Advertising money cannot buy: a technical problem helped Maine viewers get acquainted... real acquainted with independent candidate Shawn Moody.

Viewers of Bangor’s CBS affiliate watching on Time Warner Cable were treated last week to a one and half hour endorsement of independent candidate Shawn Moody thanks to a technical snafu.

A Time Warner Cable spokesman said an equipment failure caused WABI-TV’s signal to lock up at around 5:40am last Tuesday.  At the time, an ad for Moody was on the air and a frozen picture was delivered to viewers until the problem was fixed at around 7:30am.

“The hour and a half ad for Moody was the biggest exposure this candidate has received all year, all because of a cable company equipment failure,” writes our reader Stefan from Bangor.  “Although the picture was frozen, the sound worked normally so the whole thing was surreal.”

The cable company apologized for the failure and noted there was no implied endorsement of the candidate.

“The signal freeze had nothing to do with the content,” said company spokesman Andrew Russell. “It just happened to be what was on the screen when it happened.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABI Bangor Time Warner Fixes Glitch 10-28-10.flv[/flv]

WABI-TV explains to its viewers what happened when a political ad got stuck on their TV screens for an hour and a half last week.  (1 minute)