WTTW Airs Silent Movie About Lincoln -- But Not On Purpose

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: Abraham Lincoln on WTTW-TV: Glitch means more than a moment of silence : by Phil Rosenthal | Chicago Tribune : ------------------------------------------ : It's not quite Richard Nixon's 18 1/2-minute gap on the Watergate tapes. But thanks to a glitch at Chicago public broadcaster WTTW-Ch. 11, Abraham Lincoln had his own 38 minutes of audio trouble Monday night. : Channel 11 on Tuesday was blaming an equipment malfunction not immediately noticed by its engineers for the fact the station's analog broadcast of PBS's "American Experience: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln" had no narration or dialogue for nearly half the show's 90 minutes. : WTTW viewers watching the analog feed, either over the air or on area cable systems, only received occasional background music and sound effects during that span. The digital telecast, from which Channel 11 was converting its analog telecast, was not affected. : "There was a malfunction in the conversion of the audio," WTTW spokeswoman Shaunese Teamer said, who added that the station's three engineers on duty did not immediately know there was a problem in part because they were monitoring broadcasts on the station's multiple digital channels in addition to the analog broadcast. : The problem was remedied soon after it was actually discovered, she said. : Because of the glitch, WTTW is adding a rebroadcast of the "American Experience" episode to its schedule, airing it again at 10 p.m. Thursday, which is the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. A rerun already was planned for 3 a.m. Saturday morning. : The program also will be available for some cable subscribers through their on-demand service, but Teamer said that until Thursday night's rebroadcast the version there will have the same audio problem as the original telecast. : WTTW considered the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday and the programming tied to it such a priority that it put the former president on the cover of this month's WTTW and WFMT-FM 98.7 programming guide. : The audio problem happened about a week before what was to be the scheduled shutdown of all U.S. analog TV signals in favor of only digital transmissions, a switch Congress last week moved to mid-June. That change will eliminate the need for broadcasters to convert digital broadcasts to analog, and vice versa. : "Once we get completely into digital, this won't be an issue because programs will be fed and the audio will be picked up in the right channels," Teamer said. : Teamer said the Lincoln incident might lead to changes that make it easier for viewers to notify station staff of trouble outside of normal business hours.

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