TelevisionWeek is trawling video-sharing Web sites to find the hottest clips spreading on the Internet.

The setup: Ah, the perils of live news reporting in the online age. Fox-owned WNYW-TV’s “Good Day NY” anchor Jodi Applegate apparently got punked by two guys who purported to be filmmakers working on a documentary on stealing bikes in New York. The so-called documentarians appeared live during a July 27 segment in which they were to show how easy it is to swipe a bike. Dressed in white lab coats, the two men were demonstrating how to slice a lock with power tools when one pretended to cut the other’s throat. The duo even simulated blood with that old standby, ketchup packets. Ms. Applegate immediately yelled, “Cut it out, cut it out, stop that.” She assured viewers that the ruse was not planned by her.

The source: The video was posted July 27 on YouTube and appeared on several blogs, such as Digg.com and Gawker.com, which labeled it “Best.Video.Ever.” New York Post writer Don Kaplan wrote about the anchor meltdown July 28.

The hits: The clip generated about 461,000 views on YouTube by Aug. 3.



Video: Bike Theft Stunt