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Revealed! How A New Sitcom Aired With No Dialogue On WKBW-TV
A few weeks ago, Radio Wiz was one of several viewers who noticed the debut of the ABC sitcom "Abbott Elementary" aired on WKBW's Channel 7 with no dialogue, only background noise (school bells ringing, people walking noises, kids yelling, etc.) I wound up watching the show with the closed captioning on, the only way to figure out what was going on. It was a very strange experience.
It was one of the oddest things I'd ever seen on TV and I've wondered what happened ever since. So I wrote Buffalo News TV columnist Alan Pergament to ask why. He was kind enough to respond that he was on vacation but promised to find out when returned.
True to his word, he did. At the bottom of a column on Friday, he revealed how this bizarre error happened on the Buffalo affiliate.
According to the station manager, "a Master Control audio processor failure that impacted our ABC feed, one channel failed … Absolutely terrible timing, but I have to compliment the quick troubleshooting and repair by our Engineering team."
There are no plans to rerun the lost show, although the critically lauded series debuts with new episodes (hopefully with all the words clearly audible) in January.
How A Half Hour Sitcom Aired With No Dialogue On Channel 7
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Re: Revealed! How A New Sitcom Aired With No Dialogue On WKBW-TV
Come to think of it, this still doesn't answer everything about what happened. If the flaw was a component at the station, how is it that all the network commercials aired intact and with perfect audio? It was only the show that was affected. May be time for another email, although I think Mr. Pergament is done with this story.
If anyone knows how the spots aired intact but the show didn't because of the equipment failure cited, I'd be curious to know.
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Thread Starter- Dale Patterson
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Re: Revealed! How A New Sitcom Aired With No Dialogue On WKBW-TV
Years go, NBC aired an NFL game without announcers. I liked it. I wish they'd do that with curling, just mic the players and let them provide the commentary.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- MJ Vancouver
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Re: Revealed! How A New Sitcom Aired With No Dialogue On WKBW-TV
Dale Patterson wrote:
Years go, NBC aired an NFL game without announcers. I liked it. I wish they'd do that with curling, just mic the players and let them provide the commentary.
If I remember correctly back in 2005 when the CBC had a lockout, they aired CFL games with no announcers.
- AspectRatio
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Re: Revealed! How A New Sitcom Aired With No Dialogue On WKBW-TV
If I remember correctly back in 2005 when the CBC had a lockout, they aired CFL games with no announcers.
Very interesting, I hadn't heard of this. I was curious to see if I could find more and saw this - "CFL ratings soar in absence of CBC announcers".
Last edited by AspectRatio (December 17, 2021 11:26 pm)