CBS47 drops the ball on Jags coverage

[copperfiend]

November 5, 2007

Jaguars bumped off air

CBS spokeswoman: Game changed because of a satellite receiver issue at WTEV.

By JEFF ELLIOTT,
The Times-Union

Most of the Jacksonville viewing audience watching the Jaguars-Saints game on Sunday missed the final 9 1/2 minutes of the game when the CBS feed changed to another game immediately after a touchdown catch by Dennis Northcutt.


Before a replay could be shown of the touchdown, and with no advance notice, the game between the Bengals and Bills - a 12-point difference at the time - replaced the Jaguars game.

Shortly after the switch, local station WTEV TV-47 aired a message at the bottom of the screen that read: "The decision to switch the Jaguars and Saints game was a network decision and cannot be corrected locally. If you would like to file a viewer complaint, please call [a CBS phone number]." The message had a phone number for viewers to call New York with complaints.

CBS spokeswoman LeslieAnn Wade said the switch to the other game was made for stations in markets other than Florida and Louisiana to enable them to see a more competitive game, a common practice for games in areas where there is not a local team playing in that time slot.

"The situation was that the local station in Jacksonville had a problem with its primary receiver this week and was using a backup receiver," Wade said. "Had they been using their primary receiver, the Jaguars game would have been shown in its entirety."

WTEV vice president and general manager Jeff Whitson was at home watching the game and was unaware of the problem at the station.

"I did not know that we received the game on our backup receiver," he said. "Obviously we did not agree with the network switching to the other game. There is no interest in the Buffalo-Cincinnati game to Jacksonville viewers.

"I was not aware of the consequences [switching] to another game by us receiving the Jaguars game on our backup receiver."

All of CBS's 228 affiliates can receive either a "constant" game and/or a "flex" game. If the station receives a constant game, it will show that game from start to finish and will not change to another game, even in a one-sided affair. This is primarily for markets that have a primary interest in one of the teams and would not want to switch to another game under any circumstance, such as WTEV with the Jaguars.

However, most stations across the country that do not have a direct tie to a team receive a flex game. That allows the network to start with one game, but with flexibility to switch to a more competitive game.

Because WTEV was using a backup receiver that was designed to receive the flex game, the switch was made automatically when the Bengals-Bills game was deemed more competitive by CBS programmers in New York.

"We're all sports fans here at CBS and we can certainly understand everyone's disappointment in Jacksonville when they couldn't watch the Jaguars game," Wade said. "However, had the station been using its primary [satellite] receiver, there would not have been this problem. The entire Jaguars game would have aired in Jacksonville."

Some area viewers who were watching on high-definition sets on Comcast channel 433 reported that they saw the Jaguars' game until there were two minutes remaining. That's when CBS switched to the 4:15 p.m. national game between Indianapolis and New England.

jeff.elliott@jacksonville.com,

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/110507/jag_214994774.shtml

[copperfiend]

CBS47 can dance around this as much as they want, but the truth is they blew it. Fred Taylor was only 10 yards away from 10k. That is a major milestone. What would they have done if we missed it? Now all they are doing is making excuses. First they blamed national CBS Sports but they did nothing out of the ordinary. CBS47 is a joke of a station. They have the quality of a high school A/V class.

[thelakelander]

That was horrible considering the Jags were still within realistic reach of making the game competitive with over nine minutes still remaining in the 4th quarter.

[fsujax]

I tried to call CBS Sports in New York and could never get through.

[copperfiend]

I tried to call CBS Sports in New York and could never get through.

From reading the article and listening to the radio, CBS Sports did things BAU. The problem was with the feed that CBS47 was carrying. They were not carrying a 'local feed'. That put us at risk to be switched at any time. How amatuer.

[Steve]

That was horrible considering the Jags were still within realistic reach of making the game competitive with over nine minutes still remaining in the 4th quarter.

Exactly - they switched from a game that had a two score difference with 9:30 minutes to go, to a game with a two score difference with 2:30 to go.  Huh?

This is surprising, since clear channel's stations and newscasts are always top notch

[adamh0903]

I sent the station manager an email, and I got a canned response, it started out,

Dear Jaguars Fan,


Mistake #1 is having a screw up this big and mistake #2 is giving me a canned response and not even calling my by name in the email.

We had better broadcast when I was in TV production in High school, W10CM, Hilliard, FL

[I-10east]

Thanks alot See BS 47.

[jeh1980]

I never saw the last few minute of the game because of that screw up...but I choose to forgive them. 

[DetroitInJAX]

All in all I think Jacksonville's local TV stations are pretty much an amateur hour operation.  Coming from Detroit where we have powerhouses like WDIV and WXYZ (the latter doing a full High Definition newscast), coming here was just such a letdown.

None of the stations even have a helicopter.

[jeh1980]

All in all I think Jacksonville's local TV stations are pretty much an amateur hour operation.  Coming from Detroit where we have powerhouses like WDIV and WXYZ (the latter doing a full High Definition newscast), coming here was just such a letdown.

None of the stations even have a helicopter.

Well,...to be honest with you, we are not exactly amateurs in local TV as some people would think. We have seen alot of better days. About the helicoptor, one station actually had one. Long before WCWJ 17(CW affiliate), an old TV station, WJKS channel 17, used to have something called "Sky 17" which was a helicopter that flies over downtown and other highways to report on the traffic of course. Nowadays, lots of stations here have something called "traffic cams" that would be mounted somewhere over some of our busiest highways here. Oh, and we do happen to have alot of HD newscast too. Its funny that the Colts/Patriots game wasn't in HD!

[fsujax]

All in all I think Jacksonville's local TV stations are pretty much an amateur hour operation.  Coming from Detroit where we have powerhouses like WDIV and WXYZ (the latter doing a full High Definition newscast), coming here was just such a letdown.

None of the stations even have a helicopter.

Channel 12 had a helicopter way back in the 1980s until one morning it crahsed in Riverside near I-10 and I-95 and everyone on board died (except for one I think). It was a bad experinece for them I guess.

[Lunican]

It's not like the news stations do anything interesting with their helicopters anyways. Do I really need to see a live aerial shot of how crowded the mall parking lot is before Christmas?