Fire at WABC

[DarkHippie]

Breaking news . . .

wabc, channel 7 in nyc, is off the air. there's a fire in the studio. i'll find a link as soon as i can

[IamPixie]

channel 7 is just a black screen

[DarkHippie]

they ar reporting it on other stations. i just heard it on channel 4

[IamPixie]

weird

[Fallon]

channel 7 is just a black screen

Yeah, shouldn't it look like this?

http://hdtvmagazine.com/images/store/ambient-fire-tv.jpg

[Don Stugots]

channel 7 is just a black screen

more racism pixie? you get all prejudice when you are drinking.

maybe it was sam champion's ass that set the fire?

[outlawfrank]

Yeah, shouldn't it look like this?

http://hdtvmagazine.com/images/store/ambient-fire-tv.jpg


Very clever.

[Tenbatsuzen]

Apparently it was an eruption on Scott Clark's face that started it.

[Marc with a c]

man, this sucks i love dean cain

[BoondockSaint]

man, this sucks i love dean cain

I bet it was Pyle/Kane at the wrong studio.

[KC2OSO]

lightning.

[WRESTLINGFAN]

I hope Liz Cho is ok

[pennington]

Way to go WABC, 2 hours of dead air.

They've had since, what, 9/11/2001 to come up with a back-up plan like plug in the feed of another ABC owned-and-operated station or at least throw on a re-run (maybe Oprah) like they do during a rain delay in case of emergency.

[MadMatt]

OK, so what the hell happened?

I'm in Philly and don't feel like searching. Fill us in you NY goobs!

:happy:

[Gvac]

CLICK HERE (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/1401AP_WABC_Fire.html)

[MadMatt]

Way to go WABC, 2 hours of dead air.

They've had since, what, 9/11/2001 to come up with a back-up plan like plug in the feed of another ABC owned-and-operated station or at least throw on a re-run (maybe Oprah) like they do during a rain delay in case of emergency.

From the article GVAC posted (thank you Budday), I think they did pretty well. The station was back on within 6 hours.

There is a lot of stuff that has to go on when there is an actual fire; the fire department has to clear the scene, the fire inspector has to take a look, the insurance people have to take a look, the tech crew has to test all of the equipment, etc.

They might have been able to jump back on earlier if the fire occured during "prime time" but since it was overnight when viewership is at it's lowest, they could take a little more time to recover and do things right. Why rush when you don't absolutely have to.

[lleeder]

I bet they got ratings just from people turning on the channel to see how long it was til it came back on. I know if I knew about this I would constantly be checking the channel to see if anything changed.

[Tenbatsuzen]

Way to go WABC, 2 hours of dead air.

They've had since, what, 9/11/2001 to come up with a back-up plan like plug in the feed of another ABC owned-and-operated station or at least throw on a re-run (maybe Oprah) like they do during a rain delay in case of emergency.

As a technical point of difference, during 9/11, they only lost their antenna - so they just used the main control room to switch to a backup.

It's much harder to get back on the air when you actually LOSE your main control room and you're not allowed to access your backup control room.

[Dudeman]

Way to go WABC, 2 hours of dead air.

They've had since, what, 9/11/2001 to come up with a back-up plan like plug in the feed of another ABC owned-and-operated station or at least throw on a re-run (maybe Oprah) like they do during a rain delay in case of emergency.


because if there were another 9/11, and the station went off the air, we'd want to watch an oprah rerun? i hope it is the "everybody gets a car. You get a car, you get a car, you get a car" one.

[pennington]

It's much harder to get back on the air when you actually LOSE your main control room and you're not allowed to access your backup control room.

But shouldn't there be some sort of default back-up, like a dvd player showing an old movie and a crawl at the bottom of the screen saying they are experiencing technical dificulties? I guess there will be something in the near future.

Anyway, I read the Regis & Kelly studio was right there also so they're going to use the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" studio Tuesday.

[Lillibaby]

I hope Liz Cho is ok

Hahahaha...of course you do.

[Tenbatsuzen]

But shouldn't there be some sort of default back-up, like a dvd player showing an old movie and a crawl at the bottom of the screen saying they are experiencing technical dificulties? I guess there will be something in the near future.

Anyway, I read the Regis & Kelly studio was right there also so they're going to use the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" studio Tuesday.

I'm not sure, but I think part of fighting a fire is shutting down all the electricity - including backup generators - to the building affected. I'm not sure - could Doogie correct me?

If that was the case, nothing was going to go over the air.

There might be some sort of backup, but on a holiday weekend, you'd have to get the engineeers, get into the backup facility, set it up... it would take about six hours, imho...

[SatCam]

the fire made sam champions' face melt

[Don Stugots]

getting workers in is never a problem. they did managed to get them in last night to get a temp. studio up and running. How do i know? its in the story and i know union electricians that worked all night last night.

[Dudeman]

the fire made sam champions' face melt

mike piazza will be heart broken

[SatCam]

all because the they didn't cool the lights enough. now someone go tell my boss to fix the ac before the place spontaneously combusts

[A.J.]

Several shows are recorded at the WABC-TV studios, including "Live with Regis and Kelly."

Regis started the fire while cooking. Time to send him to Green Grove.