The Max Headroom pirating incident occurred on November 22, 1987 and is an example of what is known in the television business as broadcast signal intrusion.

WGN

The hijacker was successful in interrupting two separate television broadcasts at two different stations on the same day. The first occurrence of the signal hijack took place during WGN-TV's 9:00 p.m. news. During Bears highlights in the sports report, the signal was interrupted by a video of a person wearing a Max Headroom mask standing or sitting in front of a swaying sheet of corrugated metal (much in the same way of the New Coke commercial). There was no audio. The hijack was stopped after only 20 seconds when WGN switched transmission from the Sears Tower to the John Hancock Center.^[1]

The incident left sports reporter Dan Roan flustered, saying, "Well, if you're wondering what happened, so am I."^[1]

WTTW

Later that night around 11:15 p.m. during a broadcast of the Doctor Who episode Horror of Fang Rock on WTTW, the station's signal was hijacked by the same person. It was the same video that was broadcast during the WGN hijack, but this time there was garbled audio. The person in the Max Headroom mask appeared, as before, this time saying, "That does it. He's a freakin' nerd." before laughing and jeering, "Yeah, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky. Freakin' liberal."^[1]

The pirate continued to utter strange phrases, including Coca-Cola's advertizing slogan "Catch the Wave" while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coke spokesperson at the time. Also note the object on his middle finger, which bears a striking resemblance to a dildo.), saying "Your love is fading", humming the theme song to Clutch Cargo (pausing midway to say "I stole CBS"), and stating that he had "made a giant masterpiece for all the greatest world's newspaper nerds" (WGN is an acronym for 'World's Greatest Newspaper'), holding up a glove and saying "his brother is wearing the other one" and puts the glove on, but takes it off because he says that it's dirty; the picture then cuts to the person undressed below the waist and being spanked with a flyswatter by an unknown person, screaming and saying, "They're coming to get me!" and "Come get me, bitch!". The transmission blacked out and cut off, and the hijack was over after about 90 seconds.^[1]

It has been suggested that the "spanking" scene was a parody of a political comic that appeared in a Chicago newspaper about the time this took place. That comic depicted a foul-mouthed baby (who represented all radio stations) being spanked by an apron-wearing mother with a paddle (who represented the FCC). ^{[citation needed]}

Aftermath

WTTW, which maintains its transmitter atop the Sears Tower, found that its engineers were unable to stop the hijacker because at the time there were no engineers on duty at the Sears Tower. Also, the station's master control center was unable to contact its transmitting equipment remotely to switch the STL (Studio To Transmitter Link), unlike their counterparts at WGN-TV, who were able to thwart the intruder by switching their John Hancock Center transmitter STL remotely within seconds. According to a WBBM-TV employee, the masked video pirate had attempted to break in on several other Chicago TV stations, however these attempts were unsuccessful. ^[2]

The Max Headroom incident made national headlines and was reported on the CBS Evening News the next day.

WTTW and WGN join HBO as victims of broadcast signal intrusion. There has not been a broadcast intrusion incident of this kind in America since.

The pirate was never caught or identified, and as of 2007 he and his accomplices remain unknown.

References

External links

• Recording of the Max Headroom pirating incident - video
• Subtitled version of the hijack - video
• CBS News Report about the incident - video
• The Infamous "Max Headroom" Incident article
• Video signal piracy hits WGN/WTTW article
• The 1987 Max Headroom Pirating Incident article
• Collection of news articles about the incident