A Channel 10 Adelaide newsreader has awkwardly fumbled through two minutes of live-to-air television after his autocue failed on Monday night.

Sports presenter Nick Butler was forced to improvise during the segment, stumbling through prerecorded vision of a surf contest which he knew little about.

Cameras panned to Channel 10’s Eyewitness news anchor Rebecca Morse who looked unimpressed with Butler’s efforts.

The pair were able to later laugh off the disaster, with Morse saying that Butler did about as well as their football teams did on the weekend.

This is not the first awkward exchange at the Ten news desk, with former presenters Belinda Heggen and Mark Aiston famously joking over a “little urn”.

Commenting on The Ashes trophy, Aiston said: “I can’t understand how something so small can be so impressive,” with Heggen quipping: “Mark, you would know about that.”