Thursday, March 21, 2013

Frantic Floor Manager

This morning, for a refreshing change, the problem didn’t appear to be based in Vancouver, or Alberta. Instead, our technicians concluded the problem, more likely, originated locally.

For the first half hour of our show, we were off the air, but, in that half-hour, Camille and I practiced the show without audio to see whether we could go to air and still offer a viewers a sensible program. It seemed to work fine, so we decided to go on-air at 6:30 this morning.

Normally, we have earpieces that allow us to hear all the sounds connected to the show. Those include the music at the beginning and end of each half hour, the reports and sound bytes we use, live reporters, phone-in winners and all our cues for timing, as well as when to start and stop speaking.

We scrapped a planned pre-budget live and were unable to speak on-air with the winner of today’s Oprah tickets, Jen, in Prevost.

When we went back on the air, Jessica, who was live on remote, didn’t realize we had no audio in our ears. She only realized when Camille told her, off-air, later on in the show.

Our boss was in early this morning and acted as floor manager, giving us our cues visually, or verbally. Occasionally, the floor manager appeared frightfully frantic, frazzled and frustrated, gesturing to delinquent anchors who, in spite of clearly communicated wrap cues, went ahead and asked guests just one more question!

It’s the thought that counts, Karen!

This morning was hardly the ideal scenario but, as Julie, our Mosart director, declared, it was much better to be on the air dealing with the audio problem, than off the air with no show to offer viewers.

We like to think some viewers want to watch the show as much as we want to do the show!

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