I got an e-mail (below) from former Kitsap Sun reporter and Road Warrior blogger Travis Baker, on television coverage of the South Kitsap High School Marching Band in the Rose Parade New Year’s Day in Pasadena. It seems the amount of air time they got varied quite a bit from station to station.
I’d love to hear from other readers about what they saw on different channels.
I do know South Kitsap’s band got a pretty good spot on KTLA, one of the major networks in Los Angeles. Meegan and I were eating lunch in a restaurant after the parade, and I happened to catch the segment on the SK Band, broadcast obviously not in real time. They had about two to three minutes of video of the band from various angles, various sections, with brief but glowing commentary. They noted it was South Kitsap’s first trip to the Rose Parade. The announcer talked about their connection to the Beatles (the band’s performance of a Beatles medley, including “Magical Mystery Tour” was part of a CD from The Rock Wood Fired Pizza/KZOK Battles of the Bands II in 2009), and she said, “We love this band.”
Here’s what Travis had to say:
“I don’t know if the following would be the source of a follow-up
story, and I’m not even sure I’m correct, as I was recording both
the ABC and NBC Rose Parade telecast, and jumping back and forth
between them live, then went to Hallmark at 10 p.m. after the first
two terminated the parade telecast to shown football and
hockey.
Hallmark’s telecast was the same one shown live on Travel at 8 a.m.
Hallmark was the best bet, as it went to a rather long run of
commercials whenever a band appeared, then picked it up where they
left off after the commercials, so no part of the parade was
missed.
SK’s Band got good exposure on Hallmark. I don’t know whether
Travel was able to do the same thing, but I don’t see how it could.
Live coverage required skipping whatever parade entrant went by
during commercials.
Anyway, the SK band got about the same brief exposure as all the
bands on NBC. But it appeared to me that ABC stiffed SK entirely by
going to a commercial when they were passing by.
If I’m right, anyone relying on just ABC to see the SK band would
have been disappointed. ABC’s telecast was superior to NBC’s in
other regards, as it profiled a lot of the floats rather than just
talking about them as they passed.
Unfortunately, I deleted the ABC recording before I checked.
The video on your Web site was terrific. Do you know if there was more than one shooter or did the only one race around to get the band from both sides?”
Travis, in answer to your question, the shooter was me, and yes, we did have to hoof it from our place in the media grandstand at the beginning of the parade to catch up with the band at the end. We walked the side streets, glancing over nervously from time to time, wondering if the band was ahead of us or behind us. At one point, I recognized a couple of the floats going by and realized we were ahead of South Kitsap. I also saw some people sitting on top of RVs to watch the parade. I asked one guy if I could climb up to film the band, but he turned me down. The second family I asked said “sure!” So I sat 14 feet high with their delightful grandkids (one of whom is featured in th video) and had a completely unobstructed view, no other videographers jostling my elbows. Meegan and I figured that, by the time we got from the start of the parade to the end, we had walked somewhere between 6 and 8 miles, including the mileage we put in maneuvering around the crowds.
Chris Henry, reporter
I had a couple of friends who were watching ABC and texted or facebooked me, during the parade, asking what happened to the SKHS Band. Apparently ABC was running a commercial during SKHS’s performance and missed them entirely.
From what I heard from friends, HGTV had great coverage for us. I’d never heard of HGTV before, but am a fan now. 😉
I watched on ABC. I just flipped on the first station I came to that had coverage of the parade. It was disappointing to have them cut away right when the band appeared. The announcer made a comment about there being a connection to the Beatles and then cut to a commercial before mentioning what the connection was. I waited to see the band when the show returned, but it had passed and they were showcasing a float.
But, since it’s taped somewhere, I’ll look for it. Thank you.
I started with ABC and noticed that their coverage of the bands at the beginning of the parade was really sparse. They focused more on the floats and pop up historical facts about the Rose Parade. The commercials seemed never ending.
Thanks to a heads up from Kathryn, I knew that SK would be around the number 60 participant mark. So I started surfing around channels. I found HGTV within a couple of minutes and discovered that they were commercial free so I stuck with them and was REALLY glad I did.
Within seconds of SK Band appearance on the screen with the banner at the bottom showing their name and hometown, I paused the coverage took a screen shot of the TV screen and emailed it to Kathryn down on the parade route. She emailed me back within a few seconds with a pic of the band marching from her location. It was a rather surreal multi-media moment.
One of the announcers on HGTV, Rob Weller is from the Bremerton area. He made several comments about Port Orchard, PSNS and Bremerton. It was great coverage. One of the other announcers mentioned that she thought the uniforms on the band looked great.
Kathryn, I still have the coverage of the band on my DVR. Let me know if you want to stop by and watch it.
Colleen,
Thanks for saving the DVR for me (I need to get one of those). I was able to watch it at another friend’s house the other night.
They were spectacular!
Dang and here I was hoping that we could head down to the famous “Sev” and pick up some big gulps and soak in some Bremerton culture before watching. I could show you where the much anticipated Fish Art will go. Maybe next time. LOL!