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Staff at KFOR/KAUT were evacuated early this morning (July 20) when a piece of equipment belonging to the Uninterrupted Power Supply unit in the duopoly's rack room suffered a catastrophic failure around 3:40 a.m., with staff reporting power flashes in that area. Smoke from the fire could be visible within the KFOR weather center, as staff were preparing for the station's morning newscast, which was delayed by one hour due to the fire and evacuations (an impromptu newscast was streamed on Facebook Live during the 4:00 a.m. hour, with KFOR presumably carrying a feed of Early Today once master control operations resumed around 4:30 a.m.). Once NewsChannel 4 This Morning went on the air at 5:00 a.m. after Oklahoma City Fire Department officials gave the all-clear for staff to return to the building, since the computers powering those aspects were offline, pre-roll video footage, the time/temp/logo bug and lower third graphics were absent for much of the program (side-by-side graphics and weather graphics were not affected). The computers delivering the affected footage and graphics were brought back online by 7:00 a.m. http://kfor.com/2016/07/20/kfor-evacuated-after-fire/ http://kfor.com/2016/07/20/kfor-crews-talk-about-how-they-handled-early-morning-fire/ As a side note, when noting the age of the affected equipment in an interview with reporter Ashley Kringen during the morning newscast, KFOR/KAUT president/general manager Wes Milbourne confirmed that pre-construction preparations on the new studio facility previously announced to replace KFOR's 63-year-old building are underway, rounding the completion date to be sometime around 2018.

After seeing all threads started for different news about TV news or something else in Canada and for various countries, I thought of starting an international version of TVNT's popular "Out and About" thread and I wanna kick it off. First up on this thread, Global's "16x9" has been cancelled by Corus. Liza Fromer has been let go and Carolyn Jarvis (16x9 host) becomes Chief Investigative Correspondent for Global News. http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/acquisition/corus-cancels-globals-16x9/1004123322/

Meanwhile over at FOX News..... Lassie is getting leg-humped by Rodger.

A couple of departures from WATN in Memphis: - Meteorologist Lauren Raymer has left to take a position at the Memphis Oral School for the Deaf. Her last day was June 24th. - Sports anchor Gil Tyree is no longer at the station as of this week. One of his final appearances on air was covering and doing play-by-play for the Memphis Tigers' Basketball Alumni Game last weekend.