the autocue disaster on her Instagram account, uploading a photo of herself and Nick with the caption “And that is what you might like to call an unmitigated disaster.”

The incident had echoes of a famous moment on the Ten newsdesk a few years ago between former presenters Belinda Heggen and Mark Aiston which saw the two joking over a “little urn”.

Commenting on the hype surrounding The Ashes trophy, Aiston said: “I can’t understand how something so small can be so impressive.” To which Heggen quipped: “Mark, you would know about that.”

BELINDA HEGGEN'S TEN NEWS QUIP

Originally published as Adelaide newsreader’s autocue nightmare