Electrical Fire Affects FOX News, NBC News Capitol Hill Studios

[Big Country News 395]

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-building-which-houses-foxs-washington-bureau-had-an-electrical-fire-this-morning/391495

Per TV Newser, a fire on the 8th floor of 400 N. Capitol in Washington, the building that houses much of FOX News, NBC News Washington, and C-Span has forced the operations out of the building.

 

The fire was extinguished quickly, but both operations have been moved.

 

FOX News Sunday and MediaBuzz were moved to WTTG's studios 7 miles away.

 

NBC News moved their operations to their other Washington, D.C. area bureau.

WTTG's Story: http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/dc-fire-forces-television-studios-to-evacuate
 

 

Edited January 20 by Big Country News

[rkolsen 1,338]

Here’s an abridged version post I made at TVForum.

 

According to an email that TVNewser acquired it sounded like the fire started on the eighth floor which houses NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC News Channel studios along with what I believe is the ITN bureau. 

C-SPAN which is also a tenant in the building was able to resume broadcasting from their studios at 11AM.

 

According this video on The Hill a C-SPAN editor said that C-SPAN and Fox studios sustained extensive damage, while the NBC studios sustained extensive smoke and water damage. 

 

Here are reports from WJLA,  WTTG, and  WUSA. Surprisingly NBC owned station, WRC, doesn’t have anything online. 

Edited January 20 by rkolsen

[rkolsen 1,338]

With extensive smoke and water damage would it be safe to assume that it occurred in NBC’s space.  

[Northerner 23]

Noticed that Kasie DC is coming out of the MTP studio.  They usually come out of one of those Capital Hill studios, right?

 

Politics Nation with Al Sharpton also came out of the same studio - but was planned apparently.

[PTVNews 26]

Interesting that the Vice President was on the show....guess he and his team were flexible to go to a new location last minute.

 

 

I'm interested in the technicals of how they pulled this off. I'm sure not the first time FNC has used WTTG, so maybe they have a n above average level of technical linkage between them and FNC?

 

Seeing that they were using multiple studio cams, I'd think they'd switch that at WTTG and send the feed to a FNC control room for show production. I don't think there'd be enough connections (fiber/sat) to send back synched feeds of each studio cam, do you? If the cams were switched at WTTG, do you think FNC staff did it, or WTTG? Does anyone know if they are automated?

[Northerner 23]

I was thinking maybe WTTG switched the cameras at best - but graphics were inserted in NYC in a FNC control room.  But then, they could've had access to the video pieces that were missing, right?

 

But the video I've seen is that there is no lower left FNS bug - so they could've loaded their templates to WTTG (or had them there as a backup).

 

Evenif they were automated, you can go manual fairly easily and the FNS crew could've stepped in those roles.

[blizzard59 28]

14 hours ago, PTVNews said:

I don't think there'd be enough connections (fiber/sat) to send back synched feeds of each studio cam, do you?

 

Most network news programs use no more than 3 or 4 studio cameras. You can readily send isolated feeds of that many cameras over fiber or satellite for switching and production elsewhere. In fact, a large number of ESPN events these days are "at home" productions, meaning 6-10 isolated camera feeds are sent over fiber or satellite for switching and production at fixed ESPN facilities. I know NASCAR has also worked with PSSI in the past to achieve an "at home" production involving 24 isolated camera feeds sent by satellite to an offsite control room.

[rkolsen 1,338]

WTTG has access to the The Switch. It’s an ondemand connection sort of device and you can easily send multiple feeds (if configured) within a few minutes. 

[Weeters 168]

My sources have informed me that at least two multi-camera and three single camera studios, along with two control rooms, were destroyed in the fire and will need to be completely replaced. From what I understand, the two big studios affected (and the source of the fire) are both of NBC's studios on the 8th floor. FOX probably will not be back any time soon, because I believe they are located underneath the NBC studios, and likely sustained water damage.