KBTX just cracks me up... every time they mention the problem today, they say it that way... like "THE SHOWDOWN IN IRAQ".

"Crystal Galny is at Jon Smith's house where we had reports that a crisis was narrowly averted today...

"This is Crystal Galny reporting, and yes, Mr. Smith had a near scare today when he opened a half-gallon of Blue Bell ice cream after being in his unpowered freezer for three hours... he expected the worst... the worst being that the ice cream might be a little smushy... but he described it as only being slightly mushy... this was good news to the Smith family. <shot of smiling kids eating ice cream staring into camera>

In another section of town, an unidentified man (he wouldn't tell us his name), told the horrors of having to drink a lukewarm Diet Pepsi. We believe that E. coli had not yet set in on the soda in question, but we must warn all our viewers to please not drink your sodas for at least another 2-3 hours."

Are you serious?

They really reported on those two situations?


There must REALLY not be anything else to talk about.

But then again, it is the B/CS News.

Earlier they said something like,

"And it wasn't only the local businesses and restaurants that were affected by the power outage, but our news studio was ALSO out of power!!!"


Well, DUH. Thanks for letting me know.

Theres a bit exadurating but a very little bit, Its very funny to watch their broadcasts though. They even have special graphics for it too... and the guy at BTU is the "resident knowledgable person" (generals on the iraq stuff). Saying the complete obvious...

[This message has been edited by jagouar1 (edited 4/15/2003 9:35p).]

I was in Blocker and at about 11:50am the lights flickered twice, then went out. SWEET!! Trig class over 30 minutes early!

I thought it was just Blocker, so I walked to Evans. Every building I passes was out. Then I went to the SCC and they told us the black out was city wide. So I hopped the bus and cruised home. There were cops at every single intersection directing traffic because the lights werent even blinking.

It was kind of weird seeing the entire town without power. It made me think of some kind of invasion or something.

weird to say the least! there were people outside of their rooms, it was great. makes me kinda wished it happened more often...of course, just long enough to mess up deadlines for a day, not long enough to melt the ice cream.

I haven't seen any news about it at all here in Austin.

It's only a matter of time until the looting begins.

Crystal Galny is embedded with the Blue Bell Creamery during this great tribulation. Our thoughts go out to her, and here's to a speedy return!

This stays up until all KBTX reporters are accounted for.


Gig 'Em

So the power outage hit all of College Station. I wonder what H.E.B does with power outages. One time I was shopping at Randalls in Houston and the power went out. The told everyone to keep shopping and not to worry. I figured they must have some kind of handheld device. They didnt have a hand held device instead the cashier would just make up a number well below what ones total should of been. We had a grocery cart full to the brim which was probably around 100 dollars. The cashier was like how does 50 dollars sound! Whoop!

Wow, bunny. cool story. I may now have a reason to shop at Randalls!

bunnyaggie - it was the entire county. and i went to kroger, and they still had two or three registers that were working. they were offering flashlights to shoppers though since the entire store was dark... kinda weird...

Look, I post here every once in awhile, but this thread had really compelled me. I was affected by the Brazos Valley Blackout as were you all. Problem is, I played an integral part in bringing y'all the information you got about the blackout on KBTX.

It may be B/CS news and you may find it hilarious, but there are a lot of Aggies who work hard to bring local viewers local news every day. Unfortunately, a lot of KBTX viewers are Aggies who've come from larger cities (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio) and they are used to bigger market news. It is hard to go from big market news to small market news if you did not grow up with small market news. Our staff is about 1/4 the size of a big market station, if that.

Regardless, power was out to almost 200-thousand people. The outage knocked out power to our station, of course, but what may of y'all did not see (unless you had a generator) we were up and running with cut-ins with the absolute latest information. Yes, our graphics may crack you up sometimes, but compare that to Fox News or CNN. You can find a funny label on any national or local news when they pitch team coverage.

Enough of my rant, I am proud of the job that KBTX did covering the story. And, for the record, we did ask Crystal to cover the melting Blue Bell ice cream (just kidding).

Anyway, we do appreciate you all watching and we want you to keep watching. Thank you.

agproducer,

I understand your position... I was just having a little fun with what seemed "over the top" drama that the anchors and reporting were giving the story...

...it was a 3 hour inconvenience, yet from the anchors' tone, they seemed to be trying to make it a bigger story than it was.



[This message has been edited by 91_Aggie (edited 4/16/2003 8:06a).]

[This message has been edited by Sherlock (edited 9/18/2003 2:03p).]

I thought it was terribly self-serving of KBTX to run a story on the 6 and 10 news last night about all the trouble they went through in order to keep broadcasting through the blackout - like anyone had electricity to watch TV in the middle of the afternoon.

We turned on a portable TV over an hour after it happened and KBTX was showing the color test pattern.

I agree, Burdizzo.

Although there were some people that did have power I think outside of B/CS that get KBTX.

AggieSarah01, but the point was that thats all well and good but the people who actually needed the news couldnt get it. IF they had power they were having no problems...

I used to work at KBTX in '96 for almost 2 years & other than the pay being low, I loved it there. Everyone did their best to make a good newscast & it's just that it's a smaller market, i.e. station, therefore it obviously won't be as "high tech" as the the DFW/Houston markets. Cut them some slack though.

Burdizzo,

I admit, some of the coverage may be a little over the top and that one story was really self-serving, but a lot of news is like that. Case in point, Sunday night on 13's news out of Houston, they had a story about Dave Ward handing out goodies at an Easter egg hunt at a high school in FAR NW Houston. That was also self-serving. It may have not been to the extreme as KBTX's story last night, but it is an example.

As far as seeing color bars, we had been completely knocked off air. The bars you saw were from one of our live trucks which we had to broadcast from while the power was out.

Also, as far as drama goes, we were initially told by the Sheriff's Office that they'd been told the power fix would have possibly taken 2 days. Could you imagine about 200-thousand people in this area without power for 2 days? Hence the drama.

Addressing the shuttle disaster, the footage we said was exclusive and only on KBTX turned out to be a crucial piece of the shuttle. I'm not debating that the shuttle was not a tragedy. It was, but when you are thrown into a news story of that magnitude, lots of stations are competing. A little background on that piece, it was one of only like 4 information boxes on the shuttle. It's sort of like a black box on an airliner, but it transmits information from the shuttle to Houston. When our reporter went to a press conference, NASA officials said that's what they were looking for and described it. Our reporter piped up and said she'd seen one, then was questioned by NASA officials.

My point is, yes we plug a lot, and yes sometimes we overcover, but KBTX puts on a good product, and we are proud of it. Thank you for watching, and Sherlock, if you're not watching us anymore, I'm sorry you don't want to. To the others, we appreciate your viewership. KBTX isn't 13 in Houston or any station in Dallas. Regardless, KBTX is the best news product in the Waco-Temple-Bryan market. If you don't believe so, turn on ABC 34 (channel 9 on cable) their news is taped ant 9 p.m. to run at 10. Or you can flip over to NBC 6 and get straight Waco news. You can tell the difference. But I appreciate your comments. We aren't perfect, we are trying to get better, so bring it on.

Burdizzo and all,

I admit, some of the coverage may be a little over the top and that one story was really self-serving, but a lot of news is like that. Case in point, Sunday night on 13's news out of Houston, they had a story about Dave Ward handing out goodies at an Easter egg hunt at a high school in FAR NW Houston. That was also self-serving. It may have not been to the extreme as KBTX's story last night, but it is an example.

As far as seeing color bars, we had been completely knocked off air. The bars you saw were from one of our live trucks which we had to broadcast from while the power was out.

Also, as far as drama goes, we were initially told by the Sheriff's Office that they'd been told the power fix would have possibly taken 2 days. Could you imagine about 200-thousand people in this area without power for 2 days? Hence the drama.

Addressing the shuttle disaster, the footage we said was exclusive and only on KBTX turned out to be a crucial piece of the shuttle. I'm not debating that the shuttle was not a tragedy. It was, but when you are thrown into a news story of that magnitude, lots of stations are competing. A little background on that piece, it was one of only like 4 information boxes on the shuttle. It's sort of like a black box on an airliner, but it transmits information from the shuttle to Houston. When our reporter went to a press conference, NASA officials said that's what they were looking for and described it. Our reporter piped up and said she'd seen one, then was questioned by NASA officials.

My point is, yes we plug a lot, and yes sometimes we overcover, but KBTX puts on a good product, and we are proud of it. Thank you for watching, and Sherlock, if you're not watching us anymore, I'm sorry you don't want to. To the others, we appreciate your viewership. KBTX isn't 13 in Houston or any station in Dallas. Regardless, KBTX is the best news product in the Waco-Temple-Bryan market. If you don't believe so, turn on ABC 34 (channel 9 on cable) their news is taped ant 9 p.m. to run at 10. Or you can flip over to NBC 6 and get straight Waco news. You can tell the difference. But I appreciate your comments. We aren't perfect, we are trying to get better, so bring it on.

sorry for the double-post.

this story is overrateed

I think if your anchors had any touch of good grammar and professionalism, it would be tolerable. You really need some new writers.

I cannot even watch the morning news because all that woman does is whine about her husband.

Tanya sounds mad because Marcus Moore doesn't get enough bling bling time.

I usually watch KBTX because it's one way to stay up with local news, but I had a friend who was an HR at a TV station in Ft. Worth. It's obvious most of those people are in it because of a popularity contest.

For the record, I'm glad Jon Brent is gone. He was major league lame-o.

Yeah, I liked Jon Brent as a person, not on-air. He's a good guy, but I think we are better off without him.

Tanya, as far as morning show goes, I can't really help that. My responsibilities are at night.

HEB must have had a generator, because all their registers were open, and they had emergency lights on.

When I went to campus last night, it was funny seeing all the lights on...guess people forgot to turn them off, and just left.

I don't think Randalls will do that anymore. Bunch of cheap *******s since Safeway bought them out.

After the blackout, nobody really knew what to do. We went ahead to our next classes, just to see what the profs were saying. I was scheduled to have a quiz in my HIST 226 class...the quiz went on as scheduled, using light from open doors. Then the prof decided to go ahead and pass out the course evaluations. For some reason, I have a feeling that those evaluations were less than stellar...

agproducer, I really dont have that much of a problem with the news broadcasts as I do with the fact that you guys arent broadcasting HDTV. Especially when your sister station in Waco has been doing so for 2 full years next month. I know you have given me your fair share of excuses because Ive sent numerous emails to KBTX but you guys were still beat out by KAMU, If I worked at KBTX I would be embarassed that KAMU beat you to the punch. I ended up putting a 30 ft antenna up so I could get KWTX's HDTV signal because I got tired of waiting....


BTW, whats the latest on the hdtv? You guys still slated to go live in aug/sept? Is the carlos tower even done yet?

[This message has been edited by jagouar1 (edited 4/16/2003 2:16p).]

Darrell Bruffett botches even the most common names in sports, and that is one of my problems with KBTX. Kandace Krueger is on the wrong end of the camera.

Charlie Haldeman is one of the best you have.


Gig 'Em