WXmanTim 88 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 A fire on the second floor of the WOAI building near downtown San Antonio has knocked the station off the air. The station reports the blaze broke out around 5 AM this morning. At the time, they were carrying the installation Mass of Pope Francis instead they were in the middle of their early morning news, and cut to the NBC feed of the Pope's mass when they evacuated (TVSpy's post, where I got the information initially, was a bit confusing). Everyone was evacuated and there were no injuries. A video on the site shows the damage was contained to the Traffic offices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 http://foxsanantonio.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/vid_14685.shtml KABB give coverage of the fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 MySA.com (The San Antonio Express-News) reports the station resumed broadcasting about 11:15 this morning. They are hoping to produce a 5pm newscast, but the paper reports it may be done outside. The newsroom and studio is apparently on the opposite side of the building from the affected offices, but I'm sure the smell of smoke is overwhelming throughout the building. Since they and Fox29 are co-owned, I wonder why they don't just produce their evening newscasts out of the KABB building for the time being. Fox29 doesn't have early evening newscasts, so their studio space would be free at 5 and 6. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 https://www.facebook.com/News4WOAI They are building a temporary stage and they are going to prepare a special 4pm newscast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Are the broadcasts streamed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Are the broadcasts streamed? They never put up a livestream of their newscast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Here is their temporary outdoor set. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152667907845072&set=a.10151075538515072.777960.128869045071&type=1&theater Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scranton 23 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 I believe the politically correct term here is "thermal incident." A fire on the second floor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Maybe this is a bad omen for Sinclair! (I hope so... 'Buyer beware of studios that catch fire') Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.L. Hughes 752 Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 MySA.com (The San Antonio Express-News) reports the station resumed broadcasting about 11:15 this morning. They are hoping to produce a 5pm newscast, but the paper reports it may be done outside. The newsroom and studio is apparently on the opposite side of the building from the affected offices, but I'm sure the smell of smoke is overwhelming throughout the building. Since they and Fox29 are co-owned, I wonder why they don't just produce their evening newscasts out of the KABB building for the time being. Fox29 doesn't have early evening newscasts, so their studio space would be free at 5 and 6. That's kind of the thing, if that did happen, that could have possibly given Sinclair an out to permanently consolidate of the operations of WOAI with KABB/KMYS much sooner. The interesting thing is that Sinclair hasn't merged the operations of their San Antonio, Mobile-Pensacola and Beaumont station clusters yet, which is quite surprising but also good for the employees of the separate operations, since some of them still have jobs. Luckily, the fire was largely contained to one section of the WOAI building, it could have been worse. CTV O&O CJOH in Ottawa (Canada's capital city) had its studios severely damaged by a fire in 2010 (the station's tape archives were lost in the blaze). CJOH had no choice but to move in with their A (now CTV Two) O&O sister station CHRO, which usually goes against CRTC regulations for large market "twinsticks" (the Canadian equivalent of a duopoly), that require two stations to maintain separate operations as they still operate of the same building to this day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CircleSeven 1944 Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 That's kind of the thing, if that did happen, that could have possibly given Sinclair an out to permanently consolidate of the operations of WOAI with KABB/KMYS much sooner. The interesting thing is that Sinclair hasn't merged the operations of their San Antonio, Mobile-Pensacola and Beaumont station clusters yet, which is quite surprising but also good for the employees of the separate operations, since some of them still have jobs. Add West Palm Beach to the list of markets, as they still haven't consolidate there after the Four Points Media/Freedom acquisitions last year. But you know what? I was thinking yesterday and thought someone could of possibly deliberately do that so Sinclair wouldn't have to pay the bills for two facilities. I said couple of months ago after they'd announce that operations would stay the same for both WOAI & KABB, that I don't buy anything Sinclair says. If the fire would've been worst, that would've been Sinclair's time to shine to start consolidating. Maybe they don't want a huge backlash in killing alot of jobs away at least right now, unlike we heard from the Nexstar acquired stations where layoffs have already occured. But I'm not holding my breath on this 'status quo', keeping separate ops. In my gut feeling. consolidations will come in a snap of finger. Just be patient. It's gonna happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4169 Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 That's kind of the thing, if that did happen, that could have possibly given Sinclair an out to permanently consolidate of the operations of WOAI with KABB/KMYS much sooner. The interesting thing is that Sinclair hasn't merged the operations of their San Antonio, Mobile-Pensacola and Beaumont station clusters yet, which is quite surprising but also good for the employees of the separate operations, since some of them still have jobs. Luckily, the fire was largely contained to one section of the WOAI building, it could have been worse. CTV O&O CJOH in Ottawa (Canada's capital city) had its studios severely damaged by a fire in 2010 (the station's tape archives were lost in the blaze). CJOH had no choice but to move in with their A (now CTV Two) O&O sister station CHRO, which usually goes against CRTC regulations for large market "twinsticks" (the Canadian equivalent of a duopoly), that require two stations to maintain separate operations as they still operate of the same building to this day. KREX in Grand Junction had it just as bad in 2008 when their studios burned to the ground. They lost everything but the transmitter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.L. Hughes 752 Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 San Antonio Fire officials apparently believe the fire was likely caused by an electrical short. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 WOAI moved to KABB's studio yesterday temporarily until the cleanup process is complete. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151499438917445&set=a.353923047444.154727.343035347444&type=1&relevant_count=1 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152675586685072.1073741826.128869045071&type=1 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151499377077445&set=a.353923047444.154727.343035347444&type=1&relevant_count=1 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=227982254008751&set=a.164715680335409.38997.164633490343628&type=1&relevant_count=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidwestTV 1173 Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 i cannot help but feel that the KABB set looks better with WOAI's logo on it, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted March 24, 2013 Share Posted March 24, 2013 And if you go to WOAI's website, they are using Sinclair's standard graphics temporarily as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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