10 Comments Add your own

• 1. Steve  |  May 16th, 2008 at 12:15 pm

  Once master control operations go fully tapeless, those jobs will become mere drag and drop functions that virtually anyone can do. No real surprise there. Graphics? Heck, that can be outsourced to India if they really wanted to.

• 2. aidian  |  May 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  Most master control has been tapeless or nearly so for some time. To do it well still requires a reasonably smart person with some training. Not brain surgery but not something a trained monkey can do — at least not well.

  Similar story for outsourced gfx — leads to scenes like that over the shoulder on Hardball a couple of months ago: a picture of Obama for a story about Osama.

  Of course it’s in breaking news that this will kill you. Yesterday I ordered three maps on the fly while on air — did it with a couple of sentences because I know my gfx guy. I also dropped three promos and combined two commercial breaks on the fly.

  Try doing that with outsourced gfx and a remote master control set up. Please, try. Especially if you’re my competition and we’re fighting over the big breaking story.

  Breaking news and weather… those are the price of admission for a competitive local TV operation, and I’d suggest a big part of what you need to win on any platform. If you can’t do those two things well you don’t even get to compete on everything else.

  Of course, that assumes you want to win, and you’re willing to invest in what you need to do so.

  Also — I heard Gannett plans newsroom layoffs for June.

• 3. Steve  |  May 18th, 2008 at 11:13 am

  Well, I’m not familiar with the Hardball story — are you blaming the graphics person or the producer for letting it get on air?

  And maps on the fly? If that’s all you have over your competition for breaking news then I’d say you have bigger problems to deal with. Can I ask what the story was about? A car crash? A robbery/murder? Some other bit of hype passed as news that people are increasingly getting sick of seeing?

  Dropping promos and combining breaks? Click, click, done. You know the ultimate out time for your show, so who cares how you get there? The point is that master control functions will be accomplished by darn near anyone, geography be dammed.

  I’ll go further and say that once this whole notion of appointment viewing goes out the window, strict timing of programming will become largely irrelevant. Reporting will occur as needed and be distributed to an audience who will be technologically empowered to create/assemble their own newscasts comprised of elements that they can download from anywhere, anytime.

• 4. Hussman  |  May 19th, 2008 at 6:00 am

  aidian is wise.

• 5. aidian  |  May 19th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

  For the record, the story was a rapidly spreading wildfire that was threatening to burn down our viewers homes. I don’t do stuff like that for a drug related shooting or a single vehicle roll over.

  Last time I had an outsourced master control operation was in a small market, and it was a huge hassle to modify a break. It was not the sort of thing I could have done while also keeping us on the air on the fly.

  “I’ll go further and say that once this whole notion of appointment viewing goes out the window, strict timing of programming will become largely irrelevant. Reporting will occur as needed and be distributed to an audience who will be technologically empowered to create/assemble their own newscasts comprised of elements that they can download from anywhere, anytime.”

  This is dead on — we’re getting there, and I can’t wait. But we ain’t there yet, and that’s coming from the newsroom computer nerd. And even when it does — a wind swept wildfire threatening to take out a subdivision will likely always be the sort of thing you want to publish/air/communicate ASAP.

  Hell, if outsourcing gfx and master control would mean more reporters on the street and maybe an extra web producer, I’d say lets do it at my station. But I compete with a Gannett shop, and that ain’t what’s going on from what I hear.

  So now my competitor won’t do as well at breaking news, but it’s not like they’ll get more resources to do better day to day reporting. That may help me kick their butt next time we’re head to head, but I can’t see it as a long term positive for either them or us, the industry as a whole, or, most importantly, the public we serve.

  Rant over, we now return you to your regularly scheduled internets already in progress…

• 6. Anonymous  |  May 19th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

  @Steve whatever that means: Timing is irrelevant already when you are constantly apologizing for either not having the clips available or the wrong clip up and then 15 seconds later saying gee look THERE it is!

  Modern control stuff puts the “circus” back at the end of media QUICKLY.

• 7. Steve  |  May 19th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

  @Anonymous:

  I’m going under the assumption that the station’s technology is up to date. I fully understand that many shops are put together under less than ideal conditions and budgets.

  My bit about master control comes from reading recent press releases about systems that not only automatically segment shows and commercials taken in from servcies such as Pathfire, but will also output low-rez clips for anyone to preview. It sounds slick.

  I can see a day when a station’s breaks are assembled/rearranged visually, much like the interfaces of modern NLE systems.

• 8. Anonymous  |  May 19th, 2008 at 8:52 pm

  @Steve: I’m assuming it’s the same bizarre editing/camera control suite that the CBS station bought that was the one that the news guy had a fit over in that You Tube clip when the audio kept goofing in his monitor earplug.. Nobody knows how to use it and they know who they are but I’m being polite as I can.

• 9. Steve  |  May 19th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

  @Anonymous:

  I assume you’re referring to the Parkervision/Ignite products? I don’t have any first-hand experience, but I hear they have some bugs. I think problems are also compounded by customers cutting corners and not purchasing the full-feautured systems.

• 10. Spiny Norman  |  May 21st, 2008 at 1:45 pm

  After reading this thread it seems that Aidian is someone who works day to day in news (as a producer) and has an idea on what viewers want (however sensationalist); Steve is someone in management, engineering or product sales rep outside of the newsroom, who has a utopian view. Steve’s viewpoint will appeal to the suits; however, they will still want Aidian’s newscast.
  The real implication of the Gannett centralization of its newscast is the future of local tv news– there will be a centralized broadcast operation for Gannett, Fox O&O’s, etc., with local cut-ins done by a greatly reduced local staff.
  Gannett has also been replacing reporters/photogs/broadcast quality cameras with VJ’s to save expenses. In the markets I’ve seen Gannett stations, they have seem to given up on competiting for news.

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