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Hurricane Ian coverage


GoldenShine9

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The owners of WINK are damn lucky nobody inside the building died. 

Charley in 2004 was a warning of what would happen. While they were able to stay on air through that storm, nerves were high about this exact scenario.

There was never a contingency plan. Never a backup broadcast site planned. Just "our building is strong and can handle any storm" despite being all but surrounded by water.

The SHADE retired Chief Meteorologist Jim Farrell throws at WINK leadership at the end of this interview with (long ago WBBH alum) Shepard Smith says it best. 

I wish the current employees of WINK the best as they rebuild their lives after Ian. I hope it includes new jobs, in or out of the business, for all of them. 

I hope the insurance company doesn't pay the owners a single penny for their reckless decisions and endangering the lives of their employees. 

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This is WINKs last few hours on air, this might include when WINK was cut off or shortly before.

After 62 hours of simulcast coverage NBC2 and ABC7 will do its own coverage starting today.

 

Edit: looks like the nbc2 and abc7 simulcast continues.

 

Edit 2: Fox4 came back to its building and studio some time this afternoon, coverage has been getting somewhat better in the last 12-24 hours 

Edited by doublejman69
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15 hours ago, doublejman69 said:

This is WINKs last few hours on air, this might include when WINK was cut off or shortly before.

After 62 hours of simulcast coverage NBC2 and ABC7 will do its own coverage starting today.

 

Edit: looks like the nbc2 and abc7 simulcast continues.

 

Edit 2: Fox4 came back to its building and studio some time this afternoon, coverage has been getting somewhat better in the last 12-24 hours 

Judging from WINK's archived live stream on Facebook, the video you posted does appear to end the moment WINK lost the ability to broadcast.

The WINK article on the recovery says that they are at their transmitter in Babcock Ranch. https://www.winknews.com/2022/09/28/wink-news-off-air-due-to-hurricane-ian/

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NBC2 Says there is some minor roof damage on the main building that houses ABC7 (wzvn), but both stations seem to have come out of it okay.  WINK Though, yikes!!!!  Sun Broadcasting's WARO-FM is still off air. And does anyone know about WXCW TV ???

 

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31 minutes ago, DENDude said:

NBC2 Says there is some minor roof damage on the main building that houses ABC7 (wzvn), but both stations seem to have come out of it okay.  WINK Though, yikes!!!!  Sun Broadcasting's WARO-FM is still off air. And does anyone know about WXCW TV ???

AFAIK, WXCW is down. WINK was doing a makeshift broadcast of sorts for a while, but they essentially signed off at 11:30pm and are supposed to be back at 6am. This frozen picture is what WINK’s channel on YouTubeTV is showing now (sorry I don’t have it in better quality).

6708DA15-8EFF-4542-85C9-9FD10B8859DD.jpeg

Edited by nycnewsjunkie
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Depending on the outcome of damage and insurance coverage, could spell the end of WINK-TV's longstanding local ownership. 

It's amazing that Fort Myers has gone on as long as it has with two local ownership groups owning most of the stations in the market, leaving Scripps as the lone corporate owner there.

 

The family that owns (and signed on) WINK is tied to the founder of the Cleveland Browns, Mickey McBride.

Edited by tyrannical bastard
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On 10/1/2022 at 1:11 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

Depending on the outcome of damage and insurance coverage, could spell the end of WINK-TV's longstanding local ownership. 

It's amazing that Fort Myers has gone on as long as it has with two local ownership groups owning most of the stations in the market, leaving Scripps as the lone corporate owner there.

 

The family that owns (and signed on) WINK is tied to the founder of the Cleveland Browns, Mickey McBride.

 

Are there any old big box retail areas or unoccupied office areas in the parts of Fort Myers that were unaffected by the flooding, say near I-75? An old retail complex could be quickly converted to a temporary studio and might be a short-term solution.

 

Long term, I think the McBride's will have to sell, and I posted that in a bumped Speculatron thread.

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There's a water line visible on the big monitor cart.

Image

 

The big problem is going to be what's under the raised flooring in the technical areas seen when the person who recorded this walks out of the studio. The safe bet would be to replace everything that is down there, which is a huge undertaking. The studio is probably mostly a loss. Those poor camera pedestals.

 

The good news is, you can see the upper level of the control room isn't dirty at all, meaning water never got more than a few inches off the raised floor. Most of their core equipment survived.

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On 9/30/2022 at 11:37 PM, nycnewsjunkie said:

AFAIK, WXCW is down. WINK was doing a makeshift broadcast of sorts for a while, but they essentially signed off at 11:30pm and are supposed to be back at 6am. This frozen picture is what WINK’s channel on YouTubeTV is showing now (sorry I don’t have it in better quality).

WINK is actually the one down as WXCW-DT1 is currently airing that schedule.

 

And I'm not ready to call them down and out and ready to be Nexstared or Apolloed. They've been in acquisition mode radio-wise, they're still a runaway #1 for news, and have a large number of radio stations (though I think their subsidiary taunted Happy Fun Ball by naming their radio stations 'Hell Yeah' and 'RIGHT All Along' 😂 ). And I'm sure they're well-insured enough to do a studio rebuild. These days you can easily build an interim setup that's acceptable for most viewers on a YouTuber budget. And the building only undertook low-level flooding damage; this isn't a KPLC/KVHF situation where they had roof damage, or when KHOU got flooded out.

 

But I'm relieved they're back in-studio in some form.

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