There's nothing worse than doing a talk show and having the phone system collapse. That's what happened in the middle of CFRB's Sunday Morning Trivia Show, which lost half of its lines while contestants were trying to face off against each other on air. 

Host Jason Agnew was forced to halt the show for a few minutes, as he desperately tried to figure out how to get through the competition with only half the lines working. At one point, they used Instagram to get would-be contestants' home or cell numbers and then called them back on the station's private (and still working) lines. 

They limped along as the show continued and somehow Agnew held it all together to his credit. But what a nightmare! 

My immediate thought about this is why they couldn't turn to some other method - Skype or Zoom or some alternate workaround just for the one week. They do it all the time for their Roundtables, with guests coming on air from home. Maybe there was a reason it wasn't possible, but any port in a storm I say. 

There were lots of jokes at Bell's expense, noting the company that essentially created the telephone should be able to fix it. I quite enjoyed those!

This kind of thing happened to me only once and it was a huge disaster. We scored an exclusive interview with Muhammad Ali, just before his Parkinson's Disease left him virtually unable to really communicate. It may have been the last one-on-one he ever gave, and we invited fans to call and ask him questions - an extremely rare circumstance. 

And wouldn't you know it, all the phone lines malfunctioned on that day, with the guest - Ali - unable to hear the callers and the callers unable to hear the guest. So after endless hype about the appearance, we limped through it, having listeners ask their questions and then repeating it to Ali after they finished. 

I suppose it could have been worse. But it cast a huge shadow over our "big get" and with one of the biggest audiences we ever had, nothing seemed to go right. 

They fixed the phones the next day, but by then, it was way too late.

So I feel for Mr. Agnew and his producer. It's bad enough when your number's up. But when it's down, it's far, far worse!