• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Has a station split screened sports with breaking news?

I don’t know about split screening sports with breaking news, but IIRC (If I Remember Correctly), back on a Saturday afternoon in 2013, severe weather was coming through the Greater Atlanta, GA area. The NBA Playoffs were going on at the time on ABC affiliate WSB-TV Channel 2. I wasn’t watching the game at the time. I was listening to the radio instead. I was in my bedroom. A tornado warning was issued for east Cherokee County, GA & east Cobb County, GA. WSB Radio had their news director Chris Camp come in & announce a tornado warning had been issued for those counties. My fraternal sister & brother-in-law were visiting my mother & myself. My dad was out of town on a business trip. My sister tried to get me to go to the basement while thinking the warning applied to all of Cherokee County, GA. I turned on my TV while listening to the radio to get the alert statement from WeatherScan. WSB Radio’s chief meteorologist Kirk Mellish was out of town. When Chris Camp was done talking, WSB Radio went to outsourcing the severe weather coverage from WSB-TV’s severe weather team known as Severe Weather Team 2; This is now the radio station’s plan for every time there’s severe weather in the area whether Kirk Mellish is in town or not. I went to the den. I saw my mother, sister, & brother-in-law in the den. They had the TV on WSB-TV featuring 2 of their meteorologists, chief meteorologist Glen Burns & meteorologist Brad Nitz. It showed the radar on the TV with the alert zone that was under the tornado warning. We dodged a bullet thankfully because my parents & I live in SW Cherokee County, GA. We kept the TV on anyway for a good while. A couple of times, WSB-TV did put a square screen of the basketball game on the center right hand side of the screen. They could have done a full split screen, but they didn’t. Glen Burns was undecided on whether or not he wanted to return to the game already in progress. Eventually, from what I could tell, Glen Burns & Brad Nitz went all out and didn’t bother returning to the game already in progress. If they did return to the game already in progress, I don’t know about it. My mother changed the channel and that was the end of it all. Anyway, that is all.
 
firepoint525 said:
Channel 4 here in Nashville did that several years ago when storms rolled through on a Sunday evening. They did a split-screen with Sunday Night Football while then-meteorologist Nancy Van Camp went over all the area watches and warnings. They did not have a subchannel at that time; otherwise they probably would have put the weather information over onto a subchannel. And yes, this has been a few years now, as Nancy Van Camp is no longer with them.
Click to expand...

That must have been the precursor to Channel 2's split screen during one of the Titans' 2017 preseason games with Danielle Breezy at the helm in a small box while the game was in a larger box with the sound muted.
 
I believe the practice of using split screens for breaking news is lessening. Today, major news outlets tend to stick with the one major story that they perceive to be the most important. Yes, the OJ thing was perhaps the last big split/triple screen broadcast we will see. But remember times were different 23 years+ ago. Cable news was just getting a foothold and networks were still king. Fox news channel did not exist, CNN was the only game in town. Today, we see editorial judgement on what stories are to be featured, usually with a single screen.
 
Wood TV went wall to wall weather when there was a tornado warning during the Summer Olympics in 2016 as the tornado was on the ground for about an hour or 90 minutes forget but once it got to Kent county the tornado was no more Volleyball match was missed I watched USA women's basketball on the basketball channel for the Olympics. At halftime flipped it back to Wood TV they were airing the game just updating from time to time.
 
Well recently during the Parkland mass Shooting in the Miami area I remember that the NBC owned stations like KNTV San Jose pre empted the 2018 South Korean Olympics over to the NBC Sports app and NBC Sports Net national to make way for the WTVJ NBC6 feed of the rescue attempts by Florida Swat units at the high school. Also sports events on the local affiliates or network O&Os are most likely to be moved to a subchannel or the network or league app when breaking news hits.

I remember seeing a clip of a Monday Night Football game where one of the NFL announcers said that John Lennon died between a football play due to the fact that the news division was not ready to go wall to wall at that point when that took place.
 
RadioPatrol said:
I remember seeing a clip of a Monday Night Football game where one of the NFL announcers said that John Lennon died between a football play due to the fact that the news division was not ready to go wall to wall at that point when that took place.
Click to expand...
That was Howard Cosell. He had met Lennon on the set of Monday Night Football about six years earlier. Subjects discussed included British football, and of course, whether or not the Beatles would ever get back together.
 
firepoint525 said:
That was Howard Cosell. He had met Lennon on the set of Monday Night Football about six years earlier. Subjects discussed included British football, and of course, whether or not the Beatles would ever get back together.
Click to expand...

Yes, historical, but a different era. No cable news back then.

Today, the football game would not be interrupted.

I totally understand split screens with severe weather conditions, this is actually required by FCC regs for commercial stations in the interest of public safety. What I am talking about is actual news events that do not involve public safety. This is where the change has occurred. Split screens are a thing of the past unless it involves public safety due to multiple optional sources of information in today's cable world. Weather channel, CNN, FoxNewsChannel, MSNBC, etc. (Though local severe weather is still considered public safety and despite some complaints by viewers, this form of information is still completely valid and expected.)
 
firepoint525 said:
That was Howard Cosell. He had met Lennon on the set of Monday Night Football about six years earlier. Subjects discussed included British football, and of course, whether or not the Beatles would ever get back together.
Click to expand...

"Perhaps the most famous of all the Beatles" was how Cosell felt he had to preface the news that Lennon had died. Ridiculous, as the Beatles were the first (and to my knowledge only) band in which all the members' names were immediately familiar to the general public. (Not counting bands whose names consisted of their members' names -- Crosby Stills Nash & Young or Emerson Lake & Palmer, for example.) But that was Cosell for you.

I was in my car at the time, listening to the national broadcast of that game (Patriots-Dolphins) and the news was announced there, too. Anyone know who the announcer might have been? I was in Arkansas at the time, so I know I wasn't listening to the Patriots' or Dolphins' local broadcast.
 
RadioFreeCedarCity said:
That must have been the precursor to Channel 2's split screen during one of the Titans' 2017 preseason games with Danielle Breezy at the helm in a small box while the game was in a larger box with the sound muted.
Click to expand...

Around 2009, I think. Of course, Nancy Van Camp, along with Jennifer Johnson, and Dennis Ferrier, are all now involved in that age-discrimination lawsuit against WSMV. Ferrier is now with Fox17, Johnson is the spokeswoman for Wilson County schools, and I don't know where Van Camp is now.
 
A couple of things about the Lennon announcement on MNF:

Yoko had requested that the hospital not release the information until she had the chance to tell Sean. However, an ABC News producer (unaware of Yoko's request) was being treated in the ER at the same time and called the story back to the newsroom.

It was President of ABC News and Sports Roone Arledge who made the decision to announce it live on MNF that way, feeling it was more important to get the news out instead of waiting for the News Department to prepare something.

And Cosell had to be talked into announcing it. He initially refused, saying it was too big a story for that.

CBS never did break into programming nationally with a report, while NBC did a brief one during that night's Carson rerun.
 
CTListener said:
"Perhaps the most famous of all the Beatles" was how Cosell felt he had to preface the news that Lennon had died. Ridiculous, as the Beatles were the first (and to my knowledge only) band in which all the members' names were immediately familiar to the general public. (Not counting bands whose names consisted of their members' names -- Crosby Stills Nash & Young or Emerson Lake & Palmer, for example.) But that was Cosell for you.

I was in my car at the time, listening to the national broadcast of that game (Patriots-Dolphins) and the news was announced there, too. Anyone know who the announcer might have been? I was in Arkansas at the time, so I know I wasn't listening to the Patriots' or Dolphins' local broadcast.
Click to expand...

Jack Buck maybe? I am pretty sure he was calling Monday Night Football in those days.
In response to one of the first posts, WGN split-screened Cubs-Giants on the night of the O.J. Simpson chase. I don't remember which was more prominent and I have never found their footage from that night. As the game was played on the West Coast, it largely overlapped with the chase and I believe was still being played when the chase ended.
 
Raymie said:
It would be interesting to see how other western markets away from the quake (think a Seattle, Denver or Phoenix) handled the situation. ABC going to other programming before primetime had to present a bit of confusion to the stations. I bet many of them went to local then rejoined the network once it became clear that this was a serious event.
Click to expand...
KUSA 9 (Now the NBC affiliate) basically stuck with ABC (Whatever ABC aired is what KUSA 9 aired)

And don't forget CNN either. Back in those days, it was HARDLY the Bungled News Network today (Ironically, Wolf Blitzer was there then as he is today). CNN was pretty good in it's coverage too
 
MarcB said:
I think the shooting that happened at the newspaper in Annapolis.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that one I guess. I hadn't bothered checking out this thread until yesterday morning. The OP should've been more specific, since shootings happen every day everywhere. When the OP mentioned WTTG I thought he meant a shooting in the DC area. At work yesterday my mind finally got working about this.

ixnay
 
http://www.ktvu.com/news/agents-in-bomb-detonation-suits-descend-on-burlingame-post-office

http://www.ktvu.com/news/democratic-senator-cory-booker-11th-target-of-suspicious-packages-fbi

http://www.ktvu.com/news/department...y-in-connection-with-suspicious-package-spree

http://www.capradio.org/articles/20...sed-to-sen-kamala-harris-found-in-sacramento/

http://www.capradio.org/articles/20...ous-package-case-following-arrest-in-florida/

https://abc7news.com/politics/suspicious-package-sent-to-tom-steyer-rendered-safe-fbi-says/4560639/


The Sacramento and San Francisco News Outlets just did a Split Screen today given that there were bomb threats sent to San Francisco and Sacramento. The San Francisco went wall to wall with the SFO Bomb threat and the Sacramento Post office threat. Yes this has the scary effects of the Unabomber of the 1980's and 1990's But note both the Sacramento Media and San Francisco media had to wait for the FBI to confirm that one of the suspect(s) so far has been detained for the Sacramento, San Francisco and CNN Bomb threats

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/...cials-confirm-13-packages-found/507-608234292
https://www.abc10.com/article/news/...arris-at-sacramento-post-office/103-608364237
 
In the 89 earthquake, ABC was well prepared since they had their crew in SF for the game, and that Ted Koppel was already in place for Nightline. They had more of a advantage than the other 2 networks. Didn't they also pick up parts of KGO's coverage with Cheryl Jennings? i saw her at one point on ABC, but i can't rememebr when.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom