Nova drive time stars Ricki-Lee, Tim and Joel have opened up about the incredible way they managed to host their show on Friday during the global Crowdstrike outage.
Veteran presenters Ricki-Lee Coulter, Tim Blackwell and Joel Creasey still hosted their program from Sydney and Melbourne after coming up with some improvised solutions to ensure they went ahead – after their competitors were taken off the air.
The quick thinking hosts shared a clip to Instagram revealing the workarounds they came up with to ensure their program could still be broadcast.
As the outage affected Microsoft devices, the trio hosted their program using an Apple computer and Tim’s own Spotify account to play the music.
Meanwhile, Ricki-Lee, 38, and Tim, 42, used an analog clock to tell the time from Nova’s Sydney studio and got Joel, 33, on the air from Melbourne via mobile phone.
The shared footage clearly showed the clever presenters using their improvisational skills to host their hilarious program during the difficult time.
‘Welcome to Nova, the hacked edition. I think we’re on? It’s Friday afternoon, there’s been a little incident,’ Tim told listeners.
‘My heart is racing so fast, this is so fun. I feel like I’m saving the world right now. We can’t speak to anyone, we don’t have any ads, we’re in control of the music,’ Ricki-Lee added.
Nova drive time stars Ricki-Lee, Tim and Joel have opened up about the incredible way they managed to host their show on Friday during the global Crowdstrike outage. Pictured: Ricki-Lee (centre) with Tim and newsreader Michelle Stephenson. Joel is not with them as he works out of a different state
‘A nationwide Microsoft outage has SHUT DOWN Australian radio… except for us!! We’re doing it old school around the country right now on Nova,’ they wrote next to the footage.
Nova Group Programming Director Brendan Taylor commended the trio for finding a way to host the show during the global outage.
‘This is all testament to our world class technology and production teams and the professionalism of our presenters,’ he said in a statement.
It follows reports that the huge global Microsoft outage that has thrown Australian businesses and airports into chaos could take days to be resolved and the financial cost could be astronomical.
Veteran presenters Ricki-Lee Coulter, Tim Blackwell and Joel Creasey still hosted their program from Sydney and Melbourne after coming up with some improvised solutions to ensure they went to air
The quick thinking hosts shared a clip to Instagram revealing the workarounds they came up with to ensure their program could still be broadcast
Checkouts at Woolworths and Coles supermarkets crashed on Friday afternoon with the outage also affecting Qantas, Jetstar, the ABC, Foxtel, and 7-Eleven as computers around the country repeatedly crashed and displayed the ‘blue screen of death’ error.
The failure is the result of Crowdstrike software clashing with a Windows update package, said the company’s CEO, with servers and devices getting stuck in ‘boot loops’.
An Australian government spokesperson confirmed a meeting of the National Emergency Mechanism had been called just before 6pm AEST, where government and industry leaders were briefed on the situation by Crowdstrike.
