It Wasn't A Malfunction!

Some of you may be aware of the claims that Robinson's prayer not being broadcast on the mall was an "audio malfunction." That is bullshit!

Everyone who took TV Production remembers the commands given from the director's booth prior to going live. The rest of you, try to remember all of those shows about making TV shows OR the few glimpses of the director's booth they give you on some live broadcasts.

What are the final commands? "Bring up audio. We're going live in 5...4...3...2... Cue intro." HBO provided the mall broadcast as part of its production of the national broadcast. HBO would've kept audio down during any "pre-show" preparations. The Obama Inaugural Committee scheduled Robinson for "pre-show" so it was not broadcast. Since audio was "down" and not "off," it could be heard (barely) by people really close to the towers but not by anyone else.

This was NOT a mistake. The Obama camp has scheduled various televised events that were also broadcast to large audiences on-location, including his victory speech in Chicago. They KNEW Robinson would not be heard on the mall or on HBO!

Also, this is NOT the first time they've done this. When the LGBT community got a little peeved at Obama's invitation to anti-gay Donnie McClurkin to participate in his concert tour, he invited a gay minister for "balance" BUT scheduled the minister to speak so early that neither Obama nor most of the on-location audience had shown up yet. The guy stood there talking to an almost empty room.

UPDATE: There were major typos in the original post. I fixed them. Sue me.