CBS… now with even more BS It is true that anyone with a half-decent cellphone can produce content, there still needs to be experts and technicians (not just one guy in a basement with a laptop hardwired to the affiliates) to produce and transmit broadcast television. Live TV is doubly precarious. Some buffering is expected on YouTube, but not at the network level.
More and more, I’m noticing huge variations in volume between stations (and between shows), and although modern cameras and switchers automatically color-correct… they still need to be fine tuned, and it isn’t happening. Test patterns and color bars (with tone) exist for a reason, specifically as a uniform standard to calibrate color and volume and signal. But nobody knows how to use a waveform or vector-scope anymore, so things will just keep spiraling downward. Live TV requires an assortment of engineers in NYC and LA, in coordination with engineers at wherever the signal originates. To save money, networks have bought into plug-and-play technology, and though it isn’t deeply flawed, when it goes wrong, there is nobody there to troubleshoot. Frankly, on NYE, it’s kind of a miracle there was someone in the head-end at CBS capable of cueing up an old Matlock. Kevin M. (RPCV) On Fri, Jan 2, 2026 at 9:29 AM Jim Ellwanger <[email protected]> wrote: > One precedent here is World Series Game 3 in 1989, where after ABC lost > their feed from San Francisco due to the earthquake, they went to reruns of > "Roseanne" and "The Wonder Years" before the connection could be > reestablished: > > [image: maxresdefault.jpeg] > > ABC News coverage of the 1989 Bay Area (Loma Prieta) earthquake - from ABC > satellite feed (10/17/89) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umIzQ-C-fTc> > youtube.com <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umIzQ-C-fTc> > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umIzQ-C-fTc> > > > On Jan 2, 2026, at 9:20 AM, Mark Jeffries <[email protected]> wrote: > > Wednesday night at around 11:12 p.m. ET, in the middle of Lainey Wilson > singing, CBS' New Year's Eve show from Nashville (from the producer of this > year's Kennedy Center Honors fiasco) went abruptly off the air--after a > long series of promos, New York fired up a rerun of "Matlock" (the current > Kathy Bates version, not the Andy Griffith version) and then 12 minutes > later went back to Nashville and hosts hack comic Burt Kreischer and singer > HARDY (a guy, I thought that going by one name only meant they were a woman > and was some sort of Internet influencer) saying that there was a power > outage in Nashville and joking that it wasn't their fault: > > > https://deadline.com/2026/01/cbs-nye-special-nashvilles-big-bash-tech-issues-matlock-1236659616/ > > And although one would think they could edit it out in time in Studio > City, the cockup was on the delayed West Coast telecast. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/690b7e3e-a571-4979-8b4c-ecfa432ad064n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/690b7e3e-a571-4979-8b4c-ecfa432ad064n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/E055523B-88E3-492E-87F1-24EB53C44296%40ellwanger.tv > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/E055523B-88E3-492E-87F1-24EB53C44296%40ellwanger.tv?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKgmY4DkFpgYmB-vihYE0a5kCzSjW5XOnHnt5uKW7SH5F9F88A%40mail.gmail.com.
