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WRC/NBC4 has been rebroadcasting only MSNBC programming for the last few hours (Chris Matthews is on right now), and the station finally put up this announcement on its web site at about 5:15 p.m. "Due to major technical problems, News4 at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. will not be seen. Please tune in to News4 at 6 p.m. with Jim Vance and Doreen Gentzler." A call to the harried NBC4 newsroom confirmed that they are still planning on broadcasting a 6 p.m. newscast, but didn't yield much more info than that. We're trying to track down exactly what the technical problem was that knocked out the entire broadcasting mechanism for the local news station, and will update later on.
UPDATE 6:05 p.m. It looks like a power outage was likely responsible. Pepco spokesperson Andre Francis confirmed that one of the three power lines that services the NBC4 complex blew early this morning. Pepco says WRC called in the problem at about 7 a.m., and that power was restored by about 10 a.m., but clearly the effects of the prolonged outage rippled through the day's broadcast schedule.
WRC's 6 p.m. newscast did come on as scheduled.
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It looked like Barbara Harrison was reporting from Cheney's undisclosed location, or perhaps the employee break room, during the local news bits of the Today Show.
This isn't surprising, as NBC4's facilities have been long neglected and are technologically archaic. They pretty much have the only local news operation that hasn't been upgraded to HD, and that's not happening anytime soon. Channel 4 is owned by NBC, and it's a shame how they've treated that station.
The problem at NBC4 is just another example of the vulnerability of America's infrastructure.
That was the best programming I'd seen in ages. I'll even bet their ratings went up.