WPVI - 2006 - For The Engineering And Production Crews...

A series of clips from about January of 2006. WPVI was in the midst of preparing for HD news; this involved the installation of new equipment and the building of a new set. While working on this, something went wrong - a series of technical problems rendered the studio at least partially unusable. This did not deter them from doing the 5pm and 6pm news as scheduled.

This is a fascinating example of "guerilla newscasting". Rick and Monica are shoved into a corner of the newsroom, with no prompter, desk, or more than a single camera shot. OTS graphics are likewise out of the question. All weather forecasts came from the patio, not just the 5pm "weather outside". Traffic also originated there, and not from the recently-installed greenscreen. Any other segments that would have originated from the studio were done in wherever part of the building they could shove a camera into.

By 5:45, things had recovered enough so that the late Gary Papa could deliver his sports update, and at 6 Jim Gardner was in studio. But there were still some problems; camera movement was limited and Dave Roberts remained at the patio for his weather forecast. I think there were some prompter issues as well as Jim seems to be looking at his script a little more than usual.

At the end of what had to have been a grueling 90 minutes, Jim Gardner delivers his closing.... with one notable addition.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• WPVI
• 2006
• Action
• News
• Technical
• Problems

[hkfreak]

That must have been fun. The new graphics looked VERY primitive indeed back then.

[HulkieD]

It's 6. They didn't put effort into their graphical look until shortly after this was recorded. Funnily enough I think they've had the best look in the market for awhile now.

[zoco316]

WPVI still hads technical problems,WPVI needs a new Engineer! NO OVER THE AIR BROADCAST! HD LOL

[ariw2003net]

Now that YouTube no longer has a 10-minute limit, do you think you could upload a little bit more of this? It's quite an interesting/unusual scenario.

Did things recover by 11?

[philaman1972]

Excellent job. That's why they've been the leader in the market for 30+ yrs.

[AshburnStadium]

Rick & Monica's accommodations remind me of a line used by the genie in "Aladdin" - "phenomenal cosmic powers...itty bitty living space!"

(of course, they would mention that Aladdin was a Disney movie and that Disney owns 6abc)

The late Gary Papa and the just-retired Dave Roberts will be greatly missed by Philadelphians.

Channel 6 has a problem with breaking news - GET IT FIXED! ;-)

With that night's problems, the news was quite broken. The Action News crew did one Hell of a job, though.

[PanamaCityTV]

This is when they were moving the old studio into Studio B to make room for the new set

[FOXSportsFan]

I remember this fairly well. Sadly, I think the lighting which obviously was rigged up last second for the 6pm newscast looked better than what they usually used.