KTBC's fiasco was:Re: Is your local news as bad as ours?
Yes. The stations (especially Fox O&Os apparently) have been under tremendous pressure to cut labor costs. That means these half-baked, poorly installed robot systems are continuing to degrade the technical quality of their local production. Backup? What backup? That would double your capital cost!
My understanding is that KTBC was the Guinea Pig for this last version of station automation, before it was rolled out to Fox stations nationwide.
Where I last worked, a newscast such as happened Saturday on KTBC would been a firing offense for most of the technical staff. But then, a technical staff of any kind would not have allowed that abomination to occur.
Pity....it used to be Austin's flagship station. When it moved into the Brazos studios I remember the paper doing a four page insert on it! Now, it's in the same shape as LBJ's penthouse on the top floor...broken, tattered, and all but abandoned by the people who once made it great.