why a pause?

[calimac]

I've never seen this discussed or explained, but I see it all the time. (I don't watch tv news programs, but I see this on clips, typically embedded in online news articles.)

Whenever a news broadcaster is interviewing a person who is not in the same room, a pause of a couple seconds ensues every time the interviewer finishes a question or a comment needing reply, before the guest reacts and starts to respond. It's as if they're not receiving the interviewer feed at the same time the viewer is.

Why is that? I suspect that the showing of the feed with the guest in it is being delayed for censorship purposes, so that someone can have their finger on the bleep-out button in case the guest says something naughty that should not be broadcast. But I don't know if that's the reason.

Comments

[sartorias]

Back when I worked up in town, we were told there was a few seconds' lag between speaker and post on screen. Someone insisted it was in case a kill switch was needed, but others insisted it was a tech requirement. I guess it's still happening, though tech is so very much more evolved.