MUMBAI: It could have been a coincidence, but there was apparently more to the blacking out of Abhishek Bachchan’s item during the live telecast of the Filmfare awards on Saturday evening than met the eye.

Says father Amitabh: “Every time he came on stage the TV went blank saying ‘No Signal’. And just as he went off, the telecast returned to normal. It happened twice — once when he went up to get his award for best supporting actor and then during his live act. This happened all over the country. We received complaints about Abhishek’s blacked-out presence from Delhi, Chennai, Patna...”

When contacted Anupama Mandloi, Sony’s head of on-air programming, seemed shocked: “We are as baffled by what happened to Abhishek’s act as the rest of the nation. Needless to say, we’d hardly be responsible for it ourselves. We are still trying to figure out what happened.”