[QuadList] NBC Broadcasting Pioneer Jack Weir Dies at 88--SportsVideoGroup magazine

[Ted Langdell]

David,

Thanks for the personal recollections and corrections.  More below:

On Jun 4, 2010, at 9:27 AM, David C. Crosthwait wrote:
> Jack was well known when I was there. I don't recall If I met him or  
> not. Perhaps on some of the early Ku sports uplinks when NBC  
> contracted with Comstat

The article on Sports Video Group's website reports:
> ?Sometime in the mid ?50s, Jack and colleagues had an idea, or more  
> like a vision,? Vacca says. ?He, Don Kivell, and Frank Badami sold  
> NBC technical management on the concept of a central department  
> where instant on-air management decisions would be made. From that  
> idea evolved the BOC [Broadcast Operations Center], the go-to place  
> for all operational decisions on breaking news, sports, and programs.?
>

David recalls:
> Yes, BOC was the "go to place". They ran the operation. Most  
> everyone I worked with in BOC was very professional and courteous.  
> Burbank videotape was across the hall from BOC, so we conversed  
> frequently, especially in hectic, last minute events."

The article also asserts:
> "Weir also executed the first live satellite uplink for network news  
> out of Selma, AL, during the days of civil disturbance.

David notes:
> Perhaps John Turner would know, but if I recall correctly, in 1963  
> or 1965 Selma events, there was no commercial C band uplinks, and I  
> doubt there was for news for at least 10 more years. Perhaps the  
> writer means that Jack broke into the network round-robin at Selma  
> to feed New York. But even that was a routine event for networks.  
> So, I don't know which Selma disturbance she is talking about.

I suspect it's the Sunday, March 7. 1965 march where Alabama state  
troopers beat the marchers after they crossed over the Edmund Pettus  
Bridge in Selma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches

The only reference I could find involving NBC, Satellites and 1965 is  
that the Today Show did the first live television broadcast using the  
(then) new "Early Bird" sat, which was also known as INTELSAT-1. I've  
not been able to find what frequencies it used for the 200+telephone  
or one television transmission.

This NASA article, last updated in 2007 has a good chronology of  
communications satellites:
http://history.nasa.gov/satcomhistory.html

Regarding TV in Selma:
A quick google brings up the Selma/Montgomery market's NBC affiliate's  
Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSFA with this notation:

"During that period, WSFA gained a national reputation for its  
coverage (fed periodically to the NBC network) of local events in the  
Civil Rights Movement such as the Bus Boycott of 1955 involving Rosa  
Parks and the varied activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. during his  
pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The station's News Director  
for much of the Civil Rights era was Frank McGee who eventually joined  
NBC News and hosted Today until his death in 1974."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McGee_(journalism)

There's this about ABC's coverage:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100408/remnick_excerpt_100408/20100408/

"That night, at around 9 p.m. on the East Coast, ABC television broke  
into its broadcast of the film "Judgment at Nuremberg," for what the  
announcer called "a long film report of the assault on Highway 80."  
The ABC audience that night was huge -- around forty- eight million -- 
and the newscast lasted fifteen minutes before the film resumed."

The SportsVideoGroup article reports:
> "Weir also worked on the 1972 Moscow games that weren?t.

David correctly notes:
> Munich was '72. Moscow was '80.

NBC had the rights to the 1980 games... and when the US didn't go, NBC  
didn't go, which cost the network (and RCA) a lot of anticipated income.

A round of budget cuts closed the NBC News/KNBC-TV Sacramento bureau,  
where I'd been a Group 3 daily hire. I had the dubious distinction of  
loading up the van with all the gear (TK-76, BVU-100, etc.) turning  
out the light, closing the door on that minor chapter of NBC and  
taking the van to Correspondent Doug Kriegel's house for him to drive  
to Burbank. So much for that.

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary
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