Contingencies

[rkolsen 1684]

I'm wondering what sort of contingencies do networks have for news programming? I know during sports programming they will have back up programming ready to play out at a moments notice. But what would happen if say during the GMA , Today or Nightly News should something major knock them off air during live programming like something that would knock out the entire control room of broadcast infrastructure?

 

I have heard there's correspondent and a back up crew available to hobble along until they can get back on air within a few minutes. I assume when a package is sent to be played out there is a "hot backup" sent to a bureau where once they get back on air they could run a bare bones newscast.

 

If it was really bad would they playout entertainment programming or cede time to affiliates?

 

Anyo

[Journalist 894]

Stuff like this is kinda common in Canadian television in a sense. If a Canadian network is simsubbing a American network and the said network switches to a special report or in general something drastic happens without the attention of other broadcasters, the Canadian network usually plays out some filler content - like for example CITY-DT playing "Top 10 ____" when the daytime schedule was interrupted by a special report on the network they are simsubbing with.

 

So yeah, a network you are simsubbing does something without notice? - That's what Canadian networks would do.

[Weeters 1916]

This is really hard to give a specific answer to because of it's scope. Any number of things could happen to any number of failure points that could be resolved any number of ways. Every situation would be unique. In most cases, there is enough backup and redundancy in place that there wouldn't be a problem for very long, if at all.

 

The only time there are standby studio crews is when someone is doing a totally remote broadcast (foregin country, disaster zone, etc). There is not a crew at a bureau waiting for the day Today goes off the air, and I doubt they have offsite redundancy for the packages set to air unless they came from that particular origination point (i.e. if NBC had to originate from Washington DC, expect a bunch of political stories to fill time. If they were originating from LA, expect entertainment stories).

 

In the end, if a network goes dark, it is the affiliate's responsibility to fill time until it comes back. How they do that would be entirely dependent on what happened to knock them out in the first place.

[tyrannical bastard 3951]

There was an instance back during the early days of the Iraq war where ABC News left a large number of their affiliates hanging by dumping out of war coverage before 11pm. ABC notified affiliates of pre-empting the 11/10pm news so many stations sent their staffs home and didn't plan to air news that night. Some stations went to black, some aired all of their commercial blocks back to back, others hobbled together a newscast or simply aired satellite feeds until they could get something on the air.

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/21/news/war-abc21

 

 

Usually, if a live event runs over its time into local time, the "15 minute rule" applies. Shows that end before :15 or :45 give the time back to either air an abbreviated newscast or join a program in progress. Anything after usually fills to the top or bottom of the hour, although exceptions can be made for abbreviated newscasts. Network programming pushed by other live network programming shifts the shows if they are new, and if the time when a highly rated program normally airs. Otherwise, they will join it in progress to get back on schedule.

[Hexagonal10 84]

I'm sure NBC has a plan after this...