Scripps’ Spending Supports Good Journalism

Mike Doback, the chief technologist for the Scripps 10-station TV group, is starting the year with a “little more” money in his capex budget and plans to do what he can to facilitate the production of news and make sure that it can be distributed across all available platforms.

Those plans comprise improved work flow, more automation and the latest offering from his camera vendor of choice, JVC. Since Scripps is a dutiful partner in the Mobile Content Venture, Doback plans to introduce mobile DTV in two more markets early this year. It’s already on the air in Detroit and West Palm Beach, Fla.

This interview is the third in TVNewsCheck’s Capex 2011 series with top station group technologists to find out what they’re planning for 2011, how they will be spending their capital dollars and what they will be shopping for at the NAB Show in April.

An edited transcript:

Scripps is coming off of a big year last year. Are they giving you more money to play with?

Well, we really rolled in the carpet here in ’09 and in ’10 we were very, very conservative. We have a little more to work with this year, but we’re still being very careful and very conservative with our capex until everybody is confident that the market has settled down.

What do you have going on this year in terms of tech projects?

We have made a lot of technology decisions around supporting good journalism. That means making sure that the technologies are in place so that we can work across all four platforms effectively and produce quality products.

What are the four platforms?

Well, there’s TV, there’s the internet component, there’s the cellular-based mobile handheld product and then there is the 8-VSB based handheld product. It’s in its infancy at this point, but at some point it will be a viable distribution medium offering a lot of new opportunities for broadcasters.

So your job is to figure out how to take the content and get it distributed across all of those platforms?

There are work-flow technologies that allow repurposing of content to be greatly simplified, almost click-and-send technologies. We make sure that those are all in place and our people are trained in the application of those technologies.

Better, faster, cheaper is the slang way to say it, but we’re always looking for better work flows that will impact our ability to do more and better journalism because that’s what we’re about.

Can you give me some examples of how you are advancing toward that goal?

We have four stations that have implemented the [Grass Valley] Ignite news production automation. We have updated our Avid newsroom editorial systems to the latest software connecting our newsrooms together and connecting our newsrooms to our internet operations. It allows our writers and producers to edit and send product to all four platforms right from their desktop.

Avid is not responsible for all of this. Its software works with software from other vendors. We really have never embraced as a company a one-provider solution. We prefer to mix and match and apply as necessary solutions from multiple vendors.

And we will see more of this kind of thing this year?

Right. We’re updating field cameras to solid-state memory storage. We’re updating digital microwaves to allow that solid state content to be transmitted back to the station more easily, more rapidly and with higher quality. We’re adding smaller handheld cameras. We have added cell phone camera technologies at all of our television stations.

What about using broadband services for getting stories from the field to the station?

Those are all tools in our box. Different situations will dictate different solutions.

Do you have any big purchases planned this year?

We’re replacing older style ENG trucks with newer fully digital electronic news gathering vehicles. Some of the trucks will be downsized because of newer technologies. We’re replacing master controls and routers where required. We’re adding facilities that allow us to receive more user-generated content. We’re improving our infrastructure so that we can manipulate that data and send it where it needs to go with the highest quality and the most speed. We are also evaluating the potential for further application of the Ignite automation package.

You said earlier you have Ignite in four markets. Which ones?

Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore and we are planning on a first quarter implementation in Cincinnati.

And maybe other markets down the road?

There may be some other markets based on the return on investment and whether it can improve our ability to move content to the air faster and better.

Let’s talk master control. What are your thoughts on centralcasting these days?

Traditionally, we have taken a deep dive into that analysis on a number of occasions and we have not been able to produce a compelling ROI based upon connectivity costs and basically transferring staff from one geographical location to another. It didn’t make a lot of sense for us. I think there are newer technologies coming in, command and control being one, that hold great promise for a good ROI and I am going to be taking a look at that this year to see if there is a fit there. We haven’t made any decisions yet, but we need to take a look at all those things that might help us do what we do better.

Where do you stand on HD news?

We’re doing HD news everywhere and we have been for some time. I think it was needed. It brings a new viewer experience that heightens the quality of the product. Now having said that, there is still a lot of news content out there from syndicated suppliers, from the networks and from other sources that is 16×9 [SD]. And there’s still even some 4×3 product out there. We upconvert all of it to an HD format and integrate that with our locally produced HD content.

Is most of the stuff you’re shooting in the field now HD too?

Yes.

That’s pretty advanced. I am not sure any other groups can say that.

Well, it’s a journey as opposed to an event because of the astronomical cost involved in this kind of a transition. Some of our stations might be a little further along than others. Some may have just a couple of microwave receive points that are HD. Some may be completely HD. Suffice it to say, all of our stations have the capability to produce HD news in the field. Whether they microwave it back, whether they drive it back or whether it comes back via some other transmission system, it’s part of their newscast.

Scripps is a partner in the Mobile Content Venture, which is developing a business around what you earlier called the 8-VSB broadcast platform and others are calling mobile DTV. Where are you with the implementation of the transmission capability at your stations?

We put our Detroit station on the air last year to act as a test bed for some of the auto manufacturers and other interested parties in the Detroit area so we can have a signal out there for them. We have our NBC affiliate on in West Palm Beach, WPTV. Probably in the first quarter this year, we will be bringing on two more of our NBC stations, KSHB [Kansas City] and KJRH [Tulsa, Okla.] where some of the content issues have been agreed upon so that we can use the NBC content. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same luxury with some of our other networks who are not interested in participating.

NBC and Fox are partners in MCV and are making their programming available for mobile. What do you do at affiliates of the other networks?

We don’t have any CBS stations so I am not into what their policy would be. Our Detroit station is an ABC affiliate and we have made other programming arrangements. We automatically switch all of our locally produced news content and other content that we have licensed or have agreements to use on handheld into that service. The content is very compelling.

To be able to flip open your handheld phone or mobile portable device and watch news and weather and emergency information is really quite valuable. In the morning, I can watch the local news show while I am getting dressed to go to work. You could conceivably carry it with you down the street. The coverage that we have from our Detroit station is better than what we predicted. So it’s a very robust delivery system.

 Do you think you could do 24/7 news on one of those things?

That certainly would be the potential.

A while back, you bucked conventional wisdom and adopted low-cost JVC cameras for ENG and the studio.

We did, despite the slang or slings and arrows scenarios of many.

How has that been going?

It’s worked out tremendously. The cameras have been incredibly robust. We have had very little problems with them. JVC has lived up to all its promises about support and has really gone beyond what most broadcast vendors will do in today’s marketplace simply because they didn’t have the market share. They didn’t have the reputation so they actually had to do more. The new JVC 790 camera looks so good in the studio I can’t consider buying anything else. It’s a tremendous product.

Are you still buying cameras?

We are continuing to update. We have got three different levels of JVC cameras around our group and, as the financial cycle allows us, we are upgrading all of them to the 790 product because we have worked with JVC over a number of years designing this camera, putting in features that are exactly what the news guys need. It is the camera of choice for us. So we’re upgrading. We have already started that process of replacing our 700 cameras and our 250 cameras with the 790 because it’s a much better product.

What will you be shopping for at NAB?

NAB offers us an opportunity to recheck the wind, to see what the buzz is, talk to counterparts and associates about what they’re looking at and pick up on trends. Generally, by the time we get to NAB, a buying decision would already be made. If it hasn’t, NAB would offer us an opportunity to compare on site a couple of alternates for a particular project. So we generally don’t buy things at the NAB. It’s more of an educational experience for us. We have all the chiefs go to the NAB and they take advantage of the seminars and educational opportunities and the opportunity to do a face-to-face with vendors that we’re considering or vendors that we’re working with on projects.

Read the other stories in our Capex 2011 series here.