WHNT to rebroadcast Siegelman segment on 6 p.m. newscast

[brooklynite]

Source: Huntsville Times

WHNT Channel 19 will rerun the entire 13 minute "60 Minutes" segment, "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman," tonight during its 6 p.m. newscast.

Local viewers missed the segment at 6 p.m Sunday night when receiver through which the station gets its CBS feed failed, WHNT said. The station re-aired a portion of the piece at 10 p.m. Sunday night, and now plans to air it again tonight in its entirety.

The station will do an abbreviated newscast then rebroadcast the Siegelman piece.


Read more: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2008/02/whnt_to_rebroadcast_siegelman.html

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Whenever you get caught, better to cave quickly....

[Botany]

1. W/ a much higher viewer %

Must See T.V.

Gonna suck for Alabama repugs.

[pnwmom]

2. This would be great -- if it's true. Many more viewers this way. n/t

[Tunkamerica]

3. It was a technical problem;

happens all the time. It just usually happens during things you don't watch. The immediate jump to conspiracy is an unfortunate side-effect of the paranoia this administration has fostered.

[Robbien]

4. Oh sure, happens all the time. When was the last time anyone missed their show

because the station had technical difficulties?

Other than PBS and perhaps maybe a cable station, it has been years since technical difficulties blacked out any significant portion of any show.

[Tunkamerica]

6. That's not true at all

technical problems happen all the time. There are redundancies, but it happens. Normally network programming is pretty stable, but especially in bad weather or snow, things happen. We've gone off the air for 20 minutes or so in the last year. Not during primetime, but we have. It was a transmitter, not a receiver issue. But it happens.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

8. I am 50 years old, have watched more TV than I ever want to admit

and I cannot recall ever sitting through a 12 min blackout for any reason at all, ever.

[Tunkamerica]

9. I work in tv and it happens

everything is made so that it won't but it does happen. And though I'm only 29, I bet I'm running up on you in terms of how much television I've watched. I don't even watch tv at home. But 8 hrs a day adds up.

[trof]

5. CBS says it wasn't.

No link.
Just repeating what I've seen here.

[Trajan]

12. Aint buying it ...

Yeah .... technical glitches happen all the time ... but how often do these 'glitches' happen right when a news story devastating to the owners of the TV station itself is starting to air ? ....

Cmon .... This kind of apologia is unfortunate ...

[guitar man]

13. so what do you think happened

...to their backup? The last "official" story I saw was that a "piece of equipment" that was most likely their main sattelite receiver failed. I can understand that, these Wegners we have will sometimes just reboot themselves for no apparent reason...that's why we have 2 of them. Why no switch to a backup?

<edit typo>

[NoodleyAppendage]

14. as the brother-in-law of the station manager, I agree.

My brother-in-law, the station manager of that CBS station affliate, was outraged about the glitch and has been working since 10pm Sunday to correct the problem. He's behind the 6pm re-airing. And, while moderate conservative, he's not an ideolog or stupid.

[guitar man]

15. hey

If your brother in law is the station manager, then who is Denise Vickers? She posted in GD as the station manager yesterday :shrug:

[NoodleyAppendage]

16. Denise Vickers is the former station manager...though maybe she has a lesser role now. n/t

Rather not pull my brother-in-law's name into the discussion, but if you research a bit online you will see that the new station manager is not Denise Vickers.

My sister-in-law mentioned that he screamed and threw something at their TV at home when it happened...interestingly, not because of the political implication, but because they are currently in the local ratings sweeps period and this sort of thing hurts their bottomline and ad dollars.

J

[guitar man]

17. yeah, it sucks

when shit happens during sweeps, trust me, I know all too well.

Here's one of the posts I was referring to. I don't know if this is actually her or not, but the explanation given doesnt't fly.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2918171&mesg_id=2921904

[Akoto]

18. I honestly have to wonder, and don't take this personally ...

Where is the disconnect between the station and CBS? CBS says there was no interruption of the feed.

[NoodleyAppendage]

19. I don't know. All I'm reporting is his reaction to the event and how worried they were about it.

It's clear from my discussions with them that there was no malaice or forethought in this glitch and that they are just as baffled about the problem.

Tinhat here...but I wonder if this disruption was by a second-party with the technical know-how to pull off such an event. An agency run by BFEE cronies with the top experts in signal intelligence and technical epionage. It seems a stretch, but it's clear to me that it wasn't local station management behind the problem.

J

[guitar man]

20. what is your brother in law's background

Do you know if he came from the sales side or engineering side up to the manager's position? Nothing wrong with either path, except the sales background managers are often not as technically versed as us engineering types.

As far as sabatoge goes, I can think of a few ways to get the station to drop to black and come back up later, especially if they are running Harris automation software, it's pretty easy to program the start type and event duration to make it drop to black at any given time. All it would take is one drooling wingnut master control operator to really fuck things up for him.


<edit typo>

[NoodleyAppendage]

21. Sales side...he's worked his way up the station ladder for the past 22 years.

This is exactly why I can't fathom him doing something stupid to jepordize 20 years of career struggle.

J

[guitar man]

22. I can't either

I'm from the engineering side so I know every bullshit story they might try to tell me when there's a screw up....I've used them all and invented some of them :D

I would hate to be in his shoes with this hot potato. All I know is what I have read of the explanation for the discrepancy and it falls far short of passing the stink test. If he's buying that story from his engineering staff, it might be because he simply hasn't worked that side of the biz. I know I wouldn't buy it from my guys, especially if I was catching that kind of heat. I would demand to know what happened with the backup and might pass out some pink slips if I didn't get the right answers from them.

[EFerrari]

23. Nope. There is a pattern of "outtages" that happens to correspond

to stories embarrassing to the Bush misAdministration.

Have you ever worked at a station? There are back up systems for back up systems.

[Ian David]

7. The ironic thing is, The Oscars were more more anti-Bush than 60 Minutes was. n/t

[annabanana]

10. Good... the uproar will mean that many many more people see

it than would have if they had just run the damn thing...

[EFerrari]

24. The story was ALL OVER THE NET.

:toast:

[midnight]

11. It must be sparking some interest. Hang in there Ron.