Anyone who has ever been on the air will tell you that there is nothing like the feeling of solving a problem on the fly.
Dial Global Sports tweeted this pic, below, of Kevin Harlan broadcasting via a handheld phone during the big Super Bowl power outage. I think it captures not only the good work of the Dial Global production team at staying on the air to serve its radio listeners, but also the energy and excitement of any reporter who is dealing with an unexpected story on the field and in the broadcast booth.
Hear it at the audio link below the photo.
The producers were using a main line and three backup lines for the broadcast. “When the power went out on the main line and the first two backups did not work, the board operator in New York cut to a commercial,” Dial Global stated in a Monday followup summary. “Then they were back up and running on the third line.” It said Harlan, the play-by-play announcer, used one landline phone; analyst Boomer Esiason used a second phone; reporter Jim Gray called in from another phone in the Superdome and sideline reporters James Lofton and Mark Malone called in via cell phones.
Hear it here:
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