News at Ten was forced off the air on Wednesday night as the studio was evacuated due to a fire alarm.
It was later found to be a false alarm and nobody was hurt, a spokeswoman for ITV News confirmed.
The alarm could be heard in the background as the presenter, Tom Bradby, told viewers that he and the team had to evacuate. He said: “We still have a fire alarm here and we’re not quite sure what to do about it, so I’m really, really sorry about this, but I’m afraid we have to evacuate the building.”
Live ITV news at 10 interrupted by a fire alarm going off....presenter handled it very well as they all had to evacuate. How very British! Lol
— PK1 (@PK1_F1_Fan) January 3, 2018
He added: “These things happen and unfortunately it’s happened tonight and we have no choice, so I really apologise. We’ll get back to you with the rest of the programme if we possibly can, but for now it’s goodnight.”
News At 10 on @ITV has been stopped due to a fire alarm! That’s a first I can’t remember seeing before. pic.twitter.com/TNezYJULpY
— Karl Heasman (@karlheasman) January 3, 2018
The screen then showed a holding page which read: “We’re sorry for the disruption. We’re working hard to fix the issue and we will return to normal programming soon.’
Never in my 37 years of watching tv have I ever come across a fire alarm going off on a channel. That's ITV News at 10 . The reporter said " Im sorry but we have to evacuate the building ". pic.twitter.com/HScudxhtBa
— Nahid Asghar (@nahidasghar111) January 3, 2018
After 10 minutes the weather was shown and then ITV programming carried on as normal.
Social media users expressed shock as many had never seen the News at Ten go off air for any reason before. Others joked that it had happened during a report about Donald Trump’s tweet about his nuclear button.
One Twitter user, Rebekah, said: “Nothing quite as eerie as watching the @itvnews at 10 report on the worrying eagerness of @realDonaldTrump to use his #NuclearButton - when the live programme is interrupted by fire alarms and a polite apology from the news presenter explaining he will need to evacuate.”
An ITV News spokesperson said: “We apologise for the interruption during the live broadcast of News at Ten this evening due to a fire alarm in the building.
“All staff were safely evacuated according to fire drill procedures.”
