Sparks fly on MSNBC set this morning…knocking it out.
At around 11:30 am, Chris Jansing, who was pulling extra weekend duty today, started anchoring from what I call the “cubby hole”, the area in front of the NBC Newsroom where contributors and reporters are sometimes interviewed. And she stayed there for the remainder of the program. At first I thought it was because they needed more time to set up something on the set but, once the news ended without them ever returning to the studio, that theory went out the window. Did something break in the main studio which forced this move?
(Before the sparks)
(After the sparks)
Update: This was serious. ICN hears sparks flew and there was smoke. I looked over the TiVo footabe and found nothing to indicate something happened while they were on the air so it must have been during a set changeover when the lighting is changed as the desk is rotated to a new orientation.
The upshot of this is the main MSNBC set is currently out of commission. Who wants to bet that come Monday if it’s not fixed that MSNBC will be anchoring from the NBC Nightly News set? That cubby hole is too small to do a whole days worth of newscasts from. And then there’s Morning Joe…three people can’t fit in that small space.
Update 2: This does bring up a new fundamental problem with MSNBC in 30 Rock; redundancy. In Secaucus there were in theory six places one could anchor a newscast from; Homebase, The Situation Room, the interview area, the newsroom, the backup or “duratrans” set, and the Early Today set (both the duratrans set and Early Today shared the same studio though). If Homebase went down for whatever reason (it was once down for days because the motor in the base that rotated the desk had burned out), there were plenty of places where they could choose to anchor the news from. Usually it was the Duratrans set which I always throught was misguided because the Early Today set was right there and it looked infinitely better on the air no matter how hard they tried to spiff up the duratrans set. But I digress…
Now, the options are more limited and logistically complicated. If the MSNBC set goes down, there is the “cubby hole” and maybe the Nightly Desk, but there are issues with using either for extended periods. Perhaps the set where Keith Olbermann hosts Countdown from could be used. The Today Show set is problematic because of the overlap when both MSNBC and Today are on the air.
And Roger C….Behave yourself…
Comment by Spud — December 1, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
Where did the sparks appear to be coming from? I’m guessing the tv wall or overhead lights?
Comment by Terance — December 1, 2007 @ 8:07 pm
I don’t know yet. I’m guessing the lights as well.
Comment by Spud — December 1, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
Maybe this is why people don’t build whole operations in 6 months. Hopefully they can figure out what went awry before Monday, but atleast it looks like nothing bad enough to force everyone out of the studio.
Comment by Chris (clind) — December 1, 2007 @ 10:01 pm
Fires in television studios (and other such facilities) are not fun. Not only will things get damaged by water, foam, or the Halon system (a fire suppression gas, that is supposed to be friendlier to the equipment, but bad for people… some places still have it, for some reason)… but some electronics will be hurt by the resulting power surges and improper shut-downs. Also, when the fire department shows up to extinguish the source, they may be forced to cut cables in the process… and the fire department doesn’t really care what they’re cutting, just so long as it helps them get the fire out faster! This can lead to a long recovery time, especially if the engineering department has trouble figuring out exactly what was cut and what needs to be replaced.
My work had a fire in August… and we’re still feeling the effects.
Comment by ImNotBlue — December 2, 2007 @ 1:20 am
For the record, I heard nothing about any fire. Just sparks and some smoke. It sounds like it got stopped before it ever got to a fire. Everyone was working away in the newsroom when Jansing started broadcasting from there. If there was a fire they wouldn’t be there.
Comment by Spud — December 2, 2007 @ 2:36 am
I thought the first picture looked like the smaller, temporary studio!! It looks awful!!!
Comment by Paul Tomlinson — December 2, 2007 @ 6:56 am
It’s the main studio but only one orientation of the main studio…
Comment by Spud — December 2, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
Somewhere there’s more exciting paint drying.
Comment by Will — December 2, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
The “Countdown” set is actually located in part of the Today Show studio… the second floor area where they do the fourth hour. So that’s a very limited option, too.
Comment by Andy — December 2, 2007 @ 5:44 pm
Golly, NBC was able to put on a broadcast in that same studio AFTER AN ANTHRAX ATTACK. I think they can figure out what to do after smoke condition or small fire.
Please, the world is on fire.
Comment by bobbo — December 2, 2007 @ 5:57 pm
It’s a bit different when stuff starts shorting out. Then it doesn’t matter what part of the building the Antrhax is in because the equipment is broken.
Comment by Spud — December 2, 2007 @ 7:25 pm
What you are seing is just another one of the walls in the main studio. The anchor desk rotates to different angles including the newsroom. There is no cubby hole.
Comment by Daryl — February 16, 2008 @ 6:12 pm