Signal loss issues happen, but the one that happened to WOOD-TV Sunday was particularly unfortunate from a timing perspective. That Grand Rapids, Michigan-based NBC affiliate lost its signal…in the middle of the Detroit Lions’ playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They didn’t get it back for around 25 minutes, and they received just as much negative reaction from viewers as you’d expect.
On Sunday night, though, WOOD-TV meteorologist Blake Harms explained what happened. As per Harms, this was was a loss of normal and backup power from station owner Nexstar Media Group’s processing hub in Indianapolis:
Here’s the rest of Harms’ post after that embed cutoff:
We already have an engineer who works on Sunday and he was quickly able to figure out it wasn’t a local issue. Other engineers rushed in and the team was able to take the feed from a station in Florida. Thank goodness for that move from our engineers, because our in-house signal was not restored until late in the fourth quarter.
We are just as upset as you are for missing part of the game. From what I’ve been told, we will be working with corporate to ensure this never happens again. The timing on this issue quite literally could not have been worse in West Michigan, and we realize that.
Above all, we’re sorry it happened.
That’s brutally unfortunate for WOOD-TV. And it’s remarkable to see that come from not just a primary power failure at the Nexstar hub, but also the backup system failing.
Harms’ explanation and transparency here is appreciated. And with Detroit moving on to this coming Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers following Sunday’s 31-23 win over the Buccaneers, hopefully this won’t happen again for WOOD-TV or West Michigan Lions fans.
[Blake Harms on Facebook]
