Master Control at WLOS loses audio

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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The phones must have been ringing off the hook Thursday night at WLOS, as thousands of fans called in their frustration at not being able to hear their favorite show, Lost. There was no audio. Or there was audio, but the audio and video track weren’t synched.

Something was majorly effed up. And Lost is only ABC’s most popular program.

More than halfway into the show, WLOSers started a scroll at the bottom of the screen, saying that there was a problem with audio from ABC. But in this morning’s paper, WLOSer’s general manager admitted that it was a problem at the studio.

“We had an audio component in our master control room fail during the broadcast,” WLOS general manager Jack Connors said.
“What our engineers have done is patched around the problem because they don’t know what failed yet. We’ll have to find that out either during the night (Thursday) or morning.”

WLOS announced that it will re-air the Lost episode this afternoon at 4 p.m. Too bad people have to work, right?

This is the third week in a row that some folks in Asheville have had a problem watching lost. First it was problems with Charter. Now this. Ugh.

Meantime, the message boarders at the C-T are savaging WLOS. Here’s a sample:

-So WLOS really does stand for We Lost Our Signal.
Sinclair was probably testing a new way to make more money with a cheaper, regional audio board.

-The offer to put “LOST” in Maury’s place tomorrow is nothing less than stupid. Why piss off the people who want to know the DNA results of whatever whore they are highlighting … and making people tune in on a Friday afternoon?

-Sinclair is running this station on the cheap. THAT is the problem. They do NOTHING to actually defend their license that is in the public interest.

When the renewal period comes up, I hope that everyone will remember not only the techincal problems with the station, but their lack of coverage of local news.

-when problem first occurred, their crawl line blamed ABC, but….if one turned up the volume [way up] you could hear the broadcast from MY40. when does their license come up for renewal?

-Pathetic. They screw up a show they’ve been ushing, then re-air it BEFORE most people are home from work?? I really thought the tech issues there were simply a morning crew kind of thing…I’ve gotten used to reading the lips of Julie Wunder or whomever cause someone forgot to put on their mic or to turn it on. Ha!!! Just happened again as I was typing that!!!

-I had no idea the tech issues extended to prime time. My first clue was when the sound kept fading out during LOST, then for several minutes the sound from another show (something about seeing an oasis and palm trees out on the horizon while Michael was being treated in a hospital) was played.

-the crimes,if you only watched them you would think we live in shangra-la.
When they “covered” the last forest fire (from their parking lot) they asked for watchers to send video..? I think everyone is off on weekends and can,t be bothered…People. Join me in e-mailing everyone who can make a difference.

-WLOS is so amateur! My 10 year old and his friends could do a better job!