The Virginian-Pilot
©
WTKR's chief meteorologist drew pictures on a dry-erase board and the station's anchor reported news from a food bank Wednesday after a computer problem kept the station from using its Norfolk studio.
It's not clear what caused the problem, but engineers were looking into it, said Jeff Hoffman, the station's general manager.
The result was that WTKR Channel 3 could not broadcast news from its studio Wednesday at 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m., Hoffman said, and instead used much of its broadcast time to promote the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Portsmouth Humane Society.
There weren't any colorful weather graphics.
Chief meteorologist Mike Harvey used a blue pen and a whiteboard as he reported on the forecast at 5 p.m. from the Portsmouth Humane Society, illustrating high pressure and a cold front on a hand-drawn map of the United States. He called it "live Vipir chalkboard weather." Anchor Bianca Martinez reported the news live from the food bank.
Reporters broadcast from the two groups' offices in hopes of making a positive out of a predicament, Hoffman said.
"We'll try to put our airtime to the best use we can under an extremely difficult situation," Hoffman said just before the 5 p.m. broadcast.
The station was not able to switch between news in its studio and a CBS feed from New York, he said. Employees could edit video but were not able to play it back.
The problem was fixed in time for the 11 p.m. broadcast.
Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com
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Frequency band seems to be an issue lately, too . . .
A week ago Sunday, we heard military exercise signals (?) breaking in on WHRO radio while driving home from church in the evening. I know there was a big exercise scheduled (it was in the paper) so I assume they grabbed a huge chunk of the broadcast band and managed to intrude on at least one local radio station???
Hey which NLE systems do
Hey which NLE systems do they use? When can I get a tour?
apparently
skynet was more aware than me, i meant to say the 4th...........
On March 3, 2009....
just in time for Channel 3's evening newscasts, SkyNET became self-aware.......
Computers
This is what happens when everything is dumped onto computer controls and the people operating them don't fully understand what is really going on. I don't doubt the people at WTKR won't forget this one.
Must be using Vista
Must be using Vista
NEWS FLASH
This just in, we have breaking news . . .
Whopee Radar
Maybe the viper-first-on-3, taking action computer realized just how silly WTKR was with making up stuff for news.
In-House Server
The engineers at WTKR-TV may want to check the main program server in the old master control room. The Ominvision computer server system has a history of hanging up. This unit switches every video signal in the operation of the station.
Time to REBOOT!
Whew
Hopefully, they'll be able to broadcast by tomorrow morning. Otherwise, they'll have to do morning traffic with a dry erase board too.