KUSA Is Really Ready For Some Football

On Tuesday, a couple dozen reporters, producers, photographers and engineers sat in a conference room at KUSA Denver putting the final touches on plans for what could be one of the biggest broadcast days of the year — a day that will culminate this evening with NBC’s broadcast of the first game of the NFL season, a match-up of the local Broncos and the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens at Sports Authority Field.

Patti Dennis, VP of news at the Gannett NBC affiliate, led a discussion that bounced from a story about a father and son on a mission to visit all 32 NFL venues this season to how the station will start its 10 p.m. newscast if the game goes into overtime, to making sure social media producers are checking to see what NFL stars are tweeting.

“There’s a lot of pieces that need to come together to make everything run smoothly, but we’ve done a lot of big projects like this,” Dennis says. “We’re experienced with these all-day remote shoots.”

What’s being called Broncos Day around the Mile High City — those who work in the city are being asked to wear orange for the day — began on KUSA at 4:30 a.m. MT with a remote broadcast from the stadium. At 7, KUSA switched to NBC and Today, while its duopoly KTVD provided continuing remote coverage until 9.

Plans for the rest of the day include cut-ins for the 11 a.m. newscast on KTVD and the noon news on KUSA, and then a return to the stadium at 4 for a remote hour-and-a-half broadcast before the handoff to the network and its pre-game coverage beginning at 5:30.

The station’s 4 p.m. remote will be geared toward covering tailgaters and will use an identical setup to the morning show, with weather being broadcast next to the main set.

More live coverage is planned for the late newscast on KUSA after the game.

Technically, the setup was relatively easy and familiar, says Brian Willie, news production manager, whose day began at 2 a.m. KUSA used last week’s Thursday’s pre-season game as a dress rehearsal to test things like natural lighting, where trucks should be parked and what happens around the stadium that could be noticed in a shot throughout the day, he says.

The station is relying on two microwave trucks and bonded cellular gear from TVU Networks throughout the day for the remote broadcasts. 

For the morning show, there were two sets outside the stadium, one for the main news area, which is composed of high-back directors’ chairs and a high-top table, and one for weather coverage.

Each set had its own microwave truck.

While the station has fiber inside the stadium for news feeds, it planned to use the TVU Pack for much of the coverage . The idea is to give reporters and photographers enough mobility to go anywhere inside the stadium — on the field or in the stands.

As the anticipated sellout crowd gathers at the stadium and even in the city throughout the day, the bonded cellular equipment becomes less reliable for breaking news shots because of cellular congestion, Willie says.

“You can use the TVU at any time no matter how busy it is, but the difference is the latency you get with it,” he says “If there’s a lot of data being used in the area and you’re not getting a good signal, you can add more latency to the shot.”

The gear can handle up to 30 seconds worth of latency. Such video could be used for a shot with no live reporter or played 30 seconds later with a reporter adding live audio from the scene via a cell phone.

Willie says the station will likely rely on a satellite truck if a major story breaks during the remote broadcast at the stadium.

“We could also recalculate our resources with the microwave trucks, but satellite would probably be our first option,” he says.

KUSA uses Sony cameras across the board.

Because sunrise wasn’t until about 6:30 a.m., two hours after the morning broadcast went live, the station needed to use two 5,600K HMI 300 watt lights with filters for the main set and two for the weather set.

During the early morning remote, KUSA switched back to the studio only a few times for news headlines and to report morning traffic congestions.

As part of the coverage, KUSA will introduce its Social Café, a new feature with its own set in the KUSA newsroom that features three vertical monitors. The station gave the Café, which is designed to engage viewers through social media, a dry run last Thursday.

Social media producers from the station will monitor and highlight Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds and specific hashtags, and then have conversations with those viewers, and even highlight some on air. One of the hashtags, #BroncosView, is for viewers who want to share photos of where they’re watching the game, be it a bar or in the stadium.

“The idea of the Social Café is to create a place and a space in the viewer’s mind that we’re always wanting to hear from them and have a conversation about the news, while the news is on, or before the news,” Dennis says. “We’re using a game to kick it off, but could use it for something serious on the news side.”

Willie says the Social Cafe plays into the station’s second-screen strategy.

“No one is just watching football anymore,” he says. “They’re always doing something else. This is an outlet for them to really go and say, ‘I didn’t like that call,’ and we can highlight and report those types of trends.”

As part of NBC Sports NFL Kick-Off broadcast, Keith Urban will perform from a floating stage barge in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. KUSA has arranged to share feeds with Gannett’s WUSA Washington and Hearst’s NBC affiliate WBAL Baltimore.

WUSA and WBAL will have crews in Denver covering the game and will have access to KUSA’s live shots.

“We’re providing their uplink,” Willie says. “You want to share as much as you can so you don’t have to rent a truck and extra equipment.”

During the game, two KUSA photographers will shoot highlights on the field. Because the station has a contract with the Broncos, it gets 10 minutes of exclusive time in the locker room before other local media following the post-game press conference.

The final challenge comes after the game. If the network’s feed of the game ends at about 9:45 p.m., KUSA will start its 10 p.m. newscast early and extend it until 10:35 p.m. before Jay Leno comes on. If the game goes into overtime, however, the station will slide everything back and still do a 35-minute newscast.

The station is also relying on its online streaming capabilities for diehard fans to see more post-game interviews from the locker room, Dennis says.

“We don’t want to be interviewing everyone we possibly can in the locker room on-air,” she says. “If it seems interesting enough, we can easily stream it to 9News.com and direct viewers to log on and continue watching that live coverage.”

KUSA’s next big Denver Broncos broadcast is Sept. 23, a Monday Night Football game versus the Oakland Raiders. KUSA bought the local rights to air the game from ESPN.