TheNuze.com

Burbank, CA - Monday evening during the live television broadcast of the season finale of The Sing-Off, a reality show featuring a-cappella singing groups, host Nick Lachey announced the winning group.  As a synthesizer pulsed dramatically and the camera slowly panned over the anxious faces of the contestants, Lachey read the words: "And the winner of the Sing-Off, the $100,000 prize, and a Sony recording contract is..."  23 seconds later, he entered the record books.  After a seemingly eternal 37 seconds, he finally read the name of the winning group having utterly smashed the record for the longest pregnant pause in the history of broadcasting.  Viewers with the benedictine patience to wait that long and the handful of contestants who hadn't already left the stage in disgust got to witness television history being made. "None of us with the show knew that Nick was going to go for the record", said Sing-Off producer, Tom Vascone, who was clearly still emotional, "It wasn't until I glanced behind me and saw that one of the engineers had moved to the front of the booth and had begun counting off the seconds with hand gestures that I realized what might actually be taking place.  It was sheer magic.  We all stood in stunned silence, filled with a sense of wonder and possibility that grew with every passing second.  When Nick finally read the name of whoever won the singing thing, we all just erupted."  "I have to hand it to Nick", said entertainment critic Harvey Lang at the network party celebrating Lachey's landmark, "His 15 minutes of fame was up so long ago that I don't even remember what it was that he was supposed to be famous for, yet he keeps finding ways to stay in the public eye."