A power outage in Studio City knocked KCBS and KCAL off the air Friday night, right in the middle of KCAL’s 8 p.m. newscast.

The KCBS-KCAL broadcast center lost power around 7:55 p.m. Friday. A backup generator kicked in and KCAL was able to start its newscast on time, but then the connection between the generator and the building failed, knocking the stations off the air just after 8:30 p.m.

(Reporter Edward Lawrence shot the above video of the KCBS-KCAL’s darkened newsroom).

The stations returned to the air around 9:15 p.m. and KCAL was able to resume its local newscast, with intermittent audio. By 11 p.m., the broadcast had been fully restored, just in time for KCBS’s late newscast.

KCBS reported on the power outage during its 11 p.m. newscast, giving a behind-the-scenes look at how the KCBS-KCAL news team alerted viewers to the problem and prepared to broadcast the late newscast from outside the station using a microwave truck. Here’s the video…

[KCBS]