Today cuts minute of silence for infomercial

After a rather awkward send-off to axed host Georgie Gardiner, the Today franchise continued its cringe-worthy run on Monday morning with a Remembrance Day bungle.

An unfortunate technical error saw Today Extra seemingly unwittingly cut short the 11am minute of silence held for Remembrance Day, and play an infomercial instead.

For Monday’s commemoration of lives lost to war, a minute’s silence is held all over the globe at the exact moment German forces signed the armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War One.

The extremely solemn moment was cut off by cameras in Today Extra’s coverage, where they accidentally showed the studio instead of a live cross, and then played a home shopping segment.

The blunder started when the cameras cut from the Martin Place ceremony, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian were laying wreaths, to the studio at 11 am.

Unimpressed hosts Sonia Kruger and David Campbell questioned whether they were going back to the live-stream from Martin Place, when it cut briefly to proceedings at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra at 11.01, and then to an infomercial.

The bungle was another awkward moment in an unusual morning of TV, following the announcement at the weekend that Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon would take over as Today show hosts from next year.

Georgie Gardener was absent on Monday morning, and in a scripted segment, Deborah Knight and Tom Steinfort paid tribute to their ‘colleague and friend’, saying her departure came after a stretch of difficulty in the high-profile gig.

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