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A few random YouTube questions

S

Stanislav

Been doing some YouTube surfing lately. A few of the clips generated some questions:

(1) WKBN-27 in Youngstown, Ohio with "labeled" color bars (the name of each color bar overlaid vertically). Never saw this done before -- have any other stations done this? (It's actually an interesting idea when you think about it -- pretty hard to adjust the color on your set unless you know what the colors are supposed to be!)

(2) A WNPE-16/WNPE-18 (Watertown/Norwood, New York) sign-off in which both "Oh, Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" are played (in that order). I know they have a large Canadian viewership -- have other border area stations done this? (Did WWNY-7 ever do it?)

(3) NBC Nightly News for 11/21/80 (Roger Mudd anchoring with John Chancellor absent) with the lead story the MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas. This was a major fire (87 dead, although the death toll was around 75 at time of broadcast) that in our times would have commanded wall-to-wall coverage on the news channels. Yet, although the lead story, it merited less than 2 minutes of coverage on the show. I'm sure at least some of the Vegas stations probably covered it live, but did any of the Big Three carry any live special reports? How about CNN (which was less than 6 months old at the time)? And note the NBC footage is on film -- so their affiliate in Vegas (would have been KVBC-3, unless they had not yet switched from KORK) had no field videotape capability in 1980? Or if they were covering it live, they couldn't tape it in studio and then feed it to the network? Yes, the fire took place in the morning, so there would have been time to process film, but why? (It still had to be fed to NBC -- why not tape?)
 
Stanislav said:
Been doing some YouTube surfing lately. A few of the clips generated some questions:


(2) A WNPE-16/WNPE-18 (Watertown/Norwood, New York) sign-off in which both "Oh, Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" are played (in that order). I know they have a large Canadian viewership -- have other border area stations done this? (Did WWNY-7 ever do it?)
Click to expand...

WTVS Detroit ran both anthems when they signed-off late night on Saturdays for tx maintenance (at least they did in the 90s, the cableco here switched to WGBH in 1996). Also, WLBZ Bangor in the 80's ran both anthems at sign-on/sign-off, but they went with shots of the respective flags as the anthems played :D
 
Stanislav said:
Been doing some YouTube surfing lately. A few of the clips generated some questions:

(2) A WNPE-16/WNPE-18 (Watertown/Norwood, New York) sign-off in which both "Oh, Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" are played (in that order). I know they have a large Canadian viewership -- have other border area stations done this? (Did WWNY-7 ever do it?)

(3) NBC Nightly News for 11/21/80 (Roger Mudd anchoring with John Chancellor absent) with the lead story the MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas. This was a major fire (87 dead, although the death toll was around 75 at time of broadcast) that in our times would have commanded wall-to-wall coverage on the news channels. Yet, although the lead story, it merited less than 2 minutes of coverage on the show. I'm sure at least some of the Vegas stations probably covered it live, but did any of the Big Three carry any live special reports? How about CNN (which was less than 6 months old at the time)? And note the NBC footage is on film -- so their affiliate in Vegas (would have been KVBC-3, unless they had not yet switched from KORK) had no field videotape capability in 1980? Or if they were covering it live, they couldn't tape it in studio and then feed it to the network? Yes, the fire took place in the morning, so there would have been time to process film, but why? (It still had to be fed to NBC -- why not tape?)
Click to expand...
Yes, WWNY used to. I was there in 95-96. For signoff, they would play the canadian national anthem first. Then the Star Spangled Banner, then color bars.

As far as the Vegas fire, no surprise that a station was still using film in 1980. My survey of stations done in 2007 found some stations still using it up to the early 80s. Couple anecdotes(substantiated by a couple people's memory) on that note:

In 1980, WKTV/Utica had to make a decision: Go to portable VT, or color film. In 1980, they chose color film.

And in 1984, watching a Scranton station's coverage of a northeast snowstorm (when Cerrace cable in Ithaca still carried out-of-town stations), I was shocked to see some footage shot on film.

Some stations made the switch-over from film to VT all at once. Some kept their film gear around, and mixed the two. At WSTM in Syracuse in the early 90s, one anchor/producer was still in the habit of typing in to the script "Take Sony", meaning take VTR (but it was a left over from when they'd have to make the distinction between "take videotape" or "take film"). At WENY in Elmira, in 1977 I saw their one portable VT system. Commercial production got to use it in the morning, and the news room got to use it in the afternoon (makes sense, since you don't need the time to "develop" VT), while they still had film gear.

As far as the fire...your phrase "in our times" is key. Sure, it was a big story, but there wasn't that intense mindset back then of "team coverage, let's go balls to the wall with this". Cooler heads still prevailed. And live trucks weren't as prevalent in 1980 as you might think. Or maybe the story was still too fresh to have anything more than just one story on it. And there may not have been a telco line out of Vegas.

1980 was a helluva news year, when you think back: The presidential campaigns (Kennedy vs. Carter vs. Reagan), the Miami riots, the Iranian hostage crisis, Mt. St. Helens erupting, the mariel boat lift, the Lennon assassination...
 
Stanislav said:
(2) A WNPE-16/WNPE-18 (Watertown/Norwood, New York) sign-off in which both "Oh, Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" are played (in that order). I know they have a large Canadian viewership -- have other border area stations done this? (Did WWNY-7 ever do it?)
Click to expand...

Back in the days when they signed-off at nights, I wonder if the Buffalo stations did this since at the time ( may still be the case ) the big four stations ( WGR/WGRZ, WIVB/WBEN, WKBW and WUTV ) were seen in Canada?
 
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