WVUE technical glitch interrupts 'Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey' evolution sequence (New Orleans)

[MountainLaurel]

An accidental WVUE technical glitch caused 1 minute and 24 seconds of Sunday’s (May 4) “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” to be abruptly overrun with a news promo, a seat-belt-safety public-service announcement and commercials. The problem: The interruption occurred while host Neil DeGrasse Tyson was in the middle of a discussion about how global climate change millions of years ago set the stage for the primates-to-humans evolutionary journey.

The commercial break filled more than 5 minutes of airtime before “Cosmos” returned, with Tyson discussing how the gravitational pull of other planets changed Earth’s weather during the same period.

A similar glitch made news during the series’ March premiere, when Oklahoma City, Okla., Fox affiliate KOKH aired a local-news promo over a similar Tyson sequence about evolution, causing some observers to wonder if the sequence had been censored. KOKH issued a Twitter apology for the 20-second goof, and told the Los Angeles Times it was due to “master control operator error.”

Monday (May 5), Sandy Breland, WVUE’s vice president and general manager, attributed the WVUE glitch to “an automation error,” and said that the station has contacted Fox about re-airing the episode. (The episode reruns at 8 p.m. Monday (May 5) on cable’s National Geographic channel. It's also streaming online.)

http://www.nola.com/tv/index.ssf/2014/05/wvue_technical_glitch_interrup.html#incart_river_default

According to some friends who noticed the glitch at the time it happened (the skip in content was pretty obvious) and compared what they saw to the full version on Hulu, the gap is more like 3 minutes at least. And it just happened to cover the topic of evolution from ape into Homo sapiens.

Edited to note that it must have been a night of glitches for Cosmos: a station in Southern Colorado just happened to lose the bit about man-made climate change. Oopsy!

[okaawhatever]

1. Wow. The power of the right wingers is unbelievable. The same thing happened during the Siegelman

60 Minutes story. There was a "technical glitch" during the Siegelman story on that night's 60 minutes.

[JaneyVee]

2. American Taliban.

[Anansi1171]

3. Maybe nothing happens until we abandon their media and create our own.

Can be done.

[alp227]

4. owned by the New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson & operated by Raycom Media

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WVUE

Benson is a Republican. Raycom operates lots of TV stations in the Southeast and Central. no surprise the station staff could be hostile to evolution.

[jimlup]

5. What the hell is wrong with these people?

I mean really? I mean I assume that I inhabit the planet with other intelligent beings and my default assumption when I was growing up was that most other humans were on the same order of intelligence as myself. It wasn't until adulthood that I discovered how badly off this approximation actually is. I mean really? WTF??? Climate Change and the CO2 link shouldn't even be contro-fucking-versal. It is a no-brainer at this point.

[Feron]

6. Eh I think it was just an accident.

New Orleans is very accepting of evolution and WVUE has been going after corrupt St. Tammany Republican officials hardcore lately.

Look up former coroner Peter Galvan for details and now they are going after Walter Reed (and its about time someone did!).

A lot of the staff at WVUE are WWL transplants, including Sandy Breland, and I really don't see them pulling this type of stunt.

BTW, if you live in St. Tammany parish or know someone who does, don't forget to contact the Army Corps if you don't want fracking in the parish. https://www.facebook.com/ConcernedCitizensOfStTammany and https://www.facebook.com/nofracksttammany for more info.

[Roy Rolling]

7. Yeah I agree

The station is notorious for commercial overruns and other technical problems. They are very sloppy, but not likely conspiratorial. Regardless, a screwup like that a few decades ago was a serious matter and people got fired for dead air and technical issues. As a matter of policy, whoever was at the controls should be carefully looked at to see if they have a right-wing agenda.

I believe the network can demand some sort of adjustment because its program was shortened, and the station is subject to FCC fine if the commercials exceeded the maximum for the time period.

Just speculation, things may have changed drastically since I was in broadcasting.

[TxDemChem]

10. You beat me to it

[pangaia]

12. As I posted below..

the same thing happened through the Rochester, NY .
affiliate of FOX,, WHAM, I think.. Same place.
And the same WHAM who's radio station carries right wing hate radio,,,,

[pacalo]

8. It certainly wasn't on the part of WVUE, imo.

Thanks for speaking up; you expressed it better than I could have.

[TxDemChem]

9. I wonder how many more "glitches" before some at the FCC makes a comment

[pangaia]

11. I wondered about that.

I am near Rochester NY so don't get WVUE. BUT the same thing happened here. I think it is WHAM. Just when Tyson was about to connect us to those monkeys.. bingo-- 5 minutes of ads...
Later he picked up on the evolution line, but a huge chunk was left out... !!

[bearssoapbox]

13. Oooops!

[GeorgeGist]

14. How sad to have devolved so far ...

since Camelot was cancelled.

[Lilyhoney]

15. Life imitating cartoons, again.