NEW YORK—As audiences fragment and the competition for the attention of consumers grows ever more heated, a new survey from Brand Keys highlights some of the companies and brands that are doing the best job of keeping consumer loyalty. 

Its 27th annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index (CLEI) assessment surveyed 95,607 consumers, 16 to 65 years of age regarding 1,200 brands in 114 categories. 

In the media and entertainment industries the survey identified what Brand Keys is calling some clear “brand loyalty juggernauts” in the areas of streaming, cable news, sports leagues, broadcast news and other areas. 

The companies that rated highest, with a top score of 100, in consumer loyalty and their ability to meet consumer expectations included:

• Streaming Video: Netflix (85%)
• Evening News (Cable): Fox and MSNBC (85%)
• Evening News (Network): NBC (80%)
• Major League Sports: NFL (81%)
• Morning News (Cable): Fox and Friends (83%)
• Morning News (Network): Good Morning America (76%)
• Gaming: FIFA 23 & Hogwart’s Legacy (87%)

“This year’s roster proves meeting or exceeding consumers’ expectations allows brands to transmute market-share and loyalty into category and market dominance. Those brands are ‘Loyalty Juggernauts’ – brands of such overwhelming economic force that their ability to meet expectations makes them far more powerful than universal awareness alone,” noted Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys founder and president.

“The loyalty paradigm has changed dramatically since the Cola Wars of the ’70s,” he added. “Today, loyalty – and consumer choice – don’t come down to one-or-the-other options. Today’s loyalty bottom-line comes down to consumers’ deepest expectations, and how they feel which brand measures up best. Customer behavior and brand loyalty are now almost entirely governed by emotional values related to expectations, and expectations grow constantly.”

The survey also found that in this year’s survey, broadcast and entertainment category expectations increased 42% YoY, but most brands have only kept up on average by 9%. Loyalty Juggernauts reduce that gap up to 50%, thereby virtually guaranteeing ongoing and consistent customer loyalty, the study found.

The researchers also stressed that in a period of rising consumer expectations, brand loyalty has tangible economic benefits. 

“The ability to meeting those very high consumer expectations better than the competition acts like the ‘super glue’ of loyalty,” said Passikoff. “Brands create a virtually unbreakable bond with customers.”

“Identify what consumers expect – create strategies, advertising and experiences that meet those expectations, and your brand can transform into a Loyalty Juggernaut,” he continued. “Customers will be six times more likely to engage, buy and buy again. They are six times more likely to think of you first, pay more attention to your marketing and social networking activities and actively engage with your brand. That’s the real payoff – blockbuster category leadership and more effective marketing.”

The report also described some of the benefits in terms of costs and marketing efforts that brand loyalty can create: 

• It costs 16 times more to recruit a new customer than keep an existing one.
• A 5% increase in loyalty lifts lifetime profits per customer as much as 78%.
• A 5% loyalty-increase is equal to a 12-21% across-the-board cost reduction program.

A complete list of the 2024 CLEI Brand Juggernauts in their categories can be found at https://brandkeys.com/customer-loyalty-engagement-index/

NEW YORK—As the 2024 election season began in earnest on Jan. 15 with the Iowa Caucus, NBC News is deploying a new web-based controller of its own making designed to enable its editorial team to respond faster and more easily to changing vote totals, generate on-air graphics and keep viewers better informed as the primary and general election votes unfold.

Sync, under development since December 2022, is an agnostic controller that producers, playback operators and technical directors are using to control the network’s Vizrt render engine. 

“Sync really unifies the way that we look at not only the control room workflow, but also the content creation workflow,” says Marc Greenstein, senior vice president of Design & Production for NBCUniversal News Group.

The initial goal for Sync was to replace the network’s aging election control system. Another priority was to optimize video and graphic playback, he says. However, even before the 2024 election season began, the network realized its December 2023 launch of a CNBC redesign, would be the perfect fit for the new controller.

While perhaps not immediately apparent, the financial network and election coverage share some production commonalities. Both frequently depend on a mix of playlists for any given show. Although the MOS rundown is almost always the priority, there are additional “shared playlists,” in the words of Greenstein, that address important fast developments on an ad hoc basis. 

“I call them ‘shared playlists,’ meaning somebody from the desk is saying, ‘Here are the top 10 movers today. Let's make a playlist and have everyone easily be able to access that,” he says. “For elections, there’s something similar.”

For next-day election coverage, a MOS-based playlist will drive most of the presentation. “But then there'll be either the user-based playlist or the auto-generated playlist on the night itself, meaning the user may say, ‘Hey, let me make a playlist of battleground counties in Iowa. Here are the five counties that we’re watching closely,” explains Greenstein.

“It [the user-based playlist] allows them quick access as the director and the control room teams decide what content they want on air at what moment. Obviously, it’s the same thing for CNBC.”

Sync and Workflow
More broadly, Sync will unify control across the entire NBC news group, opening up several workflow options and beyond, says Greenstein. 

From a workflow perspective it enables the network’s editorial teams to select various templates, organize data in a way that speeds time to air and save presets so that as a story pivots throughout the day coverage can evolve more easily, he says. 

“The problem with traditional automation is that it is totally dictated by a rundown and by MOS abstracts. You definitely have reduced flexibility,” says Greenstein. “The core of Sync was to break from that and say, ‘We can very closely follow the rundown, or we can break [that and allow user-generated playlists on the fly].’”

From an organizational point of view, Sync brings other benefits. Not relying on a single computer in a single physical location thanks to its web-based design offers a degree of disaster recovery as well as the flexibility to work remotely if some unforeseen circumstance makes it impossible to work from the studio, as was the case during COVID, he says.

While currently used to command the render engine, Sync also can control Singular.live graphics and other HTML platforms, as well as additional graphics devices and tape machines. Even future production switcher control isn’t off the table, he says. 

“What we tried to create with Sync was an accordion,” says Greenstein. “If you're doing a really complicated show that requires multiple operators to do things on the fly that aren't part of a planned rundown—meaning there needs to be instantaneous decision making, Sync can scale to have two operators, five operators, 10 operators, all controlling the different parts and pieces hooked into it.”

Conversely for smaller, more formatted shows, Sync could one day be used to execute a more automated control approach. “That is absolutely on the roadmap of things that we’re going to dig in and consider,” he says.

CNBC Redesign
Robert Poulton, vice president and global creative director at CNBC, headed up the redesign of the financial network’s on-air look. Work began in June 2020 on the new design. The network selected Troika Media Group, an outside design and advertising firm that it had worked with in the past, to assist with the design. (Troika filed for bankruptcy in December 2023.)

Deciding what to keep and what to eliminate took about a year, says Poulton. “There are so many elements that are on our screens all the time. So many of them are just fed with data. We were not just building graphics. We were building graphics that are fed with something that adjusts and moves.”

Among the key design goals was developing a clean, minimal aesthetic that delivers actionable information and language seamlessly to viewers so that they can be comfortably engaged 24/7. Poulton and Troika developed a new grid foundation with a square shape acting as the root of the financial network’s design language. The network chose a design placing show branding and time zone clocks above the CNBC logo. Selected colors were bold and reflected the brand’s legacy.

The design also incorporated an updated CNBC logo aligned with the new peacock colors as well as a logo font treatment using Tinker, a font named after former NBC chairman and CEO Grant Tinker.

Augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) use is also part of the redesign, especially to enhance storytelling during earnings season, says Poulton.

“I will say, we've just launched the look. The child's born. Now we've got to raise it, and I think that we'll add on as we as we go along. But really the idea of AR and VR in general is not [that it’s] just a pretty thing to look at, but how can it help us tell the story in a better way?” Poulton asks, rhetorically.

For election coverage, Sync made its debut controlling some of the network’s AR and virtual graphics used to cover the Iowa Caucus, says Greenstein.

Greenstein recalls seeing the new design for the first time. “It was so simple and clean, but it’s also so complicated,” he says. “We really just came to the conclusion; we need to take Sync and pivot to launch this on CNBC to give it [the design] the capability Robert was looking for but not make the workflow a tremendous burden either on the operators or producers.”

Steve Fastook, senior vice president of Technical Operations at CNBC, echoes Greenstein’s observation. “It [the simplicity of CNBC’s redesign] created a lot of complexity under the hood,” says Fastook. “[With] a typical graphics device, an operator would play out graphics, and the TD [technical director] would key them. 

“Well, every single graphic in our system goes back and forth with the production switcher. So, sometimes the production switcher fires Viz and tells it to do an effect. Sometimes Viz tells the switcher. ‘Hey, make this move, change this priority and then play out.’ It’s a very close, intermixed operation. It's quite complicated. But with Sync on top of it all, it's really simple for the operators.”

Deploying Sync first for the rollout of CNBC’s new design should pay dividends for the network’s coverage of the 2024 elections, Greenstein predicts.

“The great part is what we learned from doing CNBC. We're now back into elections with a lot of that knowledge,” he says. “I think you're going to see our election coverage over time get a little more dynamic from the things that we picked up in approaching the CNBC project.”

ATLANTA, Ga.—The Allen Media Group digital streaming platform Local Now has announced that it is adding three NBC News free ad-supported TV (FAST) streaming channels to its channel lineup. 

The three new NBC News FAST channels are NBC News Now, TODAY All Day, and Dateline 24/7. 

“Adding these three excellent NBC News FAST channels is another milestone achievement for Allen Media Group as we continue expanding the Local Now channel content,” said Byron Allen, founder/chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group. “NBC is an outstanding brand in both news and entertainment, so this collaboration is an obvious choice for Allen Media Group to give our viewers the ability to stream this amazing content for free, anytime on Local Now.”

The NBC News 24/7 streaming news network, NBC News Now features the latest national and international breaking news and deep-dive reporting. The TODAY All Day channel offers TODAY Show favorites, celebrity interviews, show exclusives, food, recipes and more. The Dateline 24/7 channel offers viewers classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.

Local Now provides localized news, weather, sports, traffic, and entertainment, produced by various leading news organizations, in more than 225 markets across the U.S. It offers more than 450 free streaming channels, including a Local Now channel in every DMA in the country, as well as more than 18,500 movies, TV shows, and documentaries. 

The Local Now app is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xfinity, Vizio, Samsung, Android and IOS devices.

NEW YORK)—NBCU News Group’s multi-platform journalism training and development program, NBCU Academy, has significantly expanded its reach to 30 schools by adding 13 new partners. 

The expansion is notable because it includes engineering and STEM programs for the first time. 

The new 2022 cohort of participating institutions also grows NBCU Academy’s geographic footprint, diversifies the student population through specialized programs and expands beyond journalism to include business, engineering, technology and sports programs. 

NBCU Academy was launched by NBCUniversal News Group in January 2021 and is part of the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. 

The company announced that NBCU Academy will invest $2 million in grants to support the 13 new partner institutions. 

“The way we gather and consume news is consistently evolving,” said Yvette Miley, senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion for NBCU News Group. “Through NBCU Academy, we’re forging a generation of diverse journalists that are ahead of the curve on media technologies and have a deep understanding of a range of industries.” 

Last year, NBCU Academy issued $6.5 million in funding to campuses–with 50% going directly to students. It established NBCUAcademy.com, and launched Original Voices, a fellowship program formed in partnership with NBC News Studios. 

Original Voices awarded seven diverse documentary filmmakers $315,000 in grants and access to NBCU News Group resources to support feature-length nonfiction films highlighting social issues and identities. Two of those films have been selected to premiere at Sundance in January 2022. 

NBCUAcademy.com also offers free online instruction and digital content for students. In the last year alone, NBCU Academy produced 65 online tutorials, hosted eight livestreams and generated more than 40 Original Equity Lab stories. Journalists and leadership across the NBCU News Group portfolio participated in NBCU Academy curriculum, providing access and insight to linear platforms, streaming channels, and digital, audio and social brands across NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo News and Peacock. 

Additionally, NBCU Academy developed an embed program, hiring six recent graduates from five NBCU Academy’s partner schools to work full-time for NBC News Digital’s award-winning diversity verticals, including NBC Asian America, NBCBLK, NBC Latino and NBC Out, as well as CNBC Make It and CNBC en Español. 

The embed program builds on NBCU Academy’s mission to provide more equitable access to diverse and marginalized communities that have been historically underrepresented in the news industry. 

It is also part of Project UP, Comcast NBCUniversal’s comprehensive effort to help build a future of unlimited possibilities by connecting people to the Internet, advancing economic mobility, and opening doors for the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, storytellers, and creators. 

In June 2020, Comcast NBCUniversal announced a multi-year $100 million commitment to help address systemic racism and inequality. In July 2020, NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde announced the Fifty Percent Challenge Initiative, an aggressive action plan to turn the NBCU News Group employee base to be 50% women and 50% people of color.

The 13 new academic partners include:

• Arizona State University Global Sport Institute in Tempe, Arizona
• Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, Ariz.
• Community College of Philadelphia Division of Business and Technology​ in Philadelphia.
• Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering in Tallahassee, Fla.
• Florida A&M University School of Journalism & Graphic Communication in Tallahassee, Fla.
• Howard University Cathy Hughes School of Communications in Washington, D.C.
• Howard University College of Engineering and Architecture in Washington, D.C.
• Montclair State University School of Communication and Media in Montclair, N.J.
• New Mexico State University College of Engineering in Las Cruces, N.M.
• New Mexico State University Department of Journalism and Media Studies in Las Cruces, N.M.
• Universidad del Sagrado Corazón Ferré Rangel School of Communications in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications in Gainesville, Fla.
• University of Texas at Arlington Department of Communication in Arlington, Texas.

WASHINGTON—NBC News pulled the curtain back on its new Washington, D.C., Bureau, which spans six stories, 80,000 square feet and seven state-of-the-art studios for use by NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC News Channel, Noticias Telemundo and Sky News.

Nine NBCU News Group programs will broadcast from the new bureau in 2021, including “Meet the Press With Chuck Todd,” which was the first program to use the new space on Jan. 24. MSNBC primetime, dayside, morning and weekend programming will originate from the new studio as well. 

The D.C. bureau will also serve as the home base for special programming for “TODAY,” “NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt,” NBC News Special Reports and MSNBC special coverage for major Washington events, like inaugurations, State of the Unions and others.

The bureau’s design was inspired by neoclassical and federal-style architecture seen throughout D.C. The space features 14-foot high ceilings, modern lighting, contemporary finishes and technology that NBC News says reflects modern newsroom aesthetics and advances in broadcast production. This includes 650 square feet of tracking LED walls.

A main first floor studio has 10-foot floor-to-ceiling windows that allow the public to look in on the live news production. There is also exterior-facing LED screens that show live programming and running news tickers on the facade of the building.

In addition, the space features what NBC News describes as heightened technology for the expansion of CNBC Digital’s politics team and improved direct broadcast coverage of news from D.C.

More than 400 NBCU News Group employees will work from the new bureau, including the network’s White House, Capitol Hill and political units; the investigative, national security, Pentagon, Justice Department, foreign affairs and transportation reporting teams; the Washington-based NBC News Digital operations; and producers of “TODAY,” “NBC Nightly News” and MSNBC.

NBC News’ D.C. operations had taken place at 4001 Nebraska Ave. for more than 60 years prior to this move to 400 North Capitol St. NW. WRC-TV NBC4, the D.C.-area affiliate, will continue to broadcast from 4001 Nebraska Ave.

For more information, visit NBC News’ website. 

NEW YORK—Tom Brokaw, 80, has announced that he will retire from NBC News, where he has spent the last 55 years covering the news as an anchor and correspondent.

Brokaw’s career began on KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa, with subsequent stops at KMTV in Omaha, Neb., and WSB-TV in Atlanta before he joined NBC News in 1966 in its Los Angeles Bureau, where he would cover Ronald Reagan’s first run for public office, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 presidential campaign.

In 1973, Brokaw became NBC News’ White House correspondent during Watergate. He stopped being a correspondent in 1976 to co-host “Today.” Then in 1983, he became the anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw,” a role he held for 22 years. During his time at NBC News he also served as a moderator on “Meet the Press.”

Highlights from Brokaw’s career as a journalist include being the first American journalist to interview Mikhail Gorbachev, and he was the only American reporting from Berlin the night the Berlin wall came down; he received The Order of Merit from the German government as a result of his coverage.

Brokaw received many other honors during his career, including Emmys, Peabodys, Duponts, The Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting, a Legion of Honor from the French government and the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014.

“During one of the most complex and consequential eras in American history, a new generation of NBC News journalists, producers and technicians is providing America with timely, insightful and critically important information, 24/7. I could not be more proud of them,” Brokaw said in a press release from NBC News.

Many on Twitter have shared their appreciation for Brokaw’s decades sharing the news with American audiences. Among them were NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt:

As well as NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki: 

Per NBC News, Brokaw will continue with print journalism, authoring books and writing articles in addition to spending more time with his wife, three daughters and grandchildren.

Much like everything else that has transpired in 2020, election-night coverage promises to test news organizations as they have never been tested before. 

“I’ve been part of election teams since the 1980s,” said David Bohrman, executive producer of CBS News’s 2020 election-night coverage. “I’ve run election coverage at CNN and NBC, and now here at CBS, and this is the most complicated election I’ve ever been part of.” 

Marc Burstein, senior executive producer of ABC News Special Events, agreed, citing the difficulties of producing a major election-night special in the middle of a major pandemic: “We are having to prepare for anything and everything. It could be the longest night or it may not be. No one knows and we have to prepare for every possible contingency.” (NBC News, the other Big Three broadcast network news arm, did not provide executives to be interviewed.)

Or, as "PBS NewsHour" executive producer Sara Just observed: “It’s like trying to tie your shoes while riding a bicycle. We are confident we have a good plan for keeping everyone safe, but it is challenging. This is going to be a night like none other.”

Much of this reflects a 2020 news cycle that has produced a slew of once-in-a-lifetime stories and tragedies. “I’ve been at CNN for almost 30 years and this is the most intense news environment I’ve ever seen,” Sam Feist, senior VP and Washington bureau chief at CNN, said during B+C’s News Technology Summit. “We are covering an election, maybe the most anticipated election in our lifetime, along with a pandemic and a national reckoning over race.”

“When we look back on 2020 we will think, ‘Wow, that was the most extraordinary news year ever,’ and we did it with an arm and a half tied behind our back,” Feist added.

These national calamities and controversies have also spiked viewer interest in the results and significantly raised the competitive stakes for news organizations. 

“There are more eyes on this election than we’ve had in our lifetimes,” Cherie Grzech, VP of politics and the Washington bureau at Fox News, said. 

THE MOST UNUSUAL ELECTION NIGHT

The heightened scrutiny comes as news organizations are grappling with what might on Nov. 3 be the most unusual election night in television history.  

Unlike other presidential elections, where networks covered voters casting ballots and reported the results the same day, early voting this year is hitting record levels. Mail-in voting is also expected to hit record levels, and many votes might not be counted until after Nov. 3. That, in turn, could delay results and make the process of reporting and calling races a much more complex and uncertain process. 

Technology and production plans have also been upended by a pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 people. In addition to having many people work from home, networks are using more studios and control rooms to spread out employees and are revising coverage plans by recruiting additional legal experts to explain potential voting irregularities and rethinking how to deploy journalists. Many typical election-night gatherings are likely to be canceled and travel restrictions will make it more difficult to get boots on the ground. 

One thing that hasn’t changed is election night’s importance. All the major commercial TV news organizations are investing millions of dollars in new sets and technology to stand out from the competition and attract new viewers.

“Election night, for us and for all the news networks, is our Super Bowl,” Fox News senior VP of news and politics Alan Komissaroff said. “It is our biggest night and we are determined to put our best foot forward. There isn’t a nook and cranny of the building that we are not using. We’ll be using every piece of technology we have been using in the past and a few new ones as well.”

As in earlier years, many networks will broadcast their coverage from new sets, studios or facilities that feature the glitziest graphics and massive, high-resolution, floor-to-ceiling walls and screens for data and results. 

Coverage will include big touch screens where correspondents and anchors take deep dives into results and augmented reality systems. Some networks, such as Fox News, will even be debuting virtual reality systems. 

The challenges facing news organizations this year may also improve the quality of coverage. For example, COVID-19 restrictions limiting in-studio guests will result in using a much wider array of sources and voices from remote locations, network executives said. “This has been kind of a breakthrough moment this year in terms of adding more people to the conversation,” Fox News’s Grzech said. 

Another positive development is the rapid expansion of streaming services. Their growing availability means viewers will be able to easily access a much wider array of stories and coverage, both on digital media and on broadcast networks, where TV anchors can draw on the expertise of digital teams.

The difficulties of election coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic have also forced news organizations to integrate their operations more tightly with local stations, digital outlets and even radio organizations rather than fly reporters into key battleground states. This reporting from seasoned local journalists could provide national audiences with a better understanding of the results in those locales. 

CBS, for one, will add extensive coverage to CBSN by streaming 10 local feeds, while Newsy will draw on coverage from parent company Scripps’s 60 TV stations. 

“We have a team of four or five people who will be monitoring the local stations and we’ll be able to carry their feeds at key times,” said Matt Simon, supervising producer for PM content at Newsy, who is also overseeing election-night initiatives.

"PBS NewsHour" will also be drawing on the expertise of local reporters. “One of the great advantages of public broadcasting is that there are over 350 stations across the country that we work with,” Just said. “They know their communities best, and throughout our programming we will be turning to a lot of those reporters for their expertise.”

BUILT FOR PRIMETIME

The complexity of predicting races and explaining voting trends is likely to make networks even more cautious and thoughtful when providing context or caveats in their reporting. 

“Transparency is the watchword for us,” ABC’s Burstein said. He said coverage will explain what is known as well as what isn’t known, so viewers understand why certain information or vote totals aren’t available. “The decision desk [which calls races] is always careful and conservative, but this year we will be more conservative than ever.” 

For its election-night coverage, ABC News will use a renovated studio that has been expanded to 5,500 square feet. It features 28 new video screens with about 35 million pixels, including a high-resolution video floor. 

A variety of features that enables moving video walls and screens will provide more flexibility to tell the story from different angles. Enhanced capabilities for augmented reality and other graphics are also part of the mix. 

“We will have tools to tell the story in ways we’ve never had before,” Zach Toback, VP of news and nonfiction production and studio operations at ABC News, said. “There is video everywhere, there is video on the ceilings, all across the walls, that creates a very immersive space. It is the largest renovation that we’ve done in any facility since the early 1980s.”

"PBS NewsHour" will be upping its production values with new LED walls that allow anchors and reporters to better display graphics and analyze results, VP of operations Matt Speiser said.

Univision will show off a new set that improves its graphics capabilities and helps it follow COVID-19 restrictions. “We are trying to simulate as much as possible the expansiveness of the coverage we’ve had in the past and do an even better job this year,” said Lourdes Torres, senior VP of political coverage and special projects for the Spanish-language broadcaster. “We have a huge newsroom and the idea is to expand the set into the newsroom and basically have all the elements—video walls, touch screens—embedded in the newsroom.” 

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many Univision staffers have been working from home, with only about 25% of the typical newsroom staff on-site. For election night, though, Univision will be bringing more people into the building to supplement the remote workers. 

To keep staff safe, Univision will place staff in additional control rooms and spaces to maintain social distancing, a strategy many other networks and news organizations are adopting. “We will have training, special cleaning teams, security to remind people about masks to keep people safe,” Torres said. “It is really a pretty elaborate plan.”

SAFETY MUST COME FIRST

Since the start of the pandemic, the Associated Press has decentralized video production operations and set up systems for people to work at home, AP deputy managing editor for visual and digital journalism Derl McCrudden said. But for the final days of election coverage, AP will be bringing a small video production crew back into the New York and London hubs. 

That will allow AP to provide live election coverage for customers with the curated AP Direct channel and four other live channels that provide outlets with HD-quality video. “Many broadcasters air these feeds live around the world,” McCrudden said. 

ABC will be spreading out staff over four control rooms and three studios. “We are being very careful with our COVID protocols,” Katie den Daas, executive producer at the streaming service ABC News Live, said. “We will have more control rooms than we’ve ever had, so we can be socially distant. We have added HEPA filters to our control rooms. Everyone wears a mask and some people in the control rooms will be getting the N95 masks of the sort used by medical professionals,” she said.

Said CBS’s Bohrman: “Everyone involved is being tested every day, everyone in the studio, everyone in the control room.” Network coverage will originate in a new high tech set at the ViacomCBS headquarters in Times Square, a first for the news division on election night. “The studio is zoned off to separate people and to make sure there is not any movement between the zones,” Bohrman said. “This is the biggest team effort in broadcast news, but we are finding ways to do it in a COVID-safe way.”

All of these efforts, executives said, will help to keep staff members safe as they report on the most unusual election of our lifetimes. Bohrman stressed the importance of overcoming obstacles and getting the story right—both for the networks and for the country. 

“We and all the broadcast networks know that we need to help restore the faith in the electoral system,” he said. “It has been put under a lot of doubt by a lot of people and we need to be open and above board and clear as to the numbers to provide viewers with information they can trust.”

“This is our night,” den Daas at ABC News Live said. “That night might drag on for a while, but that’s OK, because this is what we do. This is why we got into journalism: To make sure we are here when Americans need someone to bring them the big story.” 

PHILADELPHIA—Comcast has reportedly shelved its plans for an international news channel, which would have united its NBC News and Sky News brands.

According to the Financial Times, the company has taken the decision following the impact of coronavirus on its business, telling staff it has become “unviable.”

The channel was originally due to launch this summer, and then was put on hold in April. The company had already hired 50 members of staff for the channel.

The FT added that the proposal to shelve the NBC Sky World News will now go to consultation with staff, who have been told they can suggest alternative options.

NBC News has declined to comment on the report.

NEW YORK—NBC News has announced that one of its employees has passed away after being diagnosed with the coronavirus (COVID-19), according to an NBC News report. Larry Edgeworth, 61, worked in the equipment room at NBC News’ office in New York City.

Edgeworth reportedly suffered from other health issues.

Prior to working in the equipment room, Edgeworth was an audio technician for 25 years with NBC News. He would often travel with network correspondents.

“Larry was a gentle bear of a man, the heart and soul of our extended NBC family,” Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ foreign affairs correspondent, shared to NBC News “I was always cheered and reassured knowing he was on the team in the field. He always had my back whether here in the U.S. or in the most dangerous situations around the world.”

Other NBC News employees shared their thoughts on Edgeworth on social media and other platforms.

NEW YORK—NBC News’ in-house unscripted production unit, Peacock Productions, will officially shutter as of March 2, Variety has reported.

“NBC News is shifting its documentary strategy to an entirely new model, consistent with industry trends, and unfortunately the existing operation is no longer viable,” NBC News said in a statement to Variety. “We are working with affected employees to help find positions around NBC Universal.”

Per Variety’s report, 32 people from Peacock Productions or MSNBC’s long-form unit are expected to be impacted by this closure. NBC News said that some of employees could be reassigned to other parts of its business, with some mentioned being the livestreaming operation NBC News Now or the daily newscasts that NBC News is set to produce for Quibi.

The full report is available on Variety.

Part I discussed the current state of ENG and the move to mobile journalism 

Part II looked at Euronews’ adoption of smartphone newsgathering 

Part III

When NBC News International President Deborah Turness made her "cut-the-cord" declaration at the 2018 IBC Show in Amsterdam she provided scant details about what her network calls “iPhone Journalism.” Inquiring minds want to know. What smartphone-related hardware and applications are Euronews NBC using to replace conventional ENG cameras and live trucks?

According to Ilyas Kirmani, executive producer at NBC News International in London, Euronews is the largest network in the world to go all-in on smartphone newsgathering, aka video journalism, aka mobile journalism. Kirmani responded via email to a list of questions about the hardware and apps his network is using in lieu of conventional ENG camcorders and SNG trucks.

IPHONE VS. ANDROID

NBC apparently did not even look to European rival BBC for guidance. The British television news outlet began experimenting with one-man news teams in the early 2000s, long before Euronews took interest. BBC VJs first shot with small, prosumer, digital camcorders, then later with smartphones. But in the almost two decades since the BBC has kept VJs as supplements to, not replacements for conventional camera teams and ENG cameras. After putting a toe in the water, the BBC is now not much past the ankles, where Euronews is now up to its eyeballs despite being a video journalism latecomer.

The Lyon France-based network “supplies the entire kit including the phone, tripod, selfie sticks, Osmos, mikes, lights, Wi-Fi dongles, and laptop,” Kirmani said.

Kirmani said Euronews equips all video journalists with iPhone Xs (5.8-inch display, 12 MP dual rear/main wide-angle and telephoto cameras, 7 MP front/selfie camera.) Even though Android smartphones outsell iOS devices worldwide, the Apple camera phone is not just preferred by Euronews but by a majority of video journalists as well.

(Note: The iPhone is also the BBC’s camera phone choice. I personally use an iPhone. One drawback is Apple eliminating the 3.5 mm mic/headphone jack and providing only a single Lightning port for both charging and peripherals. As of last October the new iPads have a single USB-C jack instead of the Lightning connection. Go figure. Some day at least one smartphone manufacturer will offer a pro model with at least three ports, a bigger batter, a built-in lens adapter, and a heat sink for longer recording and streaming times. Heavier and a bit bulkier is no bad thing for news work. Current smartphones are too light to hold steady as it is.)

The Euronews iPhone Journalism kit includes two rigs: a one-handle Zacro brand (Japanese) and a two-handle Ulanzi (Chinese). The Zacro smartphone holder and tripod adapter is a very good buy, at about $13. Its clamp concept is quite secure—the tighter you twist the knob the tighter the grip.

The two-handle Ulanzi rig is also a great value, $20, delivered on Amazon. But, after testing one, I found the slider-style clamp does not hold a smartphone nearly as tightly as brands that use clamps similar to Zacro’s. It may be worth it to pay more if the rig is used for heavy duty news work, like the Shoulderpod X1 (Spanish)—$120 plus shipping and the iOgrapher (USA)—starting at $49.99 plus shipping. (There are lots of good rig choices on the market. (I built by own rig out of steel for about $20. It may not be pretty but it’s bulletproof.)

The Euronews kit’s Osmo-brand gimbal stabilizer works much its much larger Steadicam counterpart used with ENG cameras to smooth camera movement. Gimbals, though, may be overkill for most VJs.

Consider my experience with gimbals: Last year Euronews’s bonded cellular app provider, LiveU, was thinking about bringing back an updated version of its SmartGrip product which it had taken off the market. The company began testing two and three-axis gimbals to see if a gimbal function should be part of a new design.

I volunteered to runs tests and compare gimbal stabilizer performance with conventional, two-handle rigs. LiveU sent me the gimbals. For comparison I added a one-pound weight to a conventional rig to provide passive stabilization.

I concluded that gimbals are not well-suited for most news work, especially breaking news. They’re too expensive, too fragile, and too hard to set up. Besides, in most cases video reporters should be standing still while shooting, not moving, and only panning with purpose. Plus it’s not easy to pan gimbals.

Euronews seems to agree or, at least, may be having second thoughts about including gimbals in its kits. “When we first launched our shows, we wanted our correspondents to come live via Osmo or selfie stick,” Kirmani said. “We later determined this was not the best user experience for the correspondent or the viewer, so decided to have them all use tripods when coming live, unless there is something significant to show.”

That makes sense. VJ’s, working alone, have enough to do during a live shot without having the worry and strain of steadying a camera. Plus, jittery video makes encoders, like LiveU ‘s app, work harder, effectively reducing bandwidth and resolution.

PREFERRED APPS

Speaking of apps. Which ones are loaded on Euronews reporters’ iPhones?

“LiveU, Latakoo, Filmic Pro, Taggly, Gravie, Square fit, cut story, and facetime,” according to Kirmani.

Here’s what they do:

LiveU, of course, is the cellular bonding app. It’s their go-to app for all live shots. “Ninety-nine percent of our correspondent live shots come via LiveU on the iPhones,” Kirmani said. (For more about bonded cellular and 5G see upcoming part IV in this series.)

Latakoo is an Austin, Texas-developed app Euronews uses to transfer video files from the field to the station. As opposed to using something lighter duty, like Dropbox. That’s the so-called store & forward function. (Latakoo, at the moment, does not do live shots. But company president Jade Kurian, in an interview for this article, said they’re working on a live streaming app that should be available next year. “I think it will be a game changer,” she said.)

Tagg.ly is an app for quickly adding name, logo, location, and timestamp to videos prior to sharing on social media.

Gravie, in similar fashion, permits reporters to stick text and some editing and formatting, such as changing the frame format, on video clips in their iPhone’s camera roll. Another tool for use prior to uploading to social media.

Square Fit is a video app for whipping widescreen video clips into shape (literally) for posting on Instagram with its square-frame format.

CutStory. Again, another app to spruce up clips for social media. The reporter clicks on the social media choice (Instagram, Facebook What’s App etc.) and the app automatically trims it to a 1:1 or other social-compatible vertical aspect ratio and also meets the duration limit.

FiLMiC Pro is pretty much a consensus favorite shooting app among video journalists. Reporters can get by with iMovie, but FiLMiC Pro as its names suggests, enables VJs to shoot more like pro videographers. (If a VJ is shooting a piece just for social media FiLMiC Pro has a 1:1 aspect setting.)

GAINING EXPERIENCE

What about training? Euronews VJs needed to learn how to use the new hardware and apps.

It turns out that Euronews is not yet much into training, unlike some European stations— like the BBC in the UK and ARD-affiliated stations in Germany. They have comprehensive, ongoing employee training programs.) “They go through a two-day, in-person training course, and then the best training is practical, out in the field,” Kirmani wrote.

Euronews assumes many VJs already have some shooting and editing experience. Kimani says if a reporter has no proficiency there’s a Euronews team member to provide more training.

Even so, Euronews may need to substantially ramp up its training program if the network plans to pull off cutting the cord. At some point VJs need to learn how to film as well or better than videographers who only shoot and edit much better than editors who only edit. It’s a tall order. Instead of being jacks of all trades, masters of none, VJs need to become jacks of all trades, masters of all.

Less experienced VJs who don’t get sufficient in-house training should find their own online and in-person workshops, such as courses offered by mobile journalism professor Robb Montgomery, VJ guru Michael Rosenblum, (some online tips are free), and Mojocon founder Glen Mulcahy, among many others.

(Note: Rosenblum is in the process of training some 150 employees for the local tv station SoCal-1. “When we are done, SoCal-1 will be the biggest all VJ TV station in the world, and we expect, a model for the rest of the country,” Rosenblum says. “Many stations have one or two VJs, and play lip service to the concept. Here, it is all VJ all the time, and that is going to produce a very different on-air product.”)

(I also plan to offer advanced smartphone newsgathering workshops, especially in Germany for those who already have basic graining and some experience.)

GOING LIVE

Then there’s the matter of live reporting. It’s perhaps the main reason Euronews switched to iPhone journalism. The video news provider now has a substantial number of live-ready reporters dispersed across Europe giving the network far more opportunities to go live.

But danger lurks ahead. Giving a live-ready phone camera to a novice reporter is like handing Him or her a live grenade. There’s a substantial risk for serious technical and journalistic mistakes. Too many boo-boos could kill Euronews’s initiative.

Of course, most news stories are not covered live. Most of what VJs do is behind the camera, not in front of it. Besides live signals, cellular connections between the field and newsroom can transmit raw and edited footage. Which leads to another question I put to Kirmani: “How much/what percentage of iPhone journalists’ video is edited at the station?”

“Fifty percent is edited in the field vs station,” he replied.

Laptops loaded with Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro are included in the Euronews kit. But the high-end editing software seems like overkill for field editing. Programs like iMovie are much cheaper (some free), easier to learn and faster to use. Other lower cost, easier-to-use smartphone editing choices: Kinemaster, ViMoJo, and Lumafusion.

In any event, if half of Euronews’s packages are cut in the field, it’s a really good start for the network's cord-cutting initiative. The benefits of in-field over in-station editing are substantial. Above all, speed. No time is lost driving back to the station if the reporter edits at or near the news scene. It’s also much quicker and more bandwidth efficient to stream a 2.5-minute, edited package to the station than 20 minutes of raw footage/rushes. The goal—which mostly has old habits and traditions blocking the path—should be to edit almost all stories in the field.

Big question to Kirmani: “What are your biggest iPhone journalism hurdles yet to overcome?”

Interesting answer: “There are still interviews and stories that require traditional crews.”

Another oopsy!

Does that mean Euronews did not fully cut the cord, but merely stretched it?

At the very least NBC seems to have flipped the field, that is made ENG subservient to smartphone newsgathering. Made it second fiddle. Instead of video journalism being the backup, Euronews has at least put ENG under smartphone newsgathering’s shadow even if it’s not yet possible to completely cut the cord.

ENG will still not disappear overnight, especially given traditional television’s huge investment in legacy cameras and live trucks. In the late 70s, a at the birth of ENG, film did not vanish overnight either. But film’s demise was rather quick, at least in the states. In Europe it took about a decade.

But now Europe and Asia, arguably, are ahead of the U.S. transitioning away from ENG equipment and workflows. The fact NBC mostly cut the cord in Europe before doing in the states supports that perception.

In Part I, the author discussed the current state of ENG and the move to mobile journalism. In Part II, he looks at Euronews’ adoption of smartphone newsgathering.

For journalism’s sake, Euronews’ pulling the ENG/SNG plug in favor of smartphone newsgathering needs to succeed and set an example for news outlets around the world. NBC is acquiring valuable technical and workflow experience that could smooth the path for other video news providers to vastly cut video production costs while providing more, faster and better reporting—live and on-demand—direct from news venues.

But where could Euronews’s technical innovation go wrong?

At the same time that Deborah Turness, the new president of NBC News International at NBC News, pulled the plug on legacy cameras and live trucks she also changed the way Euronews is presented on air and online. She introduced a studio-based, linear news show format with live anchors. Similar to what NBC’s TODAY and Nightly News have been doing for decades. As she explained at IBC:

“Previously Euronews was a post-produced platform delivering a video playlist of edited packages with no live studios, no live anchors, and without a network of journalists on the ground. That’s been all changed. We’re effectively launching a startup within a legacy news operation.”

So now Euronews’s live anchors interact with iPhone journalists who report live from the field. Turness calls it “real time journalism.” Euronews promos say its reporters are “fast and untethered.”

But has Euronews taken one step forward and another back? While its reporters are now disconnected from live trucks, they have become tethered to Turness’s newly introduced, scheduled news shows.

News shows require viewers to watch and wait for stories they’re interested in. It’s a dying format that instead of liberating mobile journalists with their smartphones, forces them to go live at certain times, often, perhaps usually, after the news event has died down or is over.

Even worse, a "black-hole" live shot plague has infected television news reporting worldwide. It’s a common, anti-journalistic practice brought about by the very technology whose cord Euronews cut.

'SENSELESS LIVE SHOTS'

To justify the high cost of ENG crews and live trucks, journalists often report live from scenes of stories that occurred hours before and no longer unfold. Reporters are seen standing in front of empty buildings or at inactive news scenes, often at night. Thus, the expression black hole live shot. Google it.

Media critic John McManus’s opinion is shared by hundreds if not thousands of journalism educators, critics and reporters:

“It’s a gimmick that tricks viewers into thinking a story is worthy of special attention; why else would the station go live? The capability to broadcast live diverts dollars—that might have been spent hiring more journalists--into the purchase of hugely expensive live vans. Stations are buying live background—wallpaper—at the expense of substantive reporting. Because those trucks must be used to justify their cost, newscasts become shallower—more oriented toward visual, location-specific events and less about issues.”

The central feature of all black hole lives shots is a “talking head” reporter in standup position with no action in the background. The live reporters usually do what the live anchor could have done without tying up the reporter and crew: introduce edited inserts with interviews and video of the long-ended event.

Euronews’s broadcast news shows—they’re also carried online and in social media—only air valid live shots of breaking stories if they happen to occur during a scheduled news show. So, for Turness to fulfill her promise of live reporters interacting with live, studio-based anchors, she has to stuff the linear broadcasts with senseless live shots. Euronews presenters are seen sitting at an anchor desk, interacting with reporters who appear on a huge videowall. With nothing going on in the background.

That the focal point of most black hole live shots is talking heads adds insult to injury. A talking head is defined as “a person on television or in a film who is shown merely speaking, as in an interview, a term suggesting a dull or unimaginative presentation.”

Broadcasters are slow to concede that reporter standups are talking heads, just like lengthy interviews. In the case of live shots, instead of viewers first seeing dynamic video of a news event they see a talking head holding a mic. 

(It’s worth mentioning that it was NBC news that broadcast perhaps the greatest and fully legitimate talking head live shots of all time, NBC News coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall hosted by Tom Brokaw at the Brandenburg Gate in November 1989. American viewers saw live what German viewers did not. German television was caught flat footed after dragging out its transition from film to ENG and delayed buying mobile live trucks that could be set up in minutes rather than days.)

With Euronews it’s a matter of “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.” Turness frees reporters to go live any time then shackles them to the obsolete news show format.

WORKING OUT THE BUGS

Few lament the demise of the news show format more than I. Much of my consulting work for German television stations SAT.1, DSF, 1A (see photo) and N24 involved the construction of American-style sets and improving the stations’ news show formats. (I also conducted Germany’s first live shot workshops in the early 90s but advised against senseless live reporting that was so common in the states at the time.)

Even if there’s no journalism justification for Euronews’ senseless live shots, the network is still working out technical bugs that will inevitably pop up when completely transitioning from ENG to smartphone newsgathering. Fingers crossed, that experience may lead to Euronews making better use of its mojo army for its online news delivery.

If NBC has money to burn there’s nothing wrong with providing the network’s dwindling number of TV watchers using a format they’re familiar with. As long as the money and attention are not diverted from hiring more reporters or improving its online, nonlinear offerings. Even if Euronews prioritizes its broadcast news delivery it is still free to maximize the use of its iPhone journalists online.

Oops! It may be free to maximize. But so far, it’s not.

To see an uncluttered website mess with more text stories than video and with obvious clickbait stories, visit www.euronews.com, click on "live" at the top of the screen to watch the live newscast and black-hole live shots. 

Some reports are “narrated” with video Chryon text. Others were just video, nothing else, remnants from pre-Turness days when such reports were labeled No Comment. “Get the picture without the commentary,” it said. And Euronews is still experimenting with 360 video. (Type 360 in the search box.)

In 2014 Harvard University’s Nieman lab reported on how Turness was working with online streaming video when she headed all of NBC news:

Television networks are good at producing video for broadcast. They haven’t always proven good at producing video for the web and mobile devices. What works on a big screen at 6:30 p.m. isn’t the same as what works on an iPhone. NBC News is expanding its efforts in the original digital video arena and trying to bridge that divide. “We wanted to build a site that doesn’t feel like TV content chopped up for the web, but born for the digital age,” said NBC News president Deborah Turness on a conference call on Tuesday. The network relaunched its website today with the goal of merging its television programming more fluidly with digital production, while simultaneously creating content for a digital-only audience.

NBC’s U.S. website is cleaner with more video, so maybe Euronews just needs more time. Still, both are plagued with long, pre-roll ads that can’t be skipped, too few reporter packages, and no apparent method for accessing legitimate live shots. In short, neither puts digital first.

Contrast Euronews’s website with one I’m much more familiar with, one for Germany’s most watched national newscast, tagesschau. News consumers can watch the main newscast live at 8 pm or watch the same news show on demand shortly after it airs. Below the main screen viewers can select and watch only the key stories they want to see without wading through the rest. Tagesschau online, however, is still just a version of the regular TV broadcast. 

Turness may well find out that her ENG camera/live truck cord-cutting is a bridge too far. She may fail. But for the sake of journalism’s future, she needs to succeed. Or the nose dive may go on.

Note: The next two parts will deal with 5G and bonded cellular as it relates to smartphone newsgathering and with technical details about Euronews’s iPhone Journalism initiative. 

Part 1

Journalism, worldwide, is in crisis. The bottom of its nosedive is not yet in sight. There are far more reporter layoffs than hires. Numerous technologies—the internet for one—and revenue-sucking behemoths—like the Google/Facebook duopoly—are shaking up legacy means of newsgathering and distribution. Digital disruption is harming journalism far more than benefiting.

News delivery via newsprint is on death watch. On the TV side, linear news delivery via the news show format is dying more slowly, but surely. A dwindling number of airwave, cable and satellite news consumers are willing to tune in at a certain time, at a certain place, on a certain screen and patiently wait to get the news and entertainment they really want. No wonder internet/IP-centric technologies like video-on-demand, next-gen, over-the top (OTT) television will soon overtake certain-time TV. No surprise that broadcast giants are scrambling to deliver their information and entertainment wares through OTT.

Even though most news publishers and broadcasters have long been online, many of their web offerings are merely rehashed versions of their offline products. Being there is not the same as succeeding there. “Digital first” has really meant “print first” and “video last.”

The “pivot to video” has been a colossal failure for most newspapers. “Those who pivoted to video didn’t really understand how expensive it is to produce high-quality video if you don’t have the infrastructure necessary to support it,” said Trevor Fellows, vice president of digital strategy for NBC.

Of course, television news outlets already had infrastructures in place to produce online video—no pivot needed. But, pretty much across the board, that infrastructure consists of outmoded, ponderous, expensive equipment and workflows. Bottom line: neither publishers nor broadcasters, generally, are very good at producing online news video.

Because the web is 24/7, its news outlets need cheaper, more mobile newsgathering equipment and much faster, less expensive video production systems and methods. Legacy television stations can’t come close to meeting a demand for online news by taking reporters off the street. Some are laid off, others converted to so-called "multimedia reporters" who spend more time in the newsroom than in the field. Resorting to shameless aggregating and clickbaiting isn’t working either. New technologies and workflows need to not just improve news distribution but also the quality and quantity of news content.

Happily, there are glimmers of hope. One is NBC’s bold, plug-pulling move in connection with its recent partnership with Euronews. At the 2018 IBC Show in Amsterdam Deborah Turness, the new president of NBC News International at NBC News, announced their discontinued reliance on ENG cameras and SNG trucks. 

“We’ve cut the cord with cameras and trucks, and armed our network of 100 percent mobile journalists with iPhones, LiveU and Osmo,” she said about her remaking of Euronews. “I think we’re the only major  news operation to only deploy iPhones having cut the cord with cameras and trucks.”

Euronews may not actually be the first major news outlet to turn fully to mobile journalism. Last year New Delhi Television (NDTV) switched to a video journalism model where its reporters shoot and edit news video using Samsung smartphones, a change the press referred to as mojoification.

But what Turness is doing is a much bigger deal. Where financially troubled NDTV acted more out of desperation— to cut costs—NBC is acting more out of inspiration—to add speed and mobility. If successful NBC could hasten journalism’s snail’s-pace shift from ENG to smartphone newsgathering, a transition that will become as big or bigger than the pivot from film to ENG in the late 70s and early 80s. That film-to-ENG transition not only facilitated live reporting, but also sophisticated editing of news packages. It’s now something smartphones can accomplish with teeny-weeny appliances and cellular connections at relatively minuscule cost.

Savings could and should be used to put more, quick-reacting boots on the ground. Turness refers to her “small army of journalists” equipped with mobile phones. She calls it “real-time journalism” where “you can go places and engage with people with a mobile phone in ways you cannot with a camera person and a big camera.” “You disrupt the oxygen in the room when you enter with a TV crew normally,” she told IBC attendees. “When you go in with an iPhone you are small and quite innocuous.”

Taking another swipe at conventional ENG/SNG live reporting she said iPhone journalism “is a more authentic, transparent way of storytelling. Our reporters are not perfectly coiffed, standing on a riser with a light and a cable plugged into a truck. They are on the move, they take you with them.”

Turness told The Drum, a European marketing website, “When you look at television news as a product I feel it is looking very tired and out of step.” “While other news organizations have dabbled with iPhone journalism it’s often as a supplement when the other camera isn’t working”.

That supplement status is doing little to rescue journalism. Until smartphone newsgathering largely displaces ENG/SNG those outmoded technologies and workflows will continue wasting huge sums that could be spent to hire, train and equip mobile journalists thereby increasing the quality and quantity of video stories available to news consumers.

Turness may understand that smartphone newsgathering and ENG can no longer peacefully co-exist. The only way to take the handcuffs off smartphone newsgathering is to lay ENG/SNG technologies and workflow to rest and give them the honorable burial they deserve. 

Coming up, Part 2: Euronews’s iPhone Journalism: What Could Go Wrong?

NBC News said its streaming network will be called NBC News Signal and will launch as a full time service in mid-2019.

The network’s already available via NBC News’ mobile and OTT apps. It is also on YouTube and Twitter. It is designed to provide young adults with information about political and social issues.

NBC News Signal’s evening show, hosted by Simone Boyce, will be produced as a daily later this quarter. The show currently streams on Thursday evenings.A morning and afternoon show, and hourly news updates called Brieflies, will launch in the coming months.

Between now and Election Day, 2018: Race for the House with Steve Kornacki will appear daily at noon. Katy Tur will host a show before the polls close on Nov. 6.

“There is a growing segment of people who have never had a cable subscription, but who are just as hungry for smart news as the prior generations of news watchers who have consumed NBC News for decades,” said Nick Ascheim, senior vice president of digital at NBC News Group. “These consumers – who are up-to-date on the headlines but are seeking a deeper understanding of the news of the moment – are increasingly turning to OTT devices for ‘lean back’ news consumption or an on-the-go informative experience and that’s exactly what NBC News Signal will deliver.”

Erica Fink and Christine Cataldi are the executive producers for the network. Rashida Jones, senior vice president of specials for NBC News and MSNBC, is the executive in charge of programming for NBC News Signal.

“People love to stay informed and constantly up-to-date and we’re seeing increased demand from advertisers wanting to connect with this passionate and engaged audience,” said Trevor Fellows, executive vice president for NBCUniversal digital sales and partnerships. “NBC News Signal is a strong complement to the full portfolio of options, including Stay Tuned on Snapchat, Apple News, plus our owned properties including Today, NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC.”

NEW YORK—In marketing myself as a Director/DP of branded content, I tell prospective clients that my work bridges the worlds of raw documentary filmmaking and studio beauty lighting. Moving between these different worlds gives me the experience to choose the right tools to tell the story, whether I’m directing crews on large film sets or working as a one-man documentary storyteller.

My current top acquisition tools are the one-two combination of Panasonic’s VariCam LT and AU-EVA1 4K cinema cameras. I’ve invested in both, backing up my initial purchase of the LT with the incremental buy of the EVA1. My first project using both cameras was a 90-second spot, “Eating Clean at the Holidays with the Rockettes,” with the LT as main camera and EVA1 as B cam. I was really impressed with how well the two cameras matched in V-Log. I also edited that video so I can attest to how well the cameras matched in post at ISO 800—I only had to tweak the curves a little bit on the EVA1 to synchronize.

A VARIETY OF LOOKS

Since then, I’ve teamed up the cameras to shoot extensive promotional work for NBC News’ marketing department (“Meet the Press,” “NBC Nightly News”), as well as branded corporate content for Big Four accounting firm Ernst and Young. Also, I am the DP on an upcoming Netflix science series where I used three LTs, and brought in my EVA1 for pick-up shots at the end, recording 4K ProRes out to an Atomos Shogun.

We shot the Netflix series—a variety show format aimed at a pre-teen/teen audience—with three LT bodies: our A camera built-up studio style, the second LT on our MoVi gimbal and the third as our B camera. We shot 4K internally, 4:2:2 AVC-Intra. We went for a lot of looks, requiring different lighting, and made significant use of the LT’s dual-native ISOs.

In retrospect, I’d say I really treated ISO 5000 like a film stock, for instance, dialing down from 5000 to 3200 for more grain, or dialing down from 5000 to 2000 while shooting 60p, which meant we didn’t have to light for slo-mo. We shot during the winter months, and pumping up the ISOs on some very short days would give us an extra 30-60 minutes of shooting.

I’ve been using the EVA1 as the A camera on several NBC brand campaigns that require a low profile documentary approach—the small, lightweight package is ideal for these run-and-gun scenarios (as you see in the accompanying photo, where I follow Lester Holt, shown as he’s about to throw out the first pitch at a Chicago White Sox game during a cross-country trip with the Nightly News). Or, alternatively, I’ll shoot handheld with the LT with the EVA1 on the MoVi.

For other shoots, I’ve set up two-camera interviews where I get A camera performance out of both the LT and EVA1, achieving an exceptionally high quality level at a very desirable price point.

Having both camera options assures me versatility as I move between high-end branded content and stripped-down documentary work.

A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Joe has traveled the world shooting campaigns and docs for brands including GE, Merck, NBC News and National Geographic. He can be contacted athello@thejoegabriel.com.

For more information about Panasonic VariCam cinema and high-speed cameras, visitus.panasonic.com/varicam, or call 877-803-8492.