[BC] Interesting sign-offs and Tech Difficulties

[Rich Wood]

------ At 07:41 PM 8/19/2006, tom at bosscher.org wrote: -------

>    The rumor has had it for a long time that WCBS was still at the Empire
>when the WTC attacked occured, seemingly due to someone "accidentaly"
>renewing the Empire lease, and supposedly, that person lost their job
>over that issue.
>
>    Is this true, and if so, has CBS hired that person back after 9-11, or
>at least said "Thank-you"?

I'm sorry. I seem to have stumbled on a comedy list. I cant recall 
any large corporation offering an apology or rehire unless forced to 
do so by some government agency. The Empire site has saved WCBS' butt 
several times over the years, primarily the two WTC attacks. In 
fairness to the company, the person who failed to cancel the lease 
didn't do his job and cost the the company huge amounts of money in 
rent. At the time, no one expected the world to turn (no pun 
intended) quite the way it has. I know of a company that fired a 
cluster engineer because he wasn't willing to risk his life in a 
Southern city in a major flood.

During the 60s and 70s there were many small bombings in New York by 
groups like the IRA and the Cuban Mission has 24/7 police presence. 
When I first moved to New York there were many times I had to take a 
detour because of bomb threats. I lived a couple of blocks away. It 
gets to the point where evacuation is an option rather than a 
requirement, especially for a Talk station. I can't count the number 
of bomb threats I've been through. Even in the best of times I was 
always told to look for unattended packages in the subway

Enough of the city isn't subscribed to cable so stations scrambled to 
do short LMAs to keep a signal on the air. WLIW (21) in Garden City, 
as I recall, was used by one station for a short time. I was 
surprised to find commercial programming on WLIW. Does the FCC 
require an official waiver for a non-comm in cases of emergencies like these?

With the amount of money a New York TV station generates I always 
thought it strange they didn't have backup sites. Bloomberg had a 
great idea when he took over WNEW-AM and offered stations 
transmitters they could use if they had problems just so WBBR could 
have an alternate site. I don't recall which station took him up on 
the offer. He was willing to foot the bill for any modifications required.

Rich