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ITV cuts football coverage to show newsreader playing with buttons

ITV suffered an embarrassing cut-away from a big football match for the third time in recent seasons during Wednesday night's Champions League clash between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

Some viewers were left baffled when the coverage of the semi-final match cut away to ITV newsreader Mark Austin preparing for News At Ten.

The incident happened in the third minute of extra-time: instead of watching the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Arjen Robben do battle, viewers were instead treated to Austin playing with the buttons on his jacket and a large image of Prime Minister David Cameron in the background.

Luckily for ITV, the interruption only lasted 15 seconds and no key action was missed, although some people complained that their high definition signals were downgraded to standard definition after the cut.

ITV have not been so fortunate with the timing of their gaffes on previous occasions.

During an FA Cup tie between Everton and Liverpool in 2009, some viewers famously missed Dan Gosling's winning goal (including his mum) as the footage instead inexplicably cut to an advertisement in which Tic-Tac mints play golf.

Then at the 2010 World Cup, many people watching the HD service missed Steven Gerrard's goal for England against the USA when the coverage again cut out — this time reverting to a Hyundai commercial.

An ITV spokesperson said: "A technical fault during the first period of extra-time in the Champions League semi-final between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich resulted in a brief break in transmission for some HD viewers in the south-east of England. We would like to apologise."

Austin also made fun of the incident on Twitter after a number of users highlighted it.

"Busy night in so many ways," he said on the social networking site. "Button-tending is an underrated habit."