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From Frank Clynes, Jul 7, 2017
WTEV-6 General manager Vance Eckersley offered his tv facilities to the three dominent faiths. The Council of Churches chose the "Thoughts to Live By" format, with ministers of various denominations recording brief sermons, to be aired at the end of the broadcast day. The Conservative and Orthodox synagogues declined his offer for religious reasons. However, a newly organized Reform community of Jews accepted. They had yet to acquire a location for their new synagogue and for the duration, listed the WTEV studio as their official house of worship. The master control engineer had the dual responsibility of managing whatever program was being taped in the studio, while inserting commercials and video sources into the live TV programming going out. The two consoles were next to each other. One day an Episcopal priest who ministered to the deaf and hard of hearing, was taping his contribution to "Thoughts to Live By." The engineer, on his first day in Master Control, accidently punched that feed into the on-air signal. I was watching on the lobby TV set, when the priest suddenly popped on the sreen, doing sign language with his hands. It was on for a while before the engineer realized his mistake, and returned to the program already in progress. As luck would happen, it was a commercial for Bell Hearing Aids. The priest disappeared and was replaced with a close-up picture of a human ear wearing a hearing aid device. "Having trouble hearing? Call us today for an appointment for a free screening." That engineer wrote up one of the famous "IR" forms but didn't go into detail. Said something like "aired extraneous video for approximately 3 seconds. My error." |
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