Wide Wide World - 300,000 Ducks

300,000 Ducks

ESPN's Steve Bowman described the logistics involved in setting up a live remote at Arkansas' Claypool Reservoir where George Purvis, head of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, put 300,000 ducks on NBC:

There were many hurdles. Initially Purvis dealt with how to hide TV cameras, crews, control trucks and the necessary workmen and equipment and how to get electricity and telephone lines two miles (3 km) to the woods.

"To start with, the only way to get to the spot selected was over two miles (3 km) of muddy woods roads where only tractors had gone before," Purvis recalls. "The cameras would be two miles (3 km) from the nearest power line or telephone. This meant using power generators placed far enough back in the woods so as not to disturb the wary ducks. Six telephone circuits were needed to send the audio part of the program to New York.

"Even after stringing two miles (3 km) of wire there was just one circuit from Claypool's Reservoir to Jonesboro, 20 miles (32 km) away. So a radio loop was installed at the barn to cover the 20-mile (32 km) gap." Camouflaged blinds were built for television cameras and operators, one of which was 40 feet (12 m) up a hickory tree. An additional blind was built for the remote control truck.

The video would go from the camera to the control truck via the cable, then to an 80-foot (24 m) relay tower 1,000 feet (300 m) back in the woods, then 35 miles (56 km) to another relay tower, then 40 miles (64 km) to a third tower before being sent to Memphis. There it was transmitted 1,200 miles (1,900 km) to New York where the audio and video were combined to be broadcast live. With the electronics in place, the only thing left was to make sure that at an exact prearranged time there would be ducks in front of the cameras — over a quarter-of-a-million ducks.

Garroway, an inveterate music lover, lent his name to a series of recordings of jazz, classical music and pop released in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Wide Wide World of Jazz.