Why the **** did we interrupt McCain?
That was a question several people called to ask last night. So I wanted to give you the quick dirty answer, because obviously those callers were raising some issues about left-leaning bias on our part.
Before I get into the answer, if what you really care about is seeing what McCain had to say, you can watch the full 55 minute 58 second speech (recorded by C-Span) below....
Now let me start by giving you some background info to last night's interruption. Television broadcasting functions on a complicated system of data that is set up days in advance and executed (usually seemlessly) as the TV programming you watch at home. Our Standard Operating Procedure is to stay with a live event and join the following program in progress. To do that though, that following program (and all the video elements in the break between programs) have to actually still be progressing. We call that a "dead-roll," because no one but the computer sees it.
What happened last night is that the convention ran long, as live events often do. Under the assumption it would end on time last night, we had told the computer earlier in the week to run an ad for Tavis Smiley (and some other promotions) then start a new show at 9p. We did give the computer new instructions to stay with the live feed, but instead the system followed the original instructions and switched the video source away from the convention and over to the Tavis Smiley promotion...turning a dead-roll in to a live program stream. Our Master Control Operator immediately stopped what he was doing and focused on getting the program stream back to McCain's speech. But the damage was already done.
We're working to specifically figure out why the switch happened. We successfully executed four live nights of Democratic convention coverage and the two previous nights of Republic coverage (including, conspiracy theorists, Palin's speech) but something went awry last night...and unfortunately at a critical moment.
Anyone who works with computers will tell you that saying "the computer did it" is lame. Computers do what we humans tell them to do, and we had told it days earlier to run a Tavis Smiley ad at 8:56:46 PM. We're trying to figure out now why newer instructions we gave the computer (i.e. stay with McCain's speech) weren't followed.
I want to apologize to those of you watching who were incensed about the interruption. It's unacceptable and we're working to figure out specifically what happened and how to keep it from happening again.
If you have specific questions or comments please post them below. Or if you would like to voice your opinion personally, feel free to give me a call at 505-277-3296.
Chad Davis
Director of Content
Before I get into the answer, if what you really care about is seeing what McCain had to say, you can watch the full 55 minute 58 second speech (recorded by C-Span) below....
Now let me start by giving you some background info to last night's interruption. Television broadcasting functions on a complicated system of data that is set up days in advance and executed (usually seemlessly) as the TV programming you watch at home. Our Standard Operating Procedure is to stay with a live event and join the following program in progress. To do that though, that following program (and all the video elements in the break between programs) have to actually still be progressing. We call that a "dead-roll," because no one but the computer sees it.
What happened last night is that the convention ran long, as live events often do. Under the assumption it would end on time last night, we had told the computer earlier in the week to run an ad for Tavis Smiley (and some other promotions) then start a new show at 9p. We did give the computer new instructions to stay with the live feed, but instead the system followed the original instructions and switched the video source away from the convention and over to the Tavis Smiley promotion...turning a dead-roll in to a live program stream. Our Master Control Operator immediately stopped what he was doing and focused on getting the program stream back to McCain's speech. But the damage was already done.
We're working to specifically figure out why the switch happened. We successfully executed four live nights of Democratic convention coverage and the two previous nights of Republic coverage (including, conspiracy theorists, Palin's speech) but something went awry last night...and unfortunately at a critical moment.
Anyone who works with computers will tell you that saying "the computer did it" is lame. Computers do what we humans tell them to do, and we had told it days earlier to run a Tavis Smiley ad at 8:56:46 PM. We're trying to figure out now why newer instructions we gave the computer (i.e. stay with McCain's speech) weren't followed.
I want to apologize to those of you watching who were incensed about the interruption. It's unacceptable and we're working to figure out specifically what happened and how to keep it from happening again.
If you have specific questions or comments please post them below. Or if you would like to voice your opinion personally, feel free to give me a call at 505-277-3296.
Chad Davis
Director of Content
posted by -C- at
9:24 AM
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