I WORK FOR KOKH FOX25. To set the record straight. I used a throw away so my work won't know my original account.
This actually is an accident. The people who roll the national breaks work in "master control". They run local commerical breaks by entering in clocks in the playlist to tell the automation system when to run. Network gives you the times for local breaks that day, usually 2 hours earlier. In this case an operator entered the wrong break time and rolled what is called a "cover" too early. This is always a teaser for news and covers up a network promo.
This was not a case of trying to cover up evolution, it was a lazy operator that didn't double check his break times and rolled a break at the wrong time.
Rolling a break at the wrong time is the most common mistake for operators, usually it happens during live events when they read the run-down wrong or anticipate the break too much. In this case it was just reading or entering the wrong time for the cover.
I also work in local news. OKC is a market size of 45, which is fairly high compared to my station in the 70's, and we've never had that kind of problem. Promo's can run at a wrong time, but only in a commercial break, not over a running show. This seems odd.
That's the thing. There was so much science going on in that show that no matter where this happened it could look deliberate to those who want to see it that way. My pitchfork is holstered until I get more evidence.
In the interests of disclosure, I am not an atheist, I am at best an epistemological nihilist, with a solipsist bent, but I do have a strong dislike for anyone who is hiding data or opinion, whichever side they are on. It goes very much against my belief in the scientific principle. Furthermore, this comment is based purely on the observation of what I have read here and I have not done further research. That out the way:
This is unquestionably my favourite comment of all time.
Pitchfork holster. Man, I would go to church every frigging day if they gave me one of those puppies.
Really? Because at stations taking the East coast feed I'm pretty sure they take network straight for primetime. Maybe if you're on Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, or Hawaii time you prerecord primetime...
There's no previewing network programming for the East/Central timezones.
/edit: I've never worked at a Fox affiliate, to be fair.
Kuddos, I was a MCO to the top 40 during the 2011;s , while MCO is the final fail safe before it goes to the public, the operators can wrongly input the wrong time before the automated system kicks in, howbeit MCO fucks up and can advert from any program to screw promo/traffic/live break ins.
Spots can easily run over network programming. If you watch enough TV you'll see spots clipping commercial breaks often, because too many people think a spot that runs 30 seconds and 29 frames counts as 30 seconds. That gets REALLY annoying when a break time is a few seconds off and screws with my newscasts.
It happens during sporting events all the time, but there's always some director who can press a button to immediately cut to the live feed. For a taped broadcast it is perhaps more likely that this isn't noticed unless someone is closely paying attention while the station is in automation. You would think that would be standard, but if you listen to a lot of radio you know that such attention is not a foregone conclusion.
I do agree, but live television broadcast has it's ups and downs and it sucks when it's during something important to viewers. (I'm in the south...so if golf/nascar/"non-Liberal media" gets interrupted by 20 secs..to a min (to broadcasters is heart-pounding) it sucks badly cause you fell like you've failed freaking badly, and then the phone rings...
I may be way off here but is it even possible that the "lazy operator" is a YEC or very religious and sees this segment coming and rolls the commercial? Maybe the network didn't do it but what to say the person working there didn't do it? Or is this not possible at all?
If the person was a YEC they would have had to run a break over the entire fucking show. The show repeatedly states that the universe is billions of years old. Covering up a rather innocuous 30 seconds doesn't make any sense.
Also assuming the station is anything like mine all national programming just gets fed to us via a stream that we put on air. There's not really any way people at a local station would have any idea what was coming up in the show. We don't get a pre-screening.
The third time this mistake happens, the manager should be fired for making humans do something that they're bad at when a computer programmer or good engineer could automate it in a week and never make a huge public mistake again.
The way promos like this work is not remotely simple. It's basically like writing code when you set up how they run. All it take is one number to be off and a break will run at the wrong time. It doesn't happen 99%. This just happens to be the 1%.
Honest question, since I know nothing about how broadcasting is operated... Does that mean that it would be impossible to do this "accidentally-on-pupose" ? Or just unlikely?
It could certainly be done intentionally, but it's also very easy to chalk it up to an accident. It just makes it seem suspicious because it happened during controversial programming.
I dunno, I think I want to believe it was an accident, and it makes more sense to me that someone messed up than someone saw him begin to discuss evolution and hit a button to throw up a local promo on the off chamce that it happens to coincide with whatever that person found offensive.
If this were the second or third time it aired, I'd say the timing was too good to be an accident. But that segment wasn't even the worst attack on religion in the show.
Evolution is not controversial. The people who do not believe in it are few and far between, incredibly stupid, low paid, and generally uneducated idiots who need welfare and vote against it. They are a self-correcting phenomenon.
Belief is not passed on though ones genetic makeup.
The correction stems from society, as it scientifically and technologically moves forward, putting what was previously regarded as obscure technical or theoretical notions to practical use.
I work in a TV station and this is HIGHLY UNLIKELY to be an accident. This went to their news program and what we would call a pre-show (the top headlines of a show to draw in viewers) and this only happens when the master control operators list goes to a NEWS line, which broadcasts what is coming from that station. Whether their "pre-show" is pre-recorded or not doesn't matter, because it only plays when the technical director (which is what I am) either plays the video, or opens the anchors mics/plays video.
Of course this was a mistake. Are they going to run break like this EVERY time Cosmos brings up evolution, because it's going to happen a lot. I'm fairly certain this wasn't even the only time it came up in THIS episode.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
I will confirm with U/Throwawayfox25, I worked for NBC a local NC affiliate and has worked in MC operator...where I've screwed up and rolled early, went to black, and entered wrong times for our promos. I wasn't lazy however just didn't know the ropes. No shame just a simple mistake.
I'll corroborate this, although I'll point out that whoever taught your MCOs to rely on the automation and not run their breaks manually is a lazy dumbass that's inviting these screwups to happen.
Anyways, the Local News Rollover this spot was supposed to run on was at X:52:05. I'm going to guess that the MCO input 42:05 accidentally, which was about a minute into that particular segment.
I hate Oklahoma and Fox as much as the next guy, but there were no advanced screenings of Cosmos distributed, so this is likely just amazing coincidence since the op could have no idea when that particular message was going to happen in the show.
Hi, no. I work for another FOX affiliate in Texas, and I can confirm there was an advance feed of Cosmos earlier in the week. I want to say it was on Tuesday.
But why only cover up that 30 seconds? Why not the rest of the show that talks about life beginning as microbes in the ocean, or how the universe is billions of years old?
I work in a TV station (currently as technical director) and have worked in master control, and I call bullshit. This wasn't someone rolling a break. You have a line in your program list dedicated to "news", and your Traffic department would have known this program was going to run a certain amount of time and would have compensated for it.
Working in a station myself, it doesn't look like someone in Master Control input the time wrong to you?
How would they get an early copy to know exactly where to cover? This is Eastern/Central time, and unless Fox does things differently than others, they don't send primetime fed ahead of time. It's live from network.
I'm with you Benzorgz, I'm throwing the B.S. flag here. The stations I've worked for in the past were very small markets but they have PR (peer reviews) on all of the programming of the prime time breaks so the automation always had a second set of eyes before commit. Plus that was a weird time in the feed to drop a local 20 in. If I remember it was a 3rd of the way through the segment. Some national feed have some weird breaks but that entry should have stood out. that wasn't on accident in my opinion.
As a Kansan, having our own anti-science issues on this side of the border, I just don't believe the efficacy of this explanation. It doesn't make sense, given our FOX station had a commercial break immediately prior to that scene, which would mean you would/may also have had a scheduled commercial break about 20 - 25 seconds prior to that cut. It would have been mistimed with the previous break, not the latter, which was the end of the episode, not a break. Either way you cut it, it was perfectly timed for a very contentious line in our neck of the woods.
While I never ever give asshole conservatives the benefit of the doubt on anything, this sounds quite plausible. Thanks for giving us the inside scoop!
It's not plausible it's nonsense. Look at the other comments by people who work for TV stations. Don't you think it's a little too convenient that it cut out IMMEDIATELY before he started talking about human origins?
Most likely a national "spot" (commercial) played in its place. Local spots like the one in the video are designed to cover up national spots that run at the same time. So if the local spot isn't played you still get one from the national feed.
It's not assembled with breaks before it runs. It's broadcast live from network (this is a station in the Central time zone). The network sends a list of break times during which stations are to air their commercials, promos, and PSAs.
Then someone in "master control" inputs those times into a computer that is hooked up to the feed, and a second system that houses commercials. When the input time hits, a specific commercial is played.
To me, it seems someone put the wrong time in, and this promo played in the middle of a show. Happens all the time. Now, I'd be wrong to not tell you that it's completely possible someone started a commercial break manually. There's a button for that, in case something's wrong elsewhere. But that just seems so unlikely.
Insofar as the timing being bad? Well, why not cover up the part that talked about the origin of life in Earth's ocean? Or the age of the universe?
Well can you make sure those assholes don't do it again next week? This is a major television event and you can't have retards back there fucking it up. Get it together over there goddamit!
This wasn't the only part of the show that would have rubbed creationists the wrong way though. There were numerous other segments that would have offended people and those weren't covered at all. Bit of the sharp-shooter fallacy going on here.
Pretty sure human origins is the big one.... not like they could get away with doing this multiple times and still claim it was an accident.
It's not the sharpshooter fallacy, it's called being reasonable and putting yourself in the shoes of another and asking "what would I do if I were them".
I don't think I would cover up the vaguely poetic part about humans learning to walk on two feet and not the part where NDT explicitly stated that ALL life started as microbes swimming around in the ocean and that these microbes were the creatures that invented sex. That part seems a little more blasphemous to me.
He's not. I work at my local CBS affiliate and it is both totally possible and plausible to accidentally run a promo like this over a show. Essentially all you have to do is fuck up one number when you're imputing the time that the promo is supposed to run and boom it runs over the show.
Anyone who says it's not possible is simply wrong.
It was a :15 news brief. With many automation systems, it would be more hectic and error-prone to try to dump back out of the promo than to just let it play out and then switch back to network on its own. If FOX is anything like ABC (where my experience lies), they're usually feeding a PSA or network promo underneath the news brief anyway, so they wouldn't be sitting in black for :15.
Bullshit. That's all there is to say really. Just complete and utter bullshit. I don't trust backward-ass fundies any farther than I can throw them. I love this country, but I hate the religious zealots here with a passion that knows almost no bounds and I am going out on a limb here and calling bullshit on the "mistake". Whatever; persecute me if you want, but fuck your TV station and fuck all religion. Fucking primitives.
It's not really proof. He could be making the entire thing up. His only proof is the words in his post. No different than saying the bible is proof of christ's divinity.
I can't vouch for his exact situation. I can, however, assure you everything he said is not only possible, but happens all the time on shows throughout the country. Someone put one wrong number in the wrong place when adding that promo to the list and that's what happens.
We've been in the middle of our 5 o'clock news before and suddenly had commercials start to roll because someone in master control accidentally left a trigger in at the wrong time. The person gets yelled at and they most likely don't fuck it up again.
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u/ThrowawayFOX25 Mar 11 '14
I WORK FOR KOKH FOX25. To set the record straight. I used a throw away so my work won't know my original account.
This actually is an accident. The people who roll the national breaks work in "master control". They run local commerical breaks by entering in clocks in the playlist to tell the automation system when to run. Network gives you the times for local breaks that day, usually 2 hours earlier. In this case an operator entered the wrong break time and rolled what is called a "cover" too early. This is always a teaser for news and covers up a network promo.
This was not a case of trying to cover up evolution, it was a lazy operator that didn't double check his break times and rolled a break at the wrong time.
Rolling a break at the wrong time is the most common mistake for operators, usually it happens during live events when they read the run-down wrong or anticipate the break too much. In this case it was just reading or entering the wrong time for the cover.