Monthly Archive for August, 2005

Ooops

Kinda ran out of bandwith there for a moment. Thanks for bogging my site down you bunch of downloaders :) - 42GB for the Month of August. Not bad, could be worse :)
I guess the Chad Myers video is very popular with the crowds

The Chad Myers video

If you haven’t seen it by now here it is, the video is very popular, but I think it’s done in a joking way.
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers got interrupted by Carol Costello and he seemingly “yelled” at her.
I think it was done in a joking way but that’s just me

Download video (Quicktime required)

WFOR Katrina footage around the world

I was streaming some news from back home in Bulgaria, from bTV when they ran a news update showing the hurricane damage in New Orleans and what do you know, WFOR’s footage made it on the air. They also showed Bourboun street sign and a broken window of a police cruiser, not sure if that video was from CBS4.

My country too has been dealing with massive floods for the first time in decades, except there we have huge mountains and several villages were buried in avalanches of mud from the mountains. The weather has definitly gone crazy this year.

The local stations, although very weak in their coverage compared with here, have special phone lines and SMS numbers you can call to donate money. Every time you call or SMS you get charged 1BGL to your phone bill.

Video: UPN33 This Morning Promo


A sassy promo for UPN33 News This Morning. I think I might set the DVR and see what these girls are up to, looks like it’s a more relaxed version of CBS4 News This Morning.

640×360, 3.80MB, WMV format - DOWNLOAD VIDEO

Maybe not so boring NBC6 anymore

An insider tells me that WTVJ-NBC6 have hired a new assitant news director. What is interesting to note here is that this isn’t just another new hire. This person comes from WHDH where he was an Executive Producer. Before joining WHDH that same person worked at WFOR, and before that at WSVN.

Notice a trend here? If you’ve watched NBC6 lately you’d notice them trying to be edgier and faster paced, take this into account plus this new assistant news director and you’ll see how he or she fits into the overall picture and when you mix it well and let it sit what do you get? You get something that looks and talks like WFOR and WSVN, but it’s on NBC6. No more sleepy news? We’ll see. I was told he/she is “very aggressive and extremely competitive” don’t be surprised to see NBC6 being more hyper than usual.

WFOR footage on CNN

I’m watching Larry King Live and noticed CNN is using a lot of video from WFOR. I believe Brian Andrews and crew are somewhere around New Orleans.

Video: Post hurricane coverage promos

I have WPLG’s promo. DVR is recording CBS4 right now and I have pre-recorded video from yesterday so expect to see them here soon.

New eyecandy on 7

They just introed a new bump on 7 during the 5:30pm newscast. “Other News” - it’s all blue, with chrome text, a flat background that has a spinning circle behind the text. And it has the new font, same one used in the hurricane graphics, which I suspect will make it into the new graphics package. Looks very nice

WFOR’s Jason Wheeler off till next week


One of the insiders just emailed me to say that CBS4’s Jason Wheeler will be off untill next week. Sand got in one of his eyes and scratched the cornea. Jason was reporting from Deerfield Beach last night neary the beach where the wind was blowing a lot of sand. Using gogles in the future might not be a bad idea.

Stations still on altered schedule

WPLG said they are going to have special coverage from 8pm to 10pm, and a special hour-long newscast at 11pm.
WSVN - Special edition of 7News Today in Florida Saturday Edition from 7am to 10am

  • 7 will broadcast whatever football game is on at 8pm
  • 7News is going with aftermath coverage from 7pm to 8pm - Craig and Lynn anchoring

WFOR - is preempting CBS Evening news and currently has aftermath coverage right now

  • still on the air at 7:04pm

WTVJ - is preempting NBC Nightly news for aftermath coverage on right now

  • looks like they are on with special coverage as well at 7pm - Segreto/Yarbough anchoring

The WPLG/WSVN tag

Some might have wondered why on the fly-over video of damage in the area you’ve seen on 7 and 10 there’s a tag in the corner saying WPLG/WSVN. The two stations have made a pool arrangement to give the choppers and the crews some break while covering storm related damage. One station’s chopper crew would fly a few hours, go down to refuel and take a break while the other station would be up getting video footage for a few hours and so on. This isn’t permanent, probably for just a couple of days.

For those who watched the FTAA riots stations pooled their choppers then as well and sometimes you saw the same live video on a couple stations

Update: I’m watching WPLG’s coverage of the huge warehouse fire from earlier today, around 5pm, and it looks like they tapped both 7Skyforce and Sky10’s video. They had shots from WSVN’s chopper upclose from the scene, and then they’d switch to what I think it was Sky10 from the distance showing the fire. Then when both choppers were near each other 10 kept switching back and forth showing different angles

9:12pm WFOR on generators?

Brian Norcross was interviewing Max Mayfield from the Hurricane center and he said they, CBS4, were “running on power”. So I’m guessing with the worst of the hurricane hitting CBS4 directly they may be on generators at the moment

We’re without power

Power here went out. Bad storm

8:10pm WSVN knocked off the air

It’s 8:14pm and they’ve been on color bars for the last 5 minutes.

Update: 8:20pm Our power is coming on and off. 7news is permanently off the air with a full screen graphic

8:37pm: WSVN are broadcasting WFLX-29 the FOX affiliate in Palm Beach

8:52pm they are back on the air. They have lost power in the plex.

Watching the Hurricane online

WFOR - cbs4.com via
WTVJ - live coverage stream (Windows Media player)
WSVN - Weather computer map loop (Windows Media Player) - 7news live stream low resolution only
WPLG - no live video that I can find on the site

Hurricane 24/7

Everyone has hurricane coverage on with ad breaks. Cought NBC6 already with a promo about the coverage promoting Weather Plus with it.
Choice quote: Brian Norcross ” …here’s a very nice circular shape about it. Nice in terms of what the storm might think about itself in some sense”

Im running around the channels if I get that NBC6 promo I might post it

Update: 7’s signal keeps fading out on Comcast, both Digital and broadcast would fade to black for a couple seconds and come back

5:59pm - WFOR’s Evan Bacon and his cameraman lost a camera and are now broadcasting with a “handycam”. The large pro camera took on a lot of sand from the shots I they showed on the air.
6:49pm - WFOR’s Evan Bacon choice quote: “Sand in places you can never imagine”
6:55pm - WSVN has lost the digital signal. Comcast 213 DWSVN doesn’t come up
8:05pm 7News got knocked completely off the air in the middle of Phil Ferro’s forecast. They’re showing ads right now and the crawler in the bottom is frozen.

The just rejoined at 8:08pm Belkys Nerey just said that they lost power and the signal was lost again.

8:11pm 7news is on color bars. No signal!
9:02pm: choice quote WSVN’s Patrick Frasier: “I had so much sand in my mouth but even that didn’t shut me up”, “If they didn’t pay me to be out here I wouldn’t even be out here, I’d be at home …”

8-25
4:23am NBC6 has Julia Yarbough and Tony Segreto on. The’ve been on for at least 15 hours it seems. Segreto looks and talks very sleepy. Julia too but she was awesome all during the coverage. The morning news teams at the other stations have taken over, WPLG is running ads, WSVN is commercial free, WFOR I think has ads every once in a while.

5:29am: CBS4’s Elliot Rodriguez’s brand new car her picked up on Thursday suffered a broken window on the front passenger side when a tree fell near the CBS4 parking lot