dead air

dead air

1. A period of unwanted silence during a television or radio broadcast caused by an unintended interruption or malfunction. A technical glitch during the Super Bowl led to several ads being replaced by a blank, silent screen, dead air that may cost those companies thousands—if not millions—of dollars.
2. By extension, any period of awkward or uncomfortable silence. A horrible dead air hung over the room after Jonas finished reading his poetry to the crowd.
See also: air, dead
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • off (the) air
  • off the air
  • on/off the air
  • rough time
  • a rough time
  • during
  • during the course of
  • tin hat
  • crack the code, to
  • baby boomer
References in periodicals archive
It isn't the most softy-shooting brake I've ever used, but then again, the ones that work better are closer in size to a soft drink can, than the compact brake Dead Air makes.
Dead Air is a masterpiece of controversy, so fluid and abstract that it almost feels like you've climbed inside the mind of the author.
However, that design wasn't very efficient since a layer of dead air would cling on to the heat sink.
"Left 4 Dead" uses a creative artificial intelligence system that lets enemies attack at different times and in different combinations during every playthrough, making the 20th attempt to reach the airport in "Dead Air" nearly as fresh as the first.
It lacked convincing sound effects and had much 'dead air'.
But another stated: "He filled the dead air between the Today programme and the Archers".
The FCC said the aim of the new regulations is to minimize disruptions and "dead air" come 2009.
As the Cowboy Action shooters know, when you start getting into light bullets for any given case design, you start having problems with excess case capacity and dead air space.
North American Telecom research states that callers listening to information on hold will stay on the line for up to three minutes longer than those listening to dead air.
When he finally did (888-8888), it proved unusable because it received numerous hang-ups, gurgling, and "dead air" calls.
Maybe it was done in haste to cover up dead air as the commentator.
Sweat reduces the thermal efficiency of clothing from the inside out by first eliminating (filling) dead air space in clothing fibers with moisture.
DEAD AIR is his second novel, and he uses the news of the day as his subject ...
Either case means an incredibly large amount of "dead air" and very inefficient bandwidth utilization resulting in poor performance for applications that are typically mission-critical.
This "dialing ahead" makes them efficient, but also leads to abandons, or consumers answering the phone to "dead air." All this resulted in geometrically expanding call volumes and increasingly irate consumers.