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Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

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  • Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

    Erika Engle's "The Buzz" on Tuesday tells the tale of the broadcast of one KHNL reporter's accidental expletive when she noticed her car rolling away. In the current environment, with the FCC cracking down on indecency, it's a most inconvenient goof. At least it was after 10 p.m., and not on purpose.

    Swear words or not, the story got me to thinking of some of the more memorable goofs Hawaii has witnessed (or overheard) thanks to the power of live broadcasting. Whether it's an anchor missing a camera cue in the studio or a "live on the spot" stand-up going horribly wrong, there have been a few.

    Have you any favorites? And does anyone else think the "live on the spot" thing is a bit overdone... especially when said spot is in the next studio over?

  • #2
    Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

    Originally posted by pzarquon
    Have you any favorites? And does anyone else think the "live on the spot" thing is a bit overdone... especially when said spot is in the next studio over?
    Yep. I love those live from the street spots when the "live" feed is coming from just outside the studio. KITV does this frequently with the weather... Kathy Muneno is out there in the rain and an umbrella. There are the cars on King Street... well, yes, the rain is wet, the cars are sloshing by and the weather report is live.... wow.

    Ditto KGMB's "live" shots on Kapiolani Boulevard... just outside their studio.

    One thing for sure, they get a great feed to the studio since nothing blocks the way of the transmitted signal.

    Often times live reports from other locations produce noisy signals and other technical flubs... live on air.

    Something I cannot stand on the news or just on TV is when the "tape" pixelates on the screen...you see blocky bitmap type of images for a moment... and the anchor says there is a problem with the tape... duh... do TV stations still use tape, or have they gone mostly digital????
    I'm still here. Are you?

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    • #3
      Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

      The one that makes me think was during the last tsumani scare. Someone from KHON was doing a live feed from a park that if the tsumani hit would have been flooded.

      Reporter says that you cann't outrun a tsumani so they have a car standing by with the engine running.

      Reporter was also standing on top an electrical box.

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      • #4
        Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

        Originally posted by macpro
        Do TV stations still use tape, or have they gone mostly digital????
        I thought most of 'em, if not all of 'em, are digital (didn't KITV tout their full conversion a couple of years ago?)... although I'm certain there are technical glitches that'll mess up the picture in just as many ways as an analog tape. I think they'll just refer to the problem as a "tape problem" simply because it's easier to understand than saying, "Sorry, folks, the real-time MPEG compressor had a cache overrun..."

        Originally posted by helen
        Reporter says that you cann't outrun a tsumani so they have a car standing by with the engine running.
        Oh, boy, those "bad weather" live reports are the stuff of comedy gold. "Boy, it's really coming down," they scream into their soaked microphones... just in case the rest of us in the hurricane couldn't tell for ourselves. Reporters out in hurricanes are lucky if the worst they suffer is getting drenched by a sudden, big wave.

        I've found weekend broadcasts are the best time to see the training wheels come off on local TV news. Of course, that's when the interns and newbies are running the show. It's painful, sometimes, when the anchor introduces a segment, looks thoughtfully off to the side at some nonexistant monitor... then just sits and blinks for several awful seconds while an operator somewhere is scrambling across the room to reach a "Play" button.

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        • #5
          Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

          Been helping out at a local live theatre with the lights and sounds these past few months. The sound cues are on CDs and whenever the directors (at least three different people) keep making references to the CD's, they refer to it as tapes.

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          • #6
            Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

            NBC aired a show on Wednesday night that dealt with Bloopers on live TV.

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            • #7
              Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

              Originally posted by helen
              NBC aired a show on Wednesday night that dealt with Bloopers on live TV.
              Although it wasn't live, KGMB's Angela Keen made the Dick Clark show a few years back with the infamous "cameraman on the hood of the car" blooper. While Angela was doing her report from behind the wheel, she didn't notice the stopped car in front of her, hit it from behind, and all we see is the camera fly off the car, asphalt, and a shoe. The camera guy was OK, and probably wouldn't have been fired the next day if he hadn't broken out into laughter.

              As for the earlier post, KITV uses a digital tape format,and the blocky images are a result of bad tracking, similar to what you'd see on your home VCR. Keep in mind that the digital machines they're using are already 8 years old, so probabaly attributable to wear and tear as well.

              The term "digital" has been so misused anyway....tape and analog tape for that matter still play a big role in the operations of all the TV stations.

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              • #8
                Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

                Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that one. Meanwhile, apparently Sharon Chen's bleepfest is making the rounds. A friend of a friend at a network affiliate on the West Coast reported seeing it played for the whole office during a break... and the tape had come from another station.

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                • #9
                  Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

                  Three political commentators, on MSNBC, talking about Palin when they think their microphones are off.

                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrG8w4bb3kg
                  "By concealing your desires, you may trick people into being cruel about the wrong thing." --Steven Aylett, Fain the Sorcerer
                  "You gotta get me to the tall corn." --David Mamet, Spartan
                  "
                  Amateurs talk technology, professionals talk conditions." --(unknown)

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                  • #10
                    Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

                    Does anyone remember the live morning show interview Lyle Galdeira did years ago?

                    He was on set with a cow that was standing right in front of him, a live cow mind you, and a person in a funny costume standing just behind the cow (these guys are forming a train basically with Lyle first, the cow second and the funny costume guy last)

                    If I remember right, I think Lyle was interviewing someone next to him ,and apparently, the guy in the funny costume began bumping or rubbing into the back of the cow....I think he was trying to stay in the camera shot.

                    As he's bumping the cow, the cow apparently gets aroused and starts to lick the one thing closest to its mouth...Lyle's crotch.

                    To make matters worse, once the interview was done Lyle had to toss to another KHNL story.

                    One about the male penis.
                    Last edited by pumpkinboy; September 4, 2008, 09:08 AM.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Bleep! The Pitfalls of Live TV

                      Sorry --- I only have live radio tales to share.

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