Television signal intrusions
From October 1 to 4, 1959, the entire video portions of the first three 1959 World Series games on then-primary CBS/secondary NBC-ABC station WLUC-TV in Marquette, Michigan had its Lathrop microwave relay station blacked out by a disgruntled former WLUC employee who wanted to bring back his engineering job after being fired by the station's manager John Borgen for "insubordination reasons".[50] Borgen said in a statement that the former employee, 36-year-old Harold William Lindgren of Marquette, suffered mental health issues and planned his own revenge to the station by swiping a steel wool scouring pad from his wife's sink and drove thirty five miles south to Lathrop on the evening of September 30, before climbing a fence around the transmitter and used a ball-point pen before stuffing the pad into a pipe of the relay equipment the following evening, calling the interruption "a diabolical plot".[51] The hijacks immediately led engineers from Chicago and Green Bay to investigate for four days before Lindgren was quickly arrested by Michigan State Police and immediately facing a possible four-year jail sentence. Lindgren told court officials that he wanted to "jam the signal" over his frustration at Borgen for firing Lindgren several weeks beforehand on September 10, 1959.[52]
On October 27, 1968, a 25-year-old technician from San Bernardino, California, was arrested by local authorities after he accidentally hijacked the off-air airwaves of then-new ABC affiliate KPLM-TV in Palm Springs, California, replacing the station's test pattern shortly after the station was signed off, with a stag film for approximately 15 minutes. The man, Allen Veatch, was alone in the studio that morning when he watched the stag videotape in the studio, which led to its signal feeding into the line going to the commercial cable company distribution center which was still hooked up, and the program was shown to the public.[53]
In 1971, several television stations in Manila complained of unauthorized broadcasts of pornographic films–known in local vernacular as bomba films–being aired on their channels at midnight after the stations' sign-off. They were receivable only in Manila and in the neighboring city of Makati, indicating the usage of a weaker transmitter, and were of poor quality and had no sound. Leonardo Garcia of the Radio Control Office hypothesized that the culprit was either misusing television equipment or was an "amateur electronic buff", and wryly observed, "Whoever he is, he must be a good Catholic. He stopped showing bombas during Holy Week."[54]
In late-February 1977, a station technician accidentally inserted an unidentified pornographic movie during a late-night showing of the early Gary Cooper movie Only the Brave on WORA-TV in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. According to the station's operator, he responded that he accidentally pulled a wrong switch and the pornographic material was sent into thousands of home screens. Shortly afterward, the management fired the technician.[55]
On July 26, 1980, Fred Barber, then-vice president and general manager for WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia, told The Atlanta Constitution that he fired two longtime master control operators from the station after they purposely replaced two seconds of a Georgia Forestry Commission commercial during a break of The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show with a still-photo of a naked woman appearing on screen. Barber said that the two fired operators were known to be responsible for signing the station off the air and back on the air, and replied that the nighttime operator at the time was apparently in a habit of leaving random pieces on tape. At the time of the incident, one of the station's morning employees failed to notice the video and it mistakenly aired on broadcast.[56]
On November 10, 1982, thirty seconds of an overnight broadcast of the movie The Green Slime on then-new WVAH-TV in Charleston, West Virginia were replaced with pornographic movie content recorded from the Escapade Channel. Manager Gary Dreispul stated that the station's technician mistakenly hit a patch panel and walked away before looking at the on-air monitor. Horrified upon realizing his mistake, the technician ran back to the panel and pressed the button to go dark. Dreispul stated that the technician was suspended pending the investigation and called the incident a "very bad and careless mistake".[57]
On December 24, 1985, an unidentified engineer from CBS affiliate WSBT-TV in South Bend, Indiana was fired after abruptly replacing 20 to 30 minutes of CBS News Nightwatch with pornographic content from the Playboy Channel alongside a movie entitled Birds in Paradise. The station's president, E. Barry Smith, told the South Bend Tribune that the unidentified employee flipped a satellite-tuner switch during the first twenty-to-thirty minutes of the Nightwatch broadcast and was quickly dismissed by the station's management before publicly apologizing to the station's viewers.[58][59]
On December 11, 1986, an overnight rebroadcast of an episode of The Love Boat on NBC affiliate KTVV-TV in Austin, Texas went overboard after a master control operator mistakenly spliced its satellite feed and replaced eight seconds of the first batch of commercials with hardcore pornographic content from the Playboy Channel.[60] The station's then-general manager, Jane Wallace, told the Austin American-Statesman that the operator was getting ready to run a commercial but hit the on-air button by mistake which transmits the porn content. She stated that the operator did plan on the incident by redirecting the satellite and receiving equipment to Playboy.[61]
During the second inning from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series (known for Kirk Gibson's famous walk-off home run) on October 15, 1988, an unidentified technician from NBC affiliate WMGT-TV in Macon, Georgia, was fired after the station's on-air feed replaced ten seconds of the World Series with a black-and-white pornographic film during the network's broadcast.[62][63] The broadcast signal hijacking made statewide headlines. The station's manager, L.A. Sturdivant, released a statement explaining that the broadcast intrusion was triggered by accident rather than deliberately planned, and was being "treated as a serious matter."[64] After three days of investigation, Sturdivant identified the most likely cause as being the since-fired technician having accidentally flipped the wrong switch on a master control panel, causing the NBC broadcast to switch from the KU-Band World Series-carrying signal over to the C-Band X-rated material-carrying satellite signal. Despite most likely having occurred at the station's studio, the station control panel's wiring was rerouted during the investigation. Officials put forth other theories that could explain the incident, such as a videotape having been brought into the studio and watched by the technician, or deliberate sabotage from an outside prankster, in similar fashion to WSB-TV's 1980 broadcast signal interruption, but Sturdivant let it be known he still believed an accidental signal switching to be the most likely cause.[65]
On February 10, 1999, a repeat broadcast of The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Rival" on KFXK-TV in Longview, Texas was briefly interrupted by four seconds of a pornographic movie. The station's manager, Mark McCay, reported to the Associated Press that quick reactions from station employees immediately ended the hijack by inserting a 20-second promotional ad for the station and resuming the Simpsons episode. After several minutes, a character generator scroll appeared on-screen apologizing to the viewers and promising an investigation. The unidentified technician who was responsible for viewing the tape was dismissed 40 minutes after the incident.[66]
On January 4, 2000, a broadcast of the children's television series Teletubbies on GMA Network in the Philippines was replaced by a still photo of actress Rosanna Roces for several seconds. The photo showed one of Roces's breasts exposed, prompting a warning from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). GMA officials stated that the incident was accidental, and was caused by an errant employee who pressed a button whilst helping repair a computer.[67]
On January 3, 2007, in Australia, during a broadcast of an episode of the Canadian television series Mayday (known in Australia as Air Crash Investigation) on the Seven Network, an audio signal unexpectedly started playing, clearly saying in an American accent, "Jesus Christ, help us all, Lord." This same voice message continued to repeat itself over and over during the show for a total of six minutes. A spokesman for Seven later denied that the transmission was a prank or a security breach and claimed that the repeated line was part of the original broadcast and said, "Jesus Christ, one of the Nazarenes", although there is hardly any similarity between the two phrases. A subsequent investigation by independent researchers revealed that the invading transmission was actually from a videotaped news broadcast of a civilian truck being ambushed in the Iraq War on September 20, 2005. It remains unknown whether or not this was an intentional act of television piracy or a genuine glitch of some sort.[68][69]
On March 12, 2007, during a 9 p.m. airing of an Ion Life rebroadcast of a Tom Brokaw-hosted NBC special, State of U.S. Health Care, on Phoenix, Arizona, TV station KPPX-TV, a station employee inserted about 30 seconds of a pornographic film into the broadcast, prompting telephone calls to local news media outlets and the local cable provider, Cox Communications.[70] Parent company Ion Media Networks conducted a rigorous investigation into what they called "an intolerable act of human sabotage", and shortly thereafter, announced that the employee found to be responsible had been fired, threatening further legal action.[71]
On June 17, 2007, an intrusion incident occurred on Czech Television's Sunday morning program Panorama, which shows panoramic shots of Prague and various locations across the country, especially mountain resorts. One of the cameras, located in Černý Důl in the Giant Mountains, had been tampered with on-site and its video stream was replaced with the hackers' own, which contained CGI of a small nuclear explosion in the local landscape, ending in white noise.[72] The broadcast looked authentic enough; the only clue for the viewers was the Web address of the artist group Ztohoven, which had already performed several reality hacking incidents before. Czech Television considered legal action against the group, and tourism workers in the area expressed outrage (since the program serves to promote tourism in the areas shown).[73]
On July 13, 2007, a grainy photo of a man and woman interrupted Washington, D.C., ABC affiliate WJLA-TV's digital or HD signal. The picture was not transmitted over the analog signal, however. The incident was deemed a genuine signal intrusion by various websites but has since been confirmed to be the result of an older HDTV encoder malfunctioning in the early morning hours and going undetected. Station management stated that the image was from an advertisement for The Oprah Winfrey Show.[74]
In March 2017, intruders broadcast pornographic content for approximately 15 minutes on Touba TV, an Islamic TV channel in Senegal run by the Mouride Sufi order. In a statement, the channel's management "unreservedly condemn[ed] this criminal act which seems to be sabotage and a satanic trick".[75] In August 2020, Pakistani television news channel Dawn News was compromised by Indian hackers. At around 3:30 pm IST, while a commercial was being broadcast, it displayed an overlay of the Indian national flag with the message “Happy Independence Day” (referring to 15 August, Independence Day of India).[76][77][78] Dawn News issued a statement saying they are investigating the matter.[79]
On October 8, 2022, during the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran, the state-run TV channel Islamic Republic TV was hacked by a group going by the name of "Adalat Ali". The screen briefly showed a man in a mask, before switching to a black screen containing Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, engulfed in CGI flames with a target on his forehead; pictures of four women recently killed in the protests; and the audio message "Women, life, freedom" on repeat. The hack lasted 12 seconds, before cutting back to a bewildered TV presenter.[80]
In February 2023, the Romanian public television broadcaster TVR was hijacked twice by a person from Prahova County who managed to hijack a transmission from the Craiova branch of TVR. A message was transmitted, which did not appear on the screen (a test card appeared), but on the monitors in the directorate. The message was as follows:
"“Către Televiziunea Română. Aștept cu drag după telejurnal ca cineva de la tehnic să mă contacteze pentru a discuta breșele de securitate descoperite și despre problemele pe care le-am văzut pe posturi. Văd că cineva vă tot sabotează. Vă voi lăsa adresa de mail la final de jurnal. Cu drag, un telespectator fidel”"
Which translates to:
"“To the Romanian Television. I look forward after the news to be contacted by a technician to discuss the discovered security breaches and the problems I saw on the TV channels. I see that someone keeps sabotaging you. I will leave an e-mail address at the end of the news report. With love, a loyal viewer.”[81]"
On July 29, 2025, a broadcast intrusion occurred on the Brazilian TV channel Record, which was reporting on the 2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting. The hijackers displayed a video of 2007 internet ARG The Wyoming Incident, an analog horror game centering around a fictional broadcast intrusion.[82][83]
On March 1, 2026, Iran's state-run television channel was hacked, replacing standard broadcasting with videos of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[84]
