OJ Chase, 15 years today

[searadiofreak]

I wasn't sure whether this should go under "Classic" or "National" TV, but anyway...

June 17, 1994, 15 years ago today, the slow speed OJ chase became the most watched live tv news event on cable. (the networks of course carried it as well).

Larry King Live just had a short segment on it, and one of the themes was this was an event where almost everyone remembers where they were when they saw it. How many events garner that reaction?

My recollection was calling my father (who was elderly at the time), and he also was fascinated by it. Kind of a universal reaction, I guess. Compelling TV that doesn't come around too often. And, if I may add, what TV continues to do best, covering live, breaking events.

 

[radioman148]

I wasn't sure whether this should go under "Classic" or "National" TV, but anyway...

June 17, 1994, 15 years ago today, the slow speed OJ chase became the most watched live tv news event on cable. (the networks of course carried it as well).

Larry King Live just had a short segment on it, and one of the themes was this was an event where almost everyone remembers where they were when they saw it. How many events garner that reaction?

My recollection was calling my father (who was elderly at the time), and he also was fascinated by it. Kind of a universal reaction, I guess. Compelling TV that doesn't come around too often. And, if I may add, what TV continues to do best, covering live, breaking events.

I was at the Chicago White Sox baseball game and they had it on TV around the concession stands, but it wasn't until I got home that night that I realized exactly what happened.

 

[ShawnHill1]

I was 14 at the time, and had just graduated from junior high the day before. I was watching the Knicks-Rockets NBA Finals game 5 on NBC. Of course, anybody who was watching NBC (at least here locally) saw that the game was put in a small window in the lower right corner, while the Chase took up the remainder of the screen. However, eventually we tuned to ABC for the rest of the chase, where we heard the infamous prank call from Captain Janks (of the Howard Stern Show) and Al Michaels (who lives in the same area of L.A. that O.J. used to) later calling in and correcting Jennings that it was a hoax.

 

[radioman148]

I was 14 at the time, and had just graduated from junior high the day before. I was watching the Knicks-Rockets NBA Finals game 5 on NBC. Of course, anybody who was watching NBC (at least here locally) saw that the game was put in a small window in the lower right corner, while the Chase took up the remainder of the screen. However, eventually we tuned to ABC for the rest of the chase, where we heard the infamous prank call from Captain Janks (of the Howard Stern Show) and Al Michaels (who lives in the same area of L.A. that O.J. used to) later calling in and correcting Jennings that it was a hoax.

Now I remember the picture in a box on the NBA game.

 

[mleach]

I was at a bar in Inwood, West Virginia when this chase happened. The country music was shut off and all 10 TVs in the place were tuned to this chase so of course everyone at the bar ( about 150 ) were watching.

The station we were watching ? A Washington DC station? No !! Baltimore? NO

It was KMGH-TV in Denver !!!!

Of course most of the people at the bar was too drunk to notice they were watching a TV station some 1600 miles away.

 

[Ultimajock]

...this one I didn't see on TV. I was driving around Appleton, Wisconsin, on a few errands and pulled into a Hardee's hamburger drive-thru for some junk food and turned on WTSO/1070 Madison to see what Tom Leykis was talking about that evening. Turned out he was talking about the chase as it was happening...

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

I was at a bar in Inwood, West Virginia when this chase happened. The country music was shut off and all 10 TVs in the place were tuned to this chase so of course everyone at the bar ( about 150 ) were watching.

The station we were watching ? A Washington DC station? No !! Baltimore? NO

It was KMGH-TV in Denver !!!!

Of course most of the people at the bar was too drunk to notice they were watching a TV station some 1600 miles away.

The bar most likely had one of the old-style satellite dishes and was receiving KMGH.

 

[fybush]

I was still living in Boston at the time, and as the chase started I was on my way to a party for a cousin, some 20 miles south of where I was living...so I caught most of the coverage on radio as I headed south down Route 128.

WBZ, where I was then working, was picking up the coverage from Group W sister station KFWB in Los Angeles, and I remember how surreal it was to be listening to the action from the LA freeways as I was weaving through the traffic on the busiest freeway in New England.

 

[radioman148]

When I left the White Sox game I listened to coverage on then all news WMAQ until I got home & flipped on the TV.

 

[mleach]

I was at a bar in Inwood, West Virginia when this chase happened. The country music was shut off and all 10 TVs in the place were tuned to this chase so of course everyone at the bar ( about 150 ) were watching.

The station we were watching ? A Washington DC station? No !! Baltimore? NO

It was KMGH-TV in Denver !!!!

Of course most of the people at the bar was too drunk to notice they were watching a TV station some 1600 miles away.

The bar most likely had one of the old-style satellite dishes and was receiving KMGH.

That is exactly what they had..actually they had 5 big dishes on top of the building. Even though the place was a country-western bar the owner was a local news junkie and he always had four of those sets tuned into some out of town TV station and usually it was Denver but sometimes Chicago's WLS & WBBM, Detroit's WXYZ,LA's KTLA and San Franciscio's KTVU. But once I can remember he was showing all of the Indianapolis stations ( WTTV, WRTV, WISH and WTHR ) at this bar in West Virginia as well as Huntington's WOWK which was on the other side of West Virginia. I knew WTTV was once a minor sized "superstation" so maybe that was possible to get their signal on dish but I had no idea the other Indianapolis stations like WTHR were at one time available on the big dish or even WOWK.

 

[radioman148]

I was at a bar in Inwood, West Virginia when this chase happened. The country music was shut off and all 10 TVs in the place were tuned to this chase so of course everyone at the bar ( about 150 ) were watching.

The station we were watching ? A Washington DC station? No !! Baltimore? NO

It was KMGH-TV in Denver !!!!

Of course most of the people at the bar was too drunk to notice they were watching a TV station some 1600 miles away.

The bar most likely had one of the old-style satellite dishes and was receiving KMGH.

That is exactly what they had..actually they had 5 big dishes on top of the building. Even though the place was a country-western bar the owner was a local news junkie and he always had four of those sets tuned into some out of town TV station and usually it was Denver but sometimes Chicago's WLS & WBBM, Detroit's WXYZ,LA's KTLA and San Franciscio's KTVU. But once I can remember he was showing all of the Indianapolis stations ( WTTV, WRTV, WISH and WTHR ) at this bar in West Virginia as well as Huntington's WOWK which was on the other side of West Virginia. I knew WTTV was once a minor sized "superstation" so maybe that was possible to get their signal on dish but I had no idea the other Indianapolis stations like WTHR were at one time available on the big dish or even WOWK.

KTLA, WPIX, WGN, TBS, & WOR were all available at alot of bars because those stations carried baseball.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Here in Fairbanks, I remember KATN cutting away from "Hard Copy" to the chase already in progress before going to news at 6:00; they went back to O.J. immediately after, I think.

KTVF had the NBA Finals; they were a CBS/NBC station at the time and after the game they immediately hit to CBS News coverage in progress.

Thankfully, I was tuned to CNN for the whole thing uninterrupted, though I remember taping CBS Radio coverage on KCBF.