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KPRC Channel 2 WTF No 10pm News
- Thread starter DJboutit3
- Start date
KPRC/2 is in the midst of installing automation (Sony ELC I believe) for their newscasts. Sounds like there was one of the typical meltdowns that happen when implementing such systems. KTRK had some issues with newscasts when Grass Valley Ignite was launched there.
mmnassour said:
Our station (in Tennessee) has been on automation for several years. To my recollection we have yet to lose a newscast. There are single points of failure (audio board, video switcher) but those exist in a fully-manned control room as well and are equally as dangerous. Some of the early automated shows were a bit ugly. Again, I've certainly seen that happen in the first newscasts in a new fully-manned control room. (heck, I've been one of the techs who screwed up on the air in a new fully-manned control room...)
I suppose the only way around it is to have a complete backup control room; most stations find that prohibitively expensive. Not to mention it doesn't address human error. Like when the network national news ends & there's no director in the control room. (yes, I've seen that happen.)
It would be nice if we could have gone without the automation & kept the jobs. If the viewers were willing to go back to a day when we didn't have to compete with 100+ cable channels & online video -- to a day when you had five OTA channels to choose from & nothing else -- we could probably afford to dump the automation. I don't think that's going to happen
I don't know what happened to KPRC. I'd bet it could have happened to any station that replaced its control room, whether it went automated or not.
DJboutit3 said:
Stupidity in that someone thought computers should run a newscast!
Indeed, KXAN and KTBC have both had issues with their automation. I remember one KXAN newscast more than a year ago where a camera got loose on the set and did a 360 on the air, it was a complete studio tour. IIRC, KTBC at least kept much of its production control up and running, so I think it has a greater ability to recover from a complete crash than does KXAN.
Yes, the newscast that was lost was on KNVA/54, produced (of course) at KXAN. I remember seeing Jim Spencer voicing over a few weather maps at the top of the hour, then they went to some kind of emergency backup programming.
Humans do, in the long run, cost more than computers. But at least the good ones learn from their mistakes and I've yet to see a single human lose an entire newscast!
Let's just put it this way, if you own stock in a broadcaster that decides to get automation for tv newscasts.....SELL! Ratings will head way down fairly fast as viewers tire of seeing blank screens, silent live shots and anchor apologies for technical problems.
The word around my newsroom (Fox-26) is the audio board died.
Tim-In-Houston said:
I note such a failure would have killed the newscast even if the audio was *not* automated.
(indeed, such a failure would have been slightly more likely in a non-automated operation, where a control surface would be necessary -- and would be another single point of failure)
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