In the UK thread below there were a few comments regarding UK's long pre and post game coverage. When WVLK had UK, they took pre and post game coverage to the next level.
We did our own pregrame into network coverage. It sometimes took the form of a talk show from a sports bar. From an engineering point of view a dedicated broadcast loop was established at the restaurant driven by a Shure mixer and a headphone amp driven by a modified phone that provided a program feed so we could operate on delay and take phone calls. We also originated a series of events from in front of Commonwealth Stadium. The feed was sent to the station via a line back to the Stadium broadcast booth then a loop back to the Kincaid Towers studios. Among all of that we added air traffic reports, features like “Leonard’s Losers” and the long running “Fans in the Stands”. We sold every inch of the broadcast at premier rates.
Amazingly basketball coverage was subdued compared to football. Much like football, “Fans in the Stands” was a staple. In the later years we pulled that off with creative engineering. WVLK’s studios were across Broadway from the Hyatt and Lexington Center/Rupp Arena. On the roof of the third floor Kincaid Towers atrium a high gain Yagi was attached to the satellite dish and aimed across the street, it worked like a charm. The host could walk all over the lobby of the Hyatt and some of the area in front of Rupp Arena and broadcast with nothing more than a wireless mic. Last time I checked, the antenna was still attached to the dish.
Before WVLK, WKYT and Host combined to form Sportscom and originated network control at Kincaid Towers, the contract was held by The Kentucky Network (now Kentucky News Network). Due to location issues for a second satellite dish on the atrium roof, the K-Net dish was at the transmitter site and the audio was sent downtown on a 5k phone loop, decent for play by play but noticeable during commercials. To overcome the lack of quality during commercials, WVLK had K-Net send copies of the network inventory and we played our own network commercials. For both football and basketball home games we received our own feed from each venue so in essence we emulated net control. The only time we used the K-Net line was during away games where we were still required to cover network inventory with our own copies (though sometimes we’d let a net break originate from K-Net when nature called) and “Wildcat Scoreboard”, which was, as a board engineer, a guaranteed time to take a bathroom break without fear of a time out. Following all of that we concluded both football and basketball coverage with “Sportsline 59” to talk about the game locally, this feature was added to the network lineup when Sportscom took over the coverage.
We did some amazing technical stuff back in the day thanks to know how of folks like Paul Dunbar, Jim Yeager and Tom Devine. The last of the fancy things we did before I left for Owensboro was delaying the play by play coverage by about a second so the radio coverage would match up to the television coverage during away games as well as adding mics during home games at Rupp for the stereo ambience. Those were the days!
We did our own pregrame into network coverage. It sometimes took the form of a talk show from a sports bar. From an engineering point of view a dedicated broadcast loop was established at the restaurant driven by a Shure mixer and a headphone amp driven by a modified phone that provided a program feed so we could operate on delay and take phone calls. We also originated a series of events from in front of Commonwealth Stadium. The feed was sent to the station via a line back to the Stadium broadcast booth then a loop back to the Kincaid Towers studios. Among all of that we added air traffic reports, features like “Leonard’s Losers” and the long running “Fans in the Stands”. We sold every inch of the broadcast at premier rates.
Amazingly basketball coverage was subdued compared to football. Much like football, “Fans in the Stands” was a staple. In the later years we pulled that off with creative engineering. WVLK’s studios were across Broadway from the Hyatt and Lexington Center/Rupp Arena. On the roof of the third floor Kincaid Towers atrium a high gain Yagi was attached to the satellite dish and aimed across the street, it worked like a charm. The host could walk all over the lobby of the Hyatt and some of the area in front of Rupp Arena and broadcast with nothing more than a wireless mic. Last time I checked, the antenna was still attached to the dish.
Before WVLK, WKYT and Host combined to form Sportscom and originated network control at Kincaid Towers, the contract was held by The Kentucky Network (now Kentucky News Network). Due to location issues for a second satellite dish on the atrium roof, the K-Net dish was at the transmitter site and the audio was sent downtown on a 5k phone loop, decent for play by play but noticeable during commercials. To overcome the lack of quality during commercials, WVLK had K-Net send copies of the network inventory and we played our own network commercials. For both football and basketball home games we received our own feed from each venue so in essence we emulated net control. The only time we used the K-Net line was during away games where we were still required to cover network inventory with our own copies (though sometimes we’d let a net break originate from K-Net when nature called) and “Wildcat Scoreboard”, which was, as a board engineer, a guaranteed time to take a bathroom break without fear of a time out. Following all of that we concluded both football and basketball coverage with “Sportsline 59” to talk about the game locally, this feature was added to the network lineup when Sportscom took over the coverage.
We did some amazing technical stuff back in the day thanks to know how of folks like Paul Dunbar, Jim Yeager and Tom Devine. The last of the fancy things we did before I left for Owensboro was delaying the play by play coverage by about a second so the radio coverage would match up to the television coverage during away games as well as adding mics during home games at Rupp for the stereo ambience. Those were the days!
