rkolsen

Richard Engel got married today. I remember an interview he gave to Jay Leno a few years ago he described that his first marriage fell apart during the stress of his job. I believe he got divorced during the early years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I can't imagine how that type of stress would affect a marriage. But that was then and this is now. I wish him and his wife a lifetime of happiness. https://twitter.com/richardengel/status/604452930578710528

Incredibly sad. Thoughts and prayers to his family, friends and colleagues.

I don't feel like starting a new thread but when I came across the following image from WXII and I BAS was (damn autocorrect) surprised they had different lower thirds compared to other Hearst station. It took me a minute and realized that for some odd reason they are using the header graphic for their lower third. The image came from this .

NBC finished first this season ratings wise but came in second viewers.

Rod Daniels signed off today after 30 years anchoring at WBAL. [yt]ujjXuXeEISg[/yt] [yt]u5U4_ezwNGU[/yt]

I am assuming he's doing an audition because there are others they could have used. A while back before they hired Joe fryer they had him do a month long audition and he went back to KING for a month and then started full time.

I think KTLA's Kirk Hawkins may be auditioning for a job at NBC News. He reported on msnbc Wednesday and Thursday in addition filing reports for NBC news channel (I've saw he was at least KCRA.). I haven't heard anything about him leaving KTLA and was last on air Tuesday night for KTLA and other Tribune stations on the Santa Monica oil slick.

The commercials sound like they may have their timing off. Live programming can be difficult to cover at times because the commercial breaks are (I hope this is the right word) floating meaning they do not have a set time. But I think the timings report should show how long a station has for commercial breaks and those should generally be fixed. I imagine the feed of rehearsals and color bars are what they transmit during the break. Don't the network's send a signal nowadays to trigger the automatic play out of breaks?

I am assuming the slate is used for a station to check and work on the box off air that ABC uses to trigger the local stations logo, time, temp and crawl during GMA. In this case they are testing the time and temperature. VANC refers to vertical ancillary data that is used to transmit any non video information.

I'm curious how often do they use the Chopper 6 360 on air? I still think of it as gimmicky but do think it would have provided a different perspective with the amtrak derailment. Although it's not as powerful as a standard camera I think it would provide an interesting view with all of the cameras stitched together on screen.

Or most likely he triggers the graphics using the remote in his hand. His hands are large enough to cover the clicker and if you look closely you can see his middle finger pressing the button as the graphics. At the very end as he turns to face the camera you can see the clicker in hand.

It makes no sense as I mentioned in this thread as they never sell and rarely buy. Aside from this I want to mention something else. Over the last two to three months WBAL has rolled out new Multi box graphics that are not 16:9 safe. When it's a two box the anchors and reporters generally fall in to the 4:3 safe zone but when it's three or more people their faces are cut off. All the other graphics are still 4:3 safe. I watch in HD most of the time but on occasion I remain on the SD feed. Someone on their staff should have noticed it as in the news room and on their in house computer feed they take the SD Comcast feed which is center cut 4:3. I'm curious are their other stations' SD feeds letter boxed or center cut? Related to this they also center cut network programming that should be letter boxed. It's fine during news but during entertainment and sports programming the score bug is cut off. I've cycled through my TV and cable box settings to see if their was a mistake but no luck. I wrote to them on their contact form and via twitter to mention this but have received no response. I wonder if this is an issue on their side or if Comcast is not encoding the signal right.

I believe even if the publishing and broadcasting divisions stayed together WUSA would still have partnered up with the Washington Post. Even though USA Today is headquartered in Tyson's Corner it is not a local paper by any means. Sure they cover national politics but that's it. A TV station partners up with a newspaper because of their local coverage not national.

I guessed either here or DCRTV that he was burning off his leave before he retires. I do find it surprising that they allowed him to take time off during the first half of sweeps but I guess they were confident. Since Rod has been off for a while now I think they would have tried other cohosts with Donna on air by now. Except for a day here or there it's been Stan anchoring the 6PM and I think it should be his.

I'm usually not a fan if odd shaped mic flags but I think they should of went with the kind that WABC use.

WVTM was hubbed but Media Generals hub was more of a control and monitor where operators in another region controlled hardware physically at their stations making me think they were more a store / forward operation. That article was from 2009 but I don't think there has been anything major aside from software/hardware upgrades. Based on the article it sounds like WVTM didn't necessarily have to make a lot of infrastructure changes given that a lot of their hardware was in place. Assuming everything was up to date it seems like they just need to handle the ingest of content and hire master control operators to build the playlists and monitor the programming. There have to be other things I'm missing but the point I'm trying to make is that WVTM was in a much better position to get off the hub as most of the equipment was already in place handling day to day operations.

I'm guessing WJCL is going to take some time. From what I've read about LIN is that they went the central casting route where everything was played out from one of two hubs. I believe everything is played out from from the HUB and there is no equipment at the station. Based on this I assume they are focusing on building a master control first. Look at how quickly Fox was able to hub KTVU and how long it's taking WFXT to get off the Fox's hub. It's been what at least six months?

I was honestly surprised that they were still testing. I haven't seen any updated updated letters from the FCC extending their authority which was originally granted 13 February 2013.

USA Today's is a what? https://twitter.com/usatoday/status/592082069188141056

It definitely appears that second run episodes on WFMZ are two weeks delayed after checking the original air date. I've wondered in the past why the episodes WBAL airs at 3AM are not the prior days and you helped me make the connection. It appears this is the case at most of the NBC stations that carry first run episodes of the show (including WCAU) air these second run episodes at 3AM. Would WCAU's second run overnights infringe on WFMZ's "exclusivity" or do second runs not include this protection? I assume the 3AM viewing brings in so little in viewership that WFMZ simply does not care or has no legal standing combined with the fact that Steve Harvey is distributed by NBCUniversal. It appears that NBCUniversal TV Distribution requires / urges many stations that air first run episodes to air the second run episodes as well on either their main channel or a duopoly when they can. One example is WFTV's first run at 9 AM and WRDQ's second run at 9 PM.

I like to think her "hacking" as her kids finding her Bluetooth keyboard / mouse who decided to drive their mother crazy. One of her other things she complained about was a loose wire hanging out / near her Fios box in her backyard. I can't tell you how often cable/phone company contractors leave wires in your back yard following an install.

Did they send most of their microwave trucks to the scrap yard? I know bonded cellular is neat but with microwave you can use it all you want and not have to pay for overtime (maybe gas and fcc licensing fees).

For some reason when I googled Tegna I misspelled it and got this result Tenga (NSFW - no pornography but it's definitely something you shouldn't be looking at at work). Did anyone at Gannett ever think of googling their new name (and misspellings) and seeing what similar results might come up? From now on when I hear the name Tegna I will think of those sex toys. Thanks Gannett for putting my head in the gutter.

Tonight Lester is in LA. The cold open started out in the large studio that's used mainly for msnbc and CNBC. Then Lester broadcasted most of the show from the anchor desk in the newsroom. Finally the last block was back into the other side of msnbc/cnbc studio where the RP walls that look similar to those in 3B.

God comcast is really upping their game with sports rights in Philadelphia at least. Sure most games regular season games won't air on the channel but you will basically get preferential treatment for everything. I'm curious does this include games /programs on WWSI? Then again is the Spanish language audience big enough to translate a few games a year.