“I don’t know anything about working in television.
I’m trying to figure out why they might be doing an election “test run”....but I’ve come up with nothing except the obvious”
I worked for a number of years in broadcasting. Mostly radio, but some television too. The answer is, there is no reason why they would be doing an election “test run” that would actually end up on the air.
Think about it like this. Let’s say tomorrow there is a ten car pile-up in their viewing area. They’re going to get that information on their ticker in a matter of seconds. There’s no test run for something specific like that because there’s no way anyone could know that it was going to happen.
It’s possible that they just wanted to see how the graphic would look, checking the alignment for instance. Still, there’s no reason why that would have to go out onto the air. In radio we had a method called “audition” where we could preview something that we wanted to put out over the air, but for our ears in the control room only. That was how we did things like cue up tapes (back when there were tapes). In television, a master control technician can do the exact same thing with graphics. There would be no reason for it to make it on to the air... Well, an accident can happen, or someone CAN do something on purpose for whatever reason.
But there really is no logical reason why this ever ended up on television. Worse yet, the affiliate isn’t answering questions about it as of yet when they should be explaining themselves right now in a very big way.
Ok - thank you for that post.
my spidey senses are tingling
Even the lowliest Web programmer knows the difference between a test Web site and a "live" one.
My thought is they're sending out "feelers" to seed the public with a sense of the inevitability of a BO win. They want to fill out the edges of the puzzle first and then the center. The skewed polls didn't work, so they're trying this.
It's sort of reminiscent of BO's "Office of the President-Elect" made-up seal being used at public events right right after the 2008 election.
Is this just a CBS affiliate thing, or are other stations doing it? The local SF Bay Area affiliate, KPIX, doesn't seem to have anything like it on their site.