Ah the age-old “argument”. Here’e the secret ad agencies don’t want you to know: people simply talking about an ad doesn’t correlate to increased sales. If the commercial is particularly bad, it can negatively impact sales.
In this particular case, I don’t even know what “Living Spaces” is, so talking about it isn’t doing a thing for me.
In the OP’s case, were the news people waiting and waiting to go back on camera? Or were they giving the news but it wasn’t going over the air?
They can’t and they won’t. You cannot charge for an ad that the agency did not agree to. It’s why, when an outlet gets copy instructions (run spot ABC123 100% from now through June 15) it usually says at the bottom it does not constitute an order for airing the commercials. My former employer used to get copy instructions all the time for spots that were not booked by sales. It’s whether or not the spot was booked by sales that matters. A glitch that makes a spot run over and over for 20 minutes was not booked by sales.