Boston station calls gov. primary winner on webcast
Steve Safran September 20th, 2006
WBZ, the CBS O/O in Boston, took on the tricky challenge of a multicast Tuesday night for the state’s primary elections. While ‘BZ ran CBS programming for much of the night, it had an online newscast all night. And it was in that webcast that they broke the news that they were calling Deval Patrick as the winner of the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. They then put the news on their sister station, WSBK, which had been in a break of its coverage. Finally, the news broke on WBZ. So to summarize: they beat the competition by breaking the news online, put the TV scoop on their UHF station and then had it on the “parent channel.” That’s how you break a story - and a mold. Does anyone still think breaking news online before anyone in the market had it on-air somehow hurt them? Another myth says goodbye. Watch here to see how WBZ broke the story first online.
7 Comments Add your own
1. thedetroitchannel | September 21st, 2006 at 6:01 am
that’s nothing.
here in detroit we had the nbc affiliate, wdiv(clickondetroit), break the news on their website that they were calling the challenger, Freeman Hendricks the winner over current “hip-hop” mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
they had it up there for about 15 minutes.
problem was, in the end, Kwame was declared the winner.
ooops!
while nowhere near the blunder all the networks shared in the Sago mine story, it would be nice to get it right instead of just first.
2. Steve Safran | September 21st, 2006 at 6:18 am
… and then the BZ boss busted on my company in the paper, making me regret this post. Nonetheless, I must be objective… sorta…
3. thedetroitchannel | September 21st, 2006 at 6:25 am
maybe you could mention that the Bishop of Boston is starting to blog.
with any luck the Pope might make some incendiary comments about your company too.
4. Jason | September 21st, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Ed’s my old boss, Steve. He’s a good guy. “Clocked” has a sting to it, though.
5. Steve Safran | September 21st, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Oh, I know he’s a decent fella. I’m just being defensive about “new guys” coming into New England and going on the attack against my place. We’re pretty parochial here.
But if I were a broadcast channel, I’d think twice before bragging about beating a cable channel. Different model altogether.
Obviously it didn’t bother me enough to take down the post complimenting his staff’s work. I’m just that unbiased. Sort of.
6. DaveNYC | September 24th, 2006 at 4:24 am
Did CBS 4 call the election or simply report that the AP called the election? I’m not sure that calling a primary election is really ‘breaking news’ on the web. When they release te results of a major investigation online instead of holding it until the 11 then I’ll be impressed. But I do agree that this is a step in the right direction.
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type 1 sexual partner personality…
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