Topics

151

Everything Else TWC / Volvo flatters TWC

« on: February 29, 2008, 10:36:10 PM »

I meant to bring this up when I first saw it a few weeks ago, but there's a Volvo SUV ad out there now that features a mock weather forecast with the fake "OCM" forecasting good performance by the SUV in the wintry weather, resulting in "a lot of togetherness".

At the very end of the commercial, the "OCM" ends by saying, "Now, your Local Forecast."

152

General Discussion / This might not be good...

« on: February 23, 2008, 08:01:58 PM »

http://b.imagehost.org/0146/concern.png

I certainly didn't do that...

Why would they single out that particular video?

153

Everything Else TWC / Check those facts!

« on: February 23, 2008, 12:56:38 PM »

A few minutes ago, Kevin Robinson was making an attempt to do the forecast for this weekend's NASCAR action, but he provided some really horrible information. He told us that the "qualifying races" were canceled due to rain yesterday but that they were going to try again today. First off, that's not true at all. NASCAR has already set the fields for all series by points, and there will be no further attempts to qualify. Secondly, it's not a qualifying "race". It's single-car time trials.

TWC should really make sure their OCMs know what they're talking about before they present this kind of inaccurate information.

154

OCMs & Personalities / Dave and Adam doing PME today

« on: February 22, 2008, 05:16:58 PM »

Since the whole schedule is just a complete mess with over 5 OCMs taking the day off, Dave and Adam are doing PME today. I don't know what it is about them, but they seem to be having fun, just like they did the only other time they worked together in early 2007.

Things did get a little bumpy, though, during the last segment when Dave stumbled over Adam's last name and also when Dave tried to lead into a Lifestyles segment, but the prompter ran slow, causing him not to finish whatever he was supposed to say.

155

OCMs & Personalities / Happy Birthday, Jeff & Dave!

« on: February 21, 2008, 05:39:44 PM »

Today, we found out that Jeff Morrow's birthday is tomorrow, and Dave Schwartz's birthday was yesterday, so happy birthday to both of them!

BTW, I had a funny thought: You can't spell "tomorrow" without M-O-R-R-O-W. 

156

OCMs & Personalities / Mike Bettes - wearing a tie tonight

« on: February 20, 2008, 10:42:17 PM »

I missed all of Abrams & Bettes tonight, but I caught the very end and saw that Mike was wearing a tie tonight. At the very end of the show, they did a close-up of the tie while Steph harassed him about it. This was the first time that he has worn a full suit and tie in at least a year, I'd say. I wonder what that was all about and if there's a backstory to it.

157

OCMs & Personalities / Get well soon, Paul!

« on: February 20, 2008, 09:15:50 PM »

When Evening Edition came on tonight, Paul Goodloe was noticeably suffering with laryngitis. He even had a rough time introducing himself. When they came back at 8:10 PM CT, they did a mid-show substitution and brought Carl Parker in to let Paul go home.

Hope you feel better soon, Paul! I know how you feel, I've been battling a nasty cold for the last week.

158

Everything Else TWC / TWC presents: Whoops!

« on: February 19, 2008, 07:41:21 PM »

I was playing back my DVR's buffer earlier, and I noticed that on PM Edition at 4:10 CT, things went haywire. When they came back from break at that time, Master accidentally cued an Epic Conditions short instead of sourcing the control room feed. At this point, I'm sure the screaming commenced as folks behind the scenes tried to figure out how to proceed from there. They decided upon breaking us out of the Epic Conditions segment about forty seconds into it and doing a hard cut to the PM Edition feed. Apparently someone misinformed Kelly Cass as to when they were coming back on the air, because when we rejoined PME, she was already halfway through apologizing for the mixup. From there, Kelly tried to continue the planned radar update as usual, but shortly after 4:12, Master's automatic timing kicked in and cut off Kelly completely unexpectedly, and commercials started airing; you could tell that she got absolutely no warning that a break was coming; she was just going on with business when the break kicked in. Since the Epic Conditions segment was accidentally scheduled for before this segment instead of after it, the segment did not air. If they would have let things continue like this, the LF would have aired at 4:16, followed by a return to the national feed, but isn't what wound up happening...

At this point, the folks in the Master decided to make another surprise call; after only a minute and a half of commercials, they decided to break us out of the commercial and do the Weekly Planner at 4:14. Betty Davis quickly ran through the Weekly Planner for two minutes before they went back to break at 4:16. From here, they did the usual long commercial break with local inserts, followed by an LF at 4:20. When they returned at 4:22; they did the segments they had planned for after the Weekly Planner, and they went back to break at 4:25, allowing everything to return to normal from here.

159

Everything Else TWC / Alright, this just ****** me off

« on: February 17, 2008, 05:04:06 PM »

I'll admit, I'm in a grumpy mood already because I'm watching a race that's being tampered with by NASCAR, but now we're in the middle of a tornado outbreak, and TWC is showing all of its long-form programming whereas they preempted everything yesterday when there wasn't a tornado outbreak. What the hell is their problem?

160

The Game Room / OCM Talk

« on: February 16, 2008, 11:51:45 PM »

I just got idea from what Billy did in another topic here. How about a game where we caption OCM pictures to make a discussion. Here's the big rule: Your caption must be in response to the conversation that's already going; it can't be completely random. I'll start...



"I really miss Bob Stokes!"

161

Everything Else TWC / Dave Schwartz is on weather.com tonight

« on: February 16, 2008, 03:43:35 AM »

I'm so glad I happened to check in on weather.com tonight. This is the first time since Memorial Day that I've seen him on there. I'm currently in the process of downloading them right now (yes, I found out where the raw video is stored).

He spent over 1/3 of the Baltimore forecast talking about french fries. It started when Dave asked whether or not people in Baltimore still put gravy on their fries. So, do they, Gary?

162

Everything Else TWC / Possible TWC/WBBM partnership someday? (speculation)

« on: February 10, 2008, 10:08:32 PM »

I've noticed that, very recently, TWC has suddenly switched from using reports from WLS to WBBM here in Chicago. WBBM just so happens to be a CBS O&O, just like WCBS in New York, which has already formed a partnership with TWC. Might we see WBBM and TWC join forces?

163

OCMs & Personalities / Carl Parker

« on: February 10, 2008, 04:33:09 PM »

Okay, here's a topic to discuss Carl Parker since we don't yet have one.

He's wearing his glasses today; I haven't seen him wear glasses for a long time.

164

Everything Else TWC / Terrible HD channel audio

« on: February 10, 2008, 06:54:35 AM »

For the last day or two, the audio levels on the HD channel have been going up and down like crazy. It used to be that the commercials and the LF were much louder than the national broadcast, but as of right now, it's the exact opposite. You can hear the national audio fine, but the commercials and especially the LF music are *very* quiet. A few seconds ago, the audio levels were fluctuating so much that DirecTV killed the feed for a few minutes and put up a "technical difficulties" screen.

Edit: A few seconds after I posted this, they killed the feed again for the entire duration of the commercials. The feed returned the second the LF began.

Edit 2: Now I see why they've been killing the feed during the commercials; TWC isn't even outputting commercial audio at all on the HD channel right now! :shocked:

165

Everything Else TWC / Never seen this happen before

« on: February 07, 2008, 09:06:13 PM »

At some point yesterday, a light on the big backdrop actually burned out. Now, the whole right side of the backdrop looks as it does when the main studio lights are off. It looks okay with the Day Planner backdrop, but it looks bad with the Your Weather Today backdrop but horrible with the Evening Edition backdrop. It's time to get the repair crew out there!