Brad on Broadcast

The recent election cycle saw the word “change” used about 50 million times. I submit that most of what any politician says is smoke and mirrors, but, hey, give the winners a chance to prove themselves.

There are, however, some real and exciting changes coming to Broadcast Engineering magazine effective with the January 2009 issue.

First, 2009 will be Broadcast Engineering’s 50th anniversary. Few magazines, and none of our competitors, can claim such a legacy. The magazine was began in April 1959 by Donald E. Mehl. Mehl was both publisher and editor. His initial printing was for 5000 copies. Today, Broadcast Engineering generates approximately 12 million reader impressions per year.

The initial magazine covered AM and FM audio and television. The magazine’s first logo, shown above, represented those industries. Today, Broadcast Engineering focuses on television, video, cable, satellite and video production. The AM and FM segments were spun off in 1994 to form our sister publication, Radio magazine. more

You can’t read a newspaper or news Web site without finding story after story about companies laying off people. ABC, NBC Universal, CBS, you name the network or broadcast company, layoffs have been occurring for almost a year. Yet, while other industries receive billions in taxpayer bailouts, broadcasters won’t be included. We don’t represent enough voters for the politicians to care.

The car makers, however, are in a quite different position with a huge union, representing tens of thousands of voters. Chrysler, Ford and GM seem to have no problem quite publicly begging for a taxpayer bailout of their failed businesses. And, congress seems only too willing to use our tax money to buy themselves more votes, er, bailout these failed enterprises.

And, while Congress fiddles, Rome burns. The unemployment rate in the U.S. rose to 6.7 percent in November, the highest rate in 15 years. That represents more than 10.3 million Americans without work. Businesses cut 533,000 jobs last month, which was the biggest lost in jobs since December 1974. Perhaps, just as bad, the number of workers who have become so disenchanted that they’ve given up even looking for a job rose to 12.5 percent. more

Would you view more content if it was higher quality and available on more platforms?

At IBC 2008, AmberFin conducted an attendee survey asking respondents a series of questions about viewing video content over non-traditional platforms. One objective was to look deeper into conditions and interests that might drive viewers to use newer platforms to consume programs and content.

First, the survey showed there was indeed an interest in being able to access content across multiple, including mobile, platforms. Mentioned distribution channels included broadband, IPTV and cell phones. About 60 percent felt that the broadcast industry has improved its knowledge multiple delivery platforms in the past year. Even so, 70 percent of respondents said that content owners could still be distributing their content more effectively across these platforms. For most TV stations, that could mean digital multichannel and mobile broadcasting. more

For grins, I typed into my Yahoo search engine the phrase, “staff reductions + broadcast.” The result was almost 2 million hits.

While the story headlines listed were primarily about cutbacks at newspapers, there were plenty of broadcaster mentions too. First headline, “The New York Times Company announces staff reductions,” leads to a story about the newspaper cutting 500 staff positions. If you care, those reductions were in addition to the previous staff reductions, which were taken in May of this year.

Other top headlines included, “Chicago Tribune trims 14 percent of news staff,” “BBC to give 3,000 pink slips” and “Era of the celebrity broadcaster fades on local TV.” Okay, these are nothing we haven’t hear about, or God forbid, experienced. This got me to thinking about how Broadcast Engineering readers might be dealing with, what at best could be called, troubling times.

At a recent Broadcast Engineering News Technology Summit, Jerry Gumbert, president and CEO of AR&D said, “You can’t do more with less. You can do more by doing differently.” Let’s consider that point for a minute. more

Have you written Santa yet? It’s not too late to send him an e-mail Christmas wish list.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I was surfing around the net looking for sales. I had nothing particular in mind, just looking for deals. What I found were plenty of deals, but nothing I wanted, until…

On a Gizmodo blog post, I found what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas. I want a Panasonic 103in plasma TV set under my tree Christmas morning.

Now, he may have to leave a few of your presents behind in order to squeeze my new, huge TV into his sleigh, but that’ll be all right. After all, it’ll be for a good cause: Me! more

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin received recently a very public hanging in the form of an 110-page report titled, “Deception and distrust: The federal communications commission under chairman Kevin J. Martin.”

The report was prepared by the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee run by democrats John Dingell and Bart Stupak. While the committee did include two republicans, Joe Barton of Texas and John Shimkus, neither republican signed off on the democrat-authored report.

A republican deputy staff director for the committee, Larry Neal said, “A congressional investigation has established that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t play well with others. The inquiry was supposed to pin down some weightier matters. Evidently that didn’t pan out.”

FCC spokesman Robert Kenny said the agency’s review of the report showed that the commission “did not violate any rules, laws or procedures.”

During an unusual committee conference call with media reporters, Stupak repeatedly hammered Martin for abusing FCC procedures, suppressing reports, data and information. On one hand, Stupak chided the chairman for not providing records, then has to admit that the committee staff “reviewed several hundred thousand documents … including 95 boxes of paper documents; conducted 73 interviews of current and former FCC employees and individuals associated with the telecommunications industry, solicited and received e-mails from FCC employees and contractors at a secure e-mail address established for this purpose and reviewed dozens of allegations delivered by hand, fax, phone and mail.” Sounds like the FCC coughed up a ton of records.

Unfortunately, the press has focused highly on the report’s title, and how couldn’t they, “Deception and Distrust”? Let’s look a bit closer at what the report really said. more

Would it surprise you to learn that a particular article on the Broadcast Engineering Web site receives more than 2500 views a month? Yet, that article has nothing to do with professional broadcast equipment.

Back in March, 2008, Aldo Cugnini wrote in his Transition to Digital column a tutorial on smart antennas. These are antennas that actively tune themselves to the proper frequency and direction of the station selected by the STB. Such antennas are a good solution to viewers who are live in areas where their favorite TV stations are located in multiple compass directions.

If all the stations you wanted to watch were in one general direction, a yaggi antenna would be a good reception solution. If however, one station is at 15 degrees, one at 100 degrees and a third at 270 degrees, a directional antenna is not a good answer. That’s where the smart antenna comes in. more

What will you be doing on the morning of Feb. 17, 2009?

I’m guessing a lot of Broadcast Engineering readers will be answering viewer telephone calls. Those callers will be asking, “Where’s your signal? Are you off the air?”

After you explain that the station is still transmitting, but only in digital, what do you say to, “What do I have to do in order to get your signal?”

A community-wide analog shutoff test was conducted two months ago in Wilmington, NC. The results showed that despite massive promotion, viewers were hardly ready for DTV.

Elon University’s associate dean of the School of Communications, Connie Book, initiated a research project where students documented the stations’ switchover and then collected demographic and DTV-relevant information from viewers who called the stations for help during the test.

Read the rest in our online magazine archive.

Americans want their TV screens…and their laptop screens…and their mobile screens. It seems that despite the dire predictions of broadcast TV going dark, U.S. viewers are increasingly hungry for more content on their video screens.

In late November, Nielsen released its second “A2/M2 Three Screen Report,” which describes how viewers access and use video content. The bottom line is that Americans are using more video on more platforms than ever before.

The report, shows that the average U.S. viewer watches approximately 142 hours of television a month. That’s 4.75 hours per day!

In addition, people who use the Internet, are online about 27 hours per month. Those with mobile phones used them to watch about three hours of content per month.

Susan Whiting, vice chairperson for Nielsen, said, “TV use is at an all-time high, yet people are also using the Internet more often, 31 percent of which is happening simultaneously.” I assume this means viewers are surfing while they watch TV.

So what does all this data suggest?

First, today’s viewer is consuming five more hours of television per month this year than last. And, if the economy continues to tank, other surveys suggest that TV usage will further increase. more

Once Thanksgiving is over, I always want to watch the movie “Christmas Vacation.” Its a Chevy Chase classic where he plays Clark Griswold, aka Sparky, and Beverly D’Angelo is his wife, Ellen. Together, with their two children, the family struggles through a series of unending Christmas-season disasters.

Maybe I love the movie so much because I identify with Clark. The guy who wants his family to experience his version of a “real” Christmas. It starts with the family going into the woods to pick and harvest the tree. Seeing him careen across field onto highway ending up driving under a huge truck is hilarious. But, Clark is at his best when it comes to decorating the house with Christmas lights. I really see myself there. All that work and damn lights still won’t turn on.

A focal event in the movie is his expectation of a Christmas bonus. He’s planned on installing a swimming pool and has already placed a down payment. Now all he needs is that Christmas bonus to make it happen. The problem comes when his scrooge boss, instead of the traditional bonus, gives Clark a year’s membership in the “Jelly of the Month” club.

The realization that there is no bonus, and therefore no pool, pushes Clark over the edge, and we see how he handles great financial disappointment. (Hey, I’d be disappointed too if my dream of skinny dipping with the sexy negligee department saleswoman Mary, played by Nicolette Scorsese, was suddenly stolen.)

This brings me to my point.

The disappointment of having saved and planned for something, only to have it ripped from your grasp by uncontrollable forces is what we baby boomers are feeling right now about our retirement investments. Wall Street’s greedy financial thieves and their patrons have destroyed plans that took us average folks a lifetime to create. And there’s nothing we can do about it. more