Age: 27
Occupation: broadcast giant
Last Seen: Irving, Texas
Bee-otched For: airing a football game the hard way
Sadly, climate change is a reality, but at least hell is freezing over.
After decades of being the laughingstock of the NFL, the Detroit Lions had a good season. But on January 21, people in Grand Rapids learned the hard way on how bad things really are at their beloved NBC affiliate, WOOD-TV 8.
During the NFC Divisional, with a little over five minutes on the clock before halftime, the screen stuttered until it went pitch black.
I, like many watching the game, thought, "Probably just a burp in the satellite. It'll be back in a few seconds."
Well, a few seconds became a few minutes. Thankfully, I have LazerTV, which had several channels devoted to the game. Periodically, I checked with TV 8 and it was either a blank screen or a pixelated NBC feed with both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking announcers.
Halftime came and my dog and I rushed out to Hungry Howie's for pizza. We got back and 8 was improving, but far from perfect. I was told that 8 was picking their feed straight from WNBC New York while they were fixing their snafu.
Later on, they were airing the straight feed from NBC. I could tell because, during the time they were supposed to be airing local spots, the feed was showing peacocks changing color with the NBC chimes playing over and over. Basically, it's designed to tell viewers that their local affiliate is asleep at the switch.
By the end of the game, the bugs were worked out and WOOD-TV was back to normal. During the game, angry viewers - me included - took to the socials to bitch about WOOD-TV's lackluster performance during the game. I even joked that the Lions are All Grit while WOOD-TV was All Shit.
So, what caused the meltdown at WOOD-TV? It all boils down to the heart of any TV station: the master control.
Traditionally, stations have a master control room or MCR. It's where someone sits in front of a machine called the switcher and they switch from a network feed to commercials and back. Back in the olden days, commercials were either on film, live, or on videotape. Also, there were no computers. Everything was manual.
Usually, the FCC-mandated top-of-the-hour ID was on a slide with a live announcer saying the station's call sign and community of license, like "Television Three, WXXX Buttfuckville. It's eight o'clock." At exactly 7:59:59, the man at the switcher would hit the button to go back to the network on time for either the CBS bong or NBC buzzer that symbolized that it was the top of the hour (I don't think ABC had a TOH noise, but prove me wrong).
Well, times have changed and most MCRs are now automated. The days of film and tape are long gone and so is having a live body in the MCR. Years ago in the 00s, I was watching a hockey game on WOOD-TV when the NBC feed went out. The switcher quickly re-established the feed with a little something extra: a weather bug on the corner of the screen from Detroit's WDIV.
Bumming another station's feed is nothing new in the world of television. As a matter of fact, it's been going on since the early days of the medium. Up until the mid-80s, most stations received network programming from AT&T's Long Line system. However, there were notable exceptions because of territorial reasons, namely stations in Alaska and Hawaii. Until satellite became the normal for network programming, those stations had to rely on the US Mail. Usually, those in the non-continental US had to wait a week after they originally aired on the mainland.
My childhood TV stations in northern Michigan had to rely on microwave signals until satellite became commonplace. NBC affiliate WPBN-TV 7&4 relayed WOOD-TV or Bay City's WNEM-TV 5 (now with CBS). CBS-er WWTV 9&10 was linked to Kalamazoo's WKZO-TV 3 (now WWMT and ironically WPBN's sister station today) since both stations were owned by John Fetzer. Lastly, WGTU ABC 29&8 hooked with Flint's WJRT 12 or Grand Rapids' WZZM 13, depending on their schedule.
Being a master control operator in the Traverse City area wasn't totally easy, especially when it came to network programming. If one of their sources down in Southern Michigan had weather problems and they had to put a W on the lower left corner of the screen, the TC station would have to put a graphic on the screen that the warning was for the Grand Rapids region. Sometimes, northern Michiganders were subject to seeing logo bugs of downstate stations be immediately covered by the logos of 7&4, 9&10, or 29&8. And if, let's say WOOD-TV had to break into programming for a special report, master control at 7&4 would have to dial a telephone number to switch over to WNEM.
And yes, atmospheric conditions weren't always a friend to those manning the stations up north, either. I even read an old newspaper article about the fuzziness of the ABC shows on 29&8 in the late 70s. It turned out that one of the stations that relayed WJRT was not working correctly.
Back to WOOD-TV, I fondly remember a few days after that hockey game, they were still having issues with their satellite and WDIV was their wingman. But sometimes, a wingman can't be there all the time. During their late-night lineup of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Late Night With Conan O'Brien, the satellite took a dump again. At the same time, WDIV was airing a special report of a massive fire at an old automobile plant. Poor 'ol WOOD-TV had to re-air their 11 pm news, telling viewers that they were experiencing technical difficulties. They briefly aired Conan, only to go back to the news because WDIV returned to their special report.
Now, on a day like that Sunday, if the NBC feed bailed on WOOD-TV, the switcher would immediately flip over to WDIV, and all of West Michigan would be joyous. But it wasn't meant to be.
During the olden days, WOOD-TV was owned by LIN Media, which owned a few dozen TV stations. In 2003, LIN did some cost-cutting and moved WOOD-TV's master control to then-sister station WISH-TV in Indianapolis. WOOD-TV and WISH-TV were sold to Media General in 2014 and WOOD-TV was sold to Nexstar two years later. However, WISH-TV had to be spun off since Nexstar purchased stronger CBS affiliate WTTV beforehand (WISH lost CBS in 2014 in a contract dispute and is now the market's CW affiliate; bear in mind that CW is majority-owned by Nexstar). Because of this, the hub was moved to WTTV, and WISH-TV was sold to local black businessman DuJuan McCoy.
Allegedly, Nexstar had 16 hubs at one point, but it's now down to five. At times, watching WOOD-TV is like watching an amateur hour rife with mistakes galore. Many times when it's time for the station to air local spots, they wait a little too long. Maybe it's because the poor person who's running the station in Indy is also watching many other of Nexstar's stations.
Shortly after the Lions clobbered the Bucs 31-23, WOOD-TV aired their Sunday evening newscast. They had reporters all over the area attending watch parties and interviewing excited Lions fans happy that for the first time since 1957, they'll be playing for the NFC title. Very briefly during the newscast did anchor Amanda Porter - a young black woman whose delivery resembles Paul Shaffer's impersonation of rock music impresario Don Kirschner on 1970s SNL - apologize for the technical embarrassment.
This only adds to WOOD-TV's embarrassments in recent years. Last year, the station made headlines when news director Stanton Tang and his assistant, Amy Fox were fired for a leaked memo telling producers and reporters to lay off talking about LGBTQ+ issues during Pride Month out of concern for their conservative viewers. The two producers who leaked the memo, Luke Stier and Madeline Odle were also fired. The station went through a roller coaster of staff changes, especially in the weather department when long-time morning weather girl Terri DeBoer left the station after some 30 years to become the director of communications for Jacobs Financial (which makes perfect sense since Jacobs uses Allianz, who financed the Holocaust; Terri made headlines when she hosted an expensive fundraiser for Dick DeVos' aborted gubernatorial run in 2006). WOOD-TV kinda had to fake their forecasts by outsourcing them from Texas-based Brian James, an intern at the station in the 1990s.
Of course, times have changed over the years regarding how a TV or radio station can be run. Once upon a time, a station HAD to have their master control in their community of license. Not anymore. As a matter of fact, WCHY 97.7 in Cheboygan's studio is by Torch Lake, about 77 miles away and way out of the station's broadcast range. It also doesn't help that the station's owner, "Trucker" Randy Bishop is a convicted felon and uses his wife as the de facto owner of the station. Thankfully, at last check, a convicted felon cannot own a broadcast outlet in America.
Thanks to the FCC, the world of broadcasting is supposed to be a good one for the assholes who run radio and TV stations and the shareholders who own them. The viewers and listeners? Not so much. Because of this, we no longer have truly fair and balanced reporting. Too many important stories get broomed under the rug and it's up to independents - like me whenever possible - to tell the truth.
Nexstar is just another evil media company loaded with shell companies to take over more TV stations. Recently, they purchased 75% of CW while the other 25% is still owned by its founders, Warner Bros. and CBS. As a matter of fact, CBS dumped CW from all of their stations, including Detroit's WKBD-TV 50, which is now an independent.
Not only did CW programming move to WADL-TV 38 in the Motor City, but they also announced that they were buying the station through their shell company, Mission Broadcasting. However, WADL's owner, Kevin Adell personally pulled CW from the schedule after he claimed that the network missed payments to him. Not only that, he claimed that the sale between him and Nexstar was going "very slowly".
It's also noted that there's nepotism at Nexstar. It happens so that company founder and president Perry Sook's son - who has the same name - works as a reporter at the company's WPIX channel 11 in New York City.
Nexstar also owns the cable network Newsnation, formerly the cable version of Chicago's WGN-TV. In 2019, Nexstar purchased Tribune Media, which owned WGN, along with the aforementioned WPIX and KTLA channel 5 Los Angeles. Tribune also owned WXMI Fox 17 here in Grand Rapids. But, since Nexstar already owns two full-power TV stations in the West Michigan broadcasting market - the other being WOTV 41 out of Battle Creek - it had to be spun off. WXMI was sold to Scripps.
One more terrible story about WOOD-TV and its reputation is one that I've wanted to tell for years. I have a friend who worked at a place that boarded dogs. During the pandemic at work, this person received a phone call from an angry customer who was on vacation in Petoskey with their significant other. This person SCREAMED at my friend, demanding that their two dogs - who were being boarded at the time - get a free grooming and a wash. My friend even told this person that it was against company policy because if they got free services, then other customers would be given the same treatment.
The person on the other line screamed harder. "DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM?!?" I don't remember the outcome of the conversation, but it changed how I looked at this angry customer for the rest of my life.
Now, the reason why I can tell you the story is because my friend no longer works in the pet hospitality business. But, back then, my friend was only making $15-16 per hour and living in a tiny apartment while this angry customer lived in a home on a lake and made way more than my friend.
And that angry customer was none other than WOOD-TV news anchor Susan Shaw.
To stir the pot even more, allegedly, other local news people used that same facility to board their pets. According to my friend, only one of those people was friendly, and it was former reporter and weekend anchor Leon Hendrix.
The truth is that if I owned a TV station, I would outsource as extremely little as possible. And that means master control. If the network feed is broken, I don't want 40-odd stations in the dark. I would hire people with experience and train the inexperienced to be experienced. I would also pay these people a good, livable wage and set a good example for the broadcast industry. I understand that social media can make or break anything and Nexstar fucked up royally. The only people I applaud are those who re-established the NBC feed for WOOD-TV in a fair amount of time. They were the true rock stars that day.
Aside from the Lions, of course.
---
Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com
Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
No comments:
Post a Comment