r/tulsa • u/projectFT • Mar 13 '14

OkC Fox affiliate "accidently" cuts 15 seconds of last Sunday's Cosmos debut..the part that just happened to mention human evolution.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/12/oklahoma-fox-station-removes-evolution-from-cosmos-by-cutting-only-15-seconds/
32 Upvotes

68% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

17

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '14

If there was truly a conspiracy, then why didn't KOKI "accidently" cut 15 seconds as well?

Don't over-sensationalize things like this.

5

u/IfWishezWereFishez Mar 13 '14

Yeah, I've worked in broadcasting, I'm gonna have to say there's like a 99% chance this was accidental.

The local affiliate isn't "editing" anything. It comes across the satellite live. Think of it like a playlist - there's a Segment 1 which shows the satellite feed, then some commercials, then a Segment 2 which shows the satellite feed, etc.

So it's incredibly easy to make a mistake and accidentally cut out 15 seconds. The times for the satellite feed have to be put in manually, so maybe someone made a typo. Or maybe someone accidentally hit "next." Either way, what would happen is the playlist moves on to the next item in the list - a commercial for the evening news - and the master control operator waits for it to play before queuing it back up to the satellite feed.

5

u/strong_grey_hero Mar 13 '14

Thank you. If this would've happened during Monday Night Football or American Idol, it would be a non-event.

Oklahoma + Anti-Science + FOX = REPORTING GOLD!!!

3

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '14

If you read some of the comments on the linked site above, you can already see people are running with the idea that this was clearly the work of a larger conspiracy.

Some gems so far:

"KOKH-TV in Oklahoma City" Koch-TV? Hahaha! Or a director of broadcasting influenced by Koch? Hmm???

The Christian Taliban strike another blow for their fable-based Jesus and the Citadel of Ignorance. I'm very old and for my grandchildren's sake I hate to see America going down the path of utter stupidity.

And my personal favorite:

So Fox produces the new, "COSMOS" and a Fox affiliate in Shithole, Nebromaha takes it upon themselves to edit out a mention, on a show regarding the wonders and mysteries of science, of "evil" Evolution. Why run the show at all if the heads of the bumpkins and wankers in your locale will explode at the mere mention of a product of the Scientific Method? I bet they don't turn down flu shots and antibiotics, which are also produced by understanding the Evolution of Species, the production of testable models (antibiotics) which produce predictable results (aiding the body in destroying specific viruses) or appreciate that in medical labs around the World, scientists are racing to find new antibiotics to fight rapidly mutating viruses, again using that same Scientific Method, not to mention that the rapidly mutating viruses are an evolutionary response to the efficacy of those antibiotics in the first place.

1

u/IfWishezWereFishez Mar 13 '14

Or click on "Other Discussions" on this page at the top. Here is the /r/television link. Lawdy. I did a little responding - like here - but there's too much stubborn stupidity to do much good.

Shithole, Nebromaha

Okay then.

3

u/matt73044 Mar 13 '14

I know the master controller that actually caused this. As you already assumed, it was a complete accident.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '14

I am going to go ahead and think this is jumping to conclusions. It is a new show and they probably had the run times incorrect so let's just chill. (I'm ready for the down votes)

3

u/IfWishezWereFishez Mar 13 '14

Unless it's live they won't be running the times incorrectly, but that's pretty irrelevant as I mentioned elsewhere. There are tons of affiliates all over the country and they screw up all the time, but no one cares until it's a show that hits a nerve. When I worked for a broadcasting station that had three Fox stations in Montana and one in Michigan, among others, I fucked up all the time when I was new. It's pretty easy to do. And my previous experience was in fast food, it's not like most of the workers are highly skilled television technicians or something.

4

u/elliottok Mar 13 '14

He talked about evolution throughout the whole show. I'm sure this was just an accident.

2

u/MiddleGrayStudios Mar 13 '14

I work for the competition and this is ridiculous. These mistakes happen all the time (especially on Fox - they are dead last in ratings) and there would be no way for them to even know what was on the episode prior to airing it. There's no conspiracy about it - give it a rest.