_460_345.png "Stephen Whiting, director for Newsy, running the show from his home using Viz Mosart newsroom automation software.")
With the pandemic’s alarming numbers now decreasing, news anchors have carefully begun reporting from the studio again, albeit in separate parts of the building and socially distanced. However, the IP-enabled technology and remote workflows developed by equipment vendors across the industry during the worst of it have endured and will for some time. These new tools allow reporters, producers and technicians to work from home by streamlining the process of producing a newscast.
The #1 rule of live broadcasting is that things tend to fail at the worst possible time. The greater the ratings, the more likely something highly unlikely but mission-critical will fail, broadcast RF and wireless communication systems included. Count on it.
When CBS Sports broadcasts images of the players taking the field on February 7th for Super Bowl LV to millions of viewers around the world, it will be the culmination of the most challenging season for live football sports production in the U.S.
Barring the unexpected, the broad themes of 2021 in broadcasting and media entertainment have already been sculpted by the unprecedented events of 2020.
The industry experienced futureshock head-on in 2020. The impact will take a long time to unwind but it’s already clear that some changes will be profound and not all of them bad. In part 2 we look at what sports and sportscasters need to do to change the live experience to make money and AI’s growing role in the ecosystem.
All industry sectors have been impacted by Covid-19 during 2020 and broadcasting is no exception, with a common theme being acceleration of trends already in train, both positive and negative.
With many production personnel working from home these days, gaining access to computers and systems back at the studio can be tricky, both logistically and due to obtaining the right security authorization. In many cases, a network- or software-based solution is not adequate because the available bandwidth might run out, the VPN connection does not always guarantee sufficient transmission quality, or the connection is not reliable or secure enough.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: The pandemic has had a highly disruptive effect on video production and distribution in 2020 and many agree it will be felt for several years. The inability for people to gather safely has made it impossible for full-scale video production to go ahead as it did before. Yet, the industry has risen to the challenge in a myriad of ways and learned to be more efficient in the process.