Nick Lachey was happy to pimp his baseball team on a satellite publicity tour all day long, but when asked about the hardcore sex pics with Vanessa Minnillo, Nick's camera went dead. Hmm ... coincidence?

TMZ obtained this video of Nick on FOX 5's "Good Day New York" today, where after questioning him about an MLB promotion for a couple of minutes, brave anchor Ron Corning asked Nick point blank about racy vacation pics of him with his girlfriend. Before Corning had a chance to finish the question, the feed went to color bars, prompting him to say, "There you go, that's how they're responding!"

TMZ contacted Lachey's reps who said, "We did over 25 interviews about MasterCard and the All-Star game this morning and WNYW was the only one that happened with." When asked if WNYW was the only one that went there with the question, the rep added jokingly, "Maybe it was the heat wave that knocked out the feed?" Riiiiight.