z47 Broadcast Services
info
Broadcast Television Production News
LATEST NEWS
Antenna Sales Spike in New York During Oscars Retrans Fight
ABC-Cablevision blackout lifted just after Oscars began as two companies reach agreement
Tuesday March 8, 2010"Just 13 minutes after the ceremony began in Hollywood, ABC scrolled a breaking news message: "ABC7 and Cablevision have made significant progress in negotiations and are pleased to announce that ABC7's signal has returned to Cablevision customers as they try to finalize a deal." Read more....
TV broadcasters await FCC’s National Broadband Plan
Mar 4, 2010 9:19 AM, By Phil Kur
Plagued by years of a declining over-the-air audience, many TV broadcasters have looked to Mobile DTV to re-vitalize their businesses. Not only could Mobile DTV let them more profitably monetize their RF infrastructures, but more importantly it has the potential to attract significant new ad dollars and create greater revenue. Read The Whole Story...
FCC Should Not Force Broadcasters to Give Up Spectrum
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable
March 3, 2010
"Spectrum should not be taken away from broadcasters,"
"spectrum was needed to provide the HD pictures viewers were promised during a DTV transition that they helped pay for."
Americans Prefer Local TV as
Top News Source
March 1, 2010
WASHINGTON: Local TV stations are the preferred source of news for the folks who responded to a survey released today by the Pew Research Center. Of the 2,259 adults queried, 78 percent said they get news from a local TV station. Read The Whole Story...
FCC to Propose Broadcast Spectrum Auction
February 26.2010"One of the goals of the plan is to free up 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband over the next decade. The reclamation of TV spectrum is part of that plan. This “Mobile Future Auction,” that would allow existing spectrum licensees “such as television broadcasters in spectrum-starved markets, to voluntarily relinquish spectrum in exchange for a share of auction proceeds, and allow spectrum sharing and other spectrum efficiency measures.”
Read The whole Story...
Panasonic Goes 3D Crazy with Camcorder and Video Mixer
By Joseph L. Flatley posted Feb 16th 2010 6:04PM
"The AG-3DA1 camera (available this fall) is equipped with dual lenses and two full 1920 x 1080 2.07 megapixel 3-MOS imagers for recording 1080/60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p (native) and 720/60p and 50p in AVCHD. It can record for up to 180 minutes on dual 32GB SD cards in AVCHD PH mode, and sports dual HD-SDI out, HDMI (version 1.4), two XLR connectors, built-in stereo microphone and twin-lens camera remotes."
Read The whole Story...
FCC to Propose Broadcast Spectrum Auction
February 24, 2010
The FCC’s Broadband Plan is due to Congress March 17. One of the goals of the plan is to free up 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband over the next decade. The reclamation of TV spectrum is part of that plan.
F.C.C. Opens an Inquiry for a Game Show on Fox
By EDWARD WYATT Published: February 19, 2010 
Los Angeles: "In December, the parent of a child who was recruited for the quiz show sent a letter to the commission. The letter alleges that a few days before a 
planned taping, a member of the program’s production staff reviewed with the contestant and his parents a list of potential topics and gave specific answers to at least four questions that the child either did not know or about which he was unsure."
Think 3D Is Around The Corner?
FCC May Pay Broadcasters for Airwaves
February 11, 2010
To relieve the strain on mobile networks caused by smartphones, the agency is considering a plan to pay broadcasters to vacate some of their airwaves.
By Olga Kharif
The Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan to pay broadcasters to vacate airwaves it could use to alleviate network strain caused by the surging use of smartphones such as the iPhone, an FCC official said. Read The Whole Story...
Toyota Pulls Ads from ABC Affiliates
February 9, 2010
Toyota dealerships told the affiliates last week that it was pulling ads due to “excessive stories on Toyota issues.” The group was said to shift its buys to non-ABC stations “as punishment” for the reports, led by ABC News chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross. Read The Whole Story...
Did Apple Goof On Name?
February 5th, 2010, Brad Dick Broadcast Engineering.com
One aspect that’s not received a lot of notice is the device’s screen aspect ratio. The iPad has a 9.7in screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Unless you’re planning on watching only decade or older movies, you’re going to be forced to view the new releases in less than full-screen size.
The image to the left illustrates how various aspect ratios will be displayed on the iPad.
Read The Whole Story...
CBS Sells Out the Super Bowl
February 1, 2010 (AP)
Beer buys the most time
LOS ANGELES: CBS has sold all available airtime for the Super Bowl. CBS had sold around 90 percent of its Super Bowl inventory by December, even as companies ratcheted down on ad spending in one of the worst recessions in decades. The network is also pacing ahead of last year for selling golf and the NCAA basketball tourney in March as well. Read The Whole Story...
NBC Set for First All-HD Winter Games
Along with a 30 person crew of engineers and project managers, the NBC team has been preparing the network's broadcast facilities for the first all-HD Winter Games. Read The Whole Story
Broadcasters Nix Low-Power DTS Proposal
January 27, 2010 TV Technology
The NAB and MSTV, acting as representatives for the nation’s broadcasters, filed comments with the FCC on Jan. 27 pledging “full and constructive participation” in that agency’s broadband plan, but at the same time, denouncing a proposal from the Consumer Electronics Association and CTIA-The Wireless Association for transitioning U.S. television broadcasting to a low-power distributed transmission system (DTS) as impractical. The NAB and MSTV were united in their opinion that the DTS plan was not workable due to loss of coverage and interference problems. Read The Whole Story.
Groups Blast Comcast-NBCU Public Interest Commitments
January 28, 2010
“A month ago, Comcast-NBCU pledged to operate in a manner consistent with certain ‘public interest commitments,’” said ACA president and CEO, Matt Polka. One of the commitments calls for Comcast-NBCU to self-apply the FCC’s program-access rules to its TV stations. This ‘commitment’ isn’t without irony, given that Comcast is asking a federal appeals court to tear up those rules and toss them in the wastebasket. Read The Whole Story....
Golf Channel Goes HD
Broadcast Facilities Inc. Acquires Crawford’s Satellite Division
January 25, 2010LOS ANGELES: Broadcast Facilities Inc. is buying the satellite division of Crawford Communications, the Atlanta-based content distributor. The acquisition includes all of Crawford’s television network origination, Teleport, satellite uplink trucks, Internet, production and government services portions of the business. BFI did not disclose the value of the all-stock deal, but The New York Times DealBook puts it north of $100 million.
Crawford has been providing turnkey broadcast services since 1984. The company performs over 40,000 feeds per year, originates/turns more than 200 full-time networks and provides satellite services to hundreds of clients in various industries, BFI said.
Read The Whole Story....
Universal Sports Finds New HD Production Home
Jan 22, 2010 
Westlake Village, CA Universal Sports has moved into a new 40,000sq-ft HD production facility in Westlake Village, CA, where it is consolidating its TV and digital units that have been spread across two states.
The facility was originally conceived and built by Dole Food Chairman David Murdock to promote health and wellness programming but has sat idle for two years. Read The Whole Story....
RDF to be bought by Zodiak
RDF Media, the independent production company behind Wife Swap, is reportedly to be sold to Zodiak Entertainment, a Paris-based producer.
RDF's chief executive, David Frank, is being lined up to run the combined group, which would be the third largest TV production company in the world, according to a report on the Broadcast website, behind only Endemol and the RTL-owned FremantleMedia. More.....
3D Jackson Tribute Planned for Grammy Awards
January 21, 2010
LOS ANGELES: A 3D short created for the late Michael Jackson’s “This is It!” tour will be featured on the Jan. 31 Grammy Awards telecast as a tribute to the singer. Grammy organizers are saying the feature, “Earth Song,” will debut in the broadcast on CBS. The network is teaming up with target to provide glasses--presumably anaglyph--for the show.
Hundreds of Wireless Microphones To Go Obsolete !
January 16, 2010
Literally hundreds of different wireless public address systems that utilize the 700 MHz UHF band for microphones, intercoms, and in-ear monitors must now be replaced or reconfigured, and it's because of the great DTV shift that took place last year.
In 2008, the FCC auctioned off the 700 MHz frequency band that formerly belonged to UHF channels 52-69, and a large chunk of the band went to AT&T, Verizon, Cox, and King Street Wireless, a holding company associated with US Cellular. Now that the DTV transition is complete and next-gen wireless services are being built around the spectrum that was freed, the FCC has prohibited the sale and distribution of 700 MHz consumer devices.
The FCC is providing a sunset period for these devices which will last until June 12, 2010, or one year from the DTV transition. Thought to be most affected by this transition are P.A. rental companies, music venues, and churches.
Read The Whole Story....
Broadcasters Organize Haitian Relief Effort
January 14, 2010
WASHINGTON: The National Association of Broadcasters today announced a voluntary nationwide initiative aimed at boosting relief efforts in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. (The destruction in Port-au-Prince is pictured left in this United Nations photo.) Read The Whole Story....
Broadcasters Ready to Fight!
Perry Sook, chairman/president/CEO of Nexstar Broadcasting Group, is even more adamant about the so-called "spectrum grab."
Citing the "unfunded Federal mandate" under which broadcasters spent $15 billion for the digital TV transition, Sook rattles off a roster of reasons why the FCC's dream for redistributing TV spectrum makes no sense.
NBC's Leno Drama Might Have a Happy Ending
January 14, 2010
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC's late-night TV troubles are proving embarrassing and costly for the network -- but the drama could pay dividends down the road.NBC is scrapping its cost-cutting experiment that put "The Jay Leno Show" on TV at 10 p.m. because the show earned poor ratings and backlash from local TV stations that said it hurt the 11 o'clock newscasts that followed. NBC also remains the last of the four big U.S. TV networks in audience ratings.Read The Whole Story....
ESPN Plans Live 3-D Sports Channel
Many details remain fuzzy, but ESPN said it has developed its own techniques and workflows for live game applications. To stimulate interest and prompt consumers to buy the required 3-D-capable HDTV sets, ESPN will host a series of viewing parties across the country in specially equipped theaters and other venues. The network will also have to convince cable, satellite TV providers and telcos to deploy the necessary set-top boxes.
NBC to Move Leno Back to Late-Night as Ratings Drop (Update2)
January 10, 2010
(Bloomberg) -- NBC will stop broadcasting Jay Leno’s talk show at 10 p.m. next month, ending an experiment that sank the TV network’s prime-time ratings and damaged the lead-in audience for local newscasts and late-night shows.
The U.S. network plans to return Leno to a half-hour weeknight slot at 11:35 p.m. and shift “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” a half-hour later to 12:05 a.m., Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal co-chairman of television and entertainment, said today at a television critics meeting in Pasadena, California. The changes would take effect after the Vancouver Olympics.
Read The Whole Story....Broadcasters Begin Airing Spots Promoting Free TV
January 8, 2010
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has produced a TV spot informing viewers of discussions in Washington that could limit free, over-the-air broadcast television. The 30-second spot, produced in English and Spanish, was distributed via satellite in late December and has been airing on local stations this month. The TV spot comes on the heels of several third-party filings submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) calling for the reallocation of broadcast spectrum for new wireless broadband devices.
Could Leno Go Back To 11:30?
NBC Wants to Set Late-Night Plans Before January 21 Affiliates Meeting
Pressure from stations behind talks of shakeup that could see Leno to 11:35, O'Brien and Fallon 30 minutes later
With the prospect of Leno returning to 11:35--one possibility being discussed and something he exclusively told B&C he would do--speculation immediately turned to O'Brien.
While sources say ABC probably would not be interested in O'Brien, multiple sources with knowledge of Fox's thinking say they believe the network would be interested in O'Brien if the numbers made sense. News Corp. executives have looked at opening up an 11 p.m. late-night time slot in the recent past.
Indie Video Producers Love Blip & YouTube January 5, 2010
Sony Pins Future on a 3-D Revival
JANUARY 7, 2010, BY DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI, Wall Street Journal
LAS VEGAS -- With its once-revered electronics business flagging, Sony Corp. is placing a huge bet this year that 3-D technology will vault the company back into a leadership position in the living room.
In his latest effort to resuscitate the struggling Japanese behemoth, 67-year-old CEO Howard Stringer has bulled past the hesitancy of some top aides to drive every unit of the company -- from TV production to the movie studio to its videogame arm -- to advance three-dimensional viewing in the global marketplace.
Public Interest Groups Call for Antitrust
Probe of "TV Everywhere"
January 4, 2010
Groups calling for a probe of the "TV Everywhere" plan by cable, satellite and phone companies that brings television shows and movies to computers and devices, but only for those that subscribe to both television and high-speed Internet services.
The public interest groups allege collusion between video service providers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Verizon and Direct TV to keep video content behind a subscription-based pay wall.
TV In 10 Years!
The movement to kill free, over-the-air TV service has never been as intense as it is right now. The administration has aligned fully with the telco and computer lobbies that have been trying to wrench spectrum away from broadcasting for years. The effort started years ago with the move toward digital transmission. It advanced more recently when the fed allowed unlicensed communications devices in TV buffer channels. Now there’s talk of further displacement to free spectrum up for wireless broadband. 
The movement to kill free TV emanates from Washington, D.C., not into it.
Can Steve Jobs Unplug Cable TV?
December 22, 2009
This could be totally disruptive. Or it could be another "hobby" like Apple TV that never quite takes off.
In a front-page story published Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS) are "considering participating" in Apple's (AAPL) plan to offer television subscriptions over the Internet.
It was the first hint of interest from TV content providers since the news broke last month — in All Things Digital, another News Corp. (NWS) property — that Apple was preparing to offer such a service to its 100 million-plus iTunes subscribers. Read The Whole Story...
Broadcast
Web Directory
Bring Back Our Knobs:
Equipment News
Sony Unveils $200 3D Blu-ray Player
February 10, 2010
TOKYO: Sony unveiled its first 3D Blu-ray player today, the BDP-S470.
Sony also said it added 3D capabilities to existing BDP-S370 and BDP-S570 Blu-ray Disc models, which will become available this month for $180 and $250, respectively. Upgrades to its BDV-E770W and BDV-E570 Blu-ray Disc home theater systems will become available later this year for $650 and $550, respectively, it said.
Jan.29.2010
Broadcast Pix has introduced Slate Portable, designed for quick setup on a table or other work surface, with all the power of a Slate video production system, including an HD/SD production switcher, multi-view monitoring, clip stores, graphics system with Harris Inscriber CG, Fluent workflow software, and format and aspect conversion for 1080i, 720p, SD, and analog. It is available now. See More
Sony HDR-AX2000 First Look
By Moshe Lehrer, B&H Photo Video.com
Prosumer video cameras today can be even better than some of the professional cameras of only a few years ago, and the line between prosumer and professional keeps blurring more and more each year. Judging by the upcoming Sony HDR-AX2000 prosumer video camera, the accelerated pace of technological advancement shows no sign of slowing.Wohler Enhances AMP1-16-3G and AMP2-16 Series Audio Monitors With New Mixing, Control, and Display Features
January 20th, 2010
New Features Move Wohler Flagship Audio Monitors to Live Transmission-Chain Applications
HAYWARD, Calif. — Wohler Technologies Inc. today announced further enhancements to its AMP1-16-3G and AMP2-16 Series 16-channel audio monitors with new features and menu options that bring even greater convenience and functionality to multichannel monitoring. Improved access to audio levels and settings, newly added live mixing capabilities for the AMP2-16 Series, and more powerful monitoring and control functions at their fingertips now give operators the flexibility to adapt in real-time to the monitoring demands of complex broadcast operations.
More!
TV News Links
Home Atlanta TV News New York TV News TV News Archive
Copyright 2010 
All rights reserved.
Web Hosting by z47 Web services
z47 Broadcast Services
info
