The End of A Semester in Production

I'm sad to say that this final post will be my farewell. I never thought I would ever create and maintain a blog in my lifetime, but doing so for this class has truly been a learning experience. I've really enjoyed thinking up topics to blog about and reading and responding to other people's posts. This style of writing put a unique spin on what traditional writing classes offer and allowed a great deal of flexibility and creativity in assignments.

This blog has been there through the good times and the bad this semester and has allowed me to further research topics that I learned about in other classes. Continuing this blog would probably be beneficial to me and my writing skills but my schedule next semester is far more hectic and time consuming than this one. I don't think I’ll have the time to blog and if I did I don’t think anyone would read it.

All in all, this has been a great semester for me and I hope it has been the same for my fellow bloggers in ENC3310. Goodbye to all and good luck in your endeavors!

Telecom Scholarship

Since the middle of the semester I have been waiting for a response regarding two applications that I submitted. One of them was an application for a Mass Communications scholarship, and the other for an internship at Bay News 9.

Today I received a letter in the mail saying that I have been selected to receive a scholarship and am invited to the annual School of Mass Communications honors and awards dinner. On April 24th I’ll find out my award amount which, depending on which scholarship I received, could be $500, $750, $1,000, or even $1,350.

A scholarship of any amount will help me greatly and look really good on a job resume. I'm so happy to have achieved one of my two main goals this semester, and I’m hoping to hear about the internship soon. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Television Ads on the Internet

Today it is hard to go anywhere or do anything without being exposed to advertisements. Whether you are watching television, surfing the web, or walking down the street, you are constantly being bombarded with hundreds of advertisements. You're probably used to this by now and just tune them out, but no one likes to be interrupted by ads when watching their favorite shows.

Television is moving towards the Internet, and the advertisers are following. For the people who seek out entertainment online, they probably find it hard to visit any website or view any video clip without having to see an advertisement. This is so because often times the only revenue a website receives is from advertising. Ads are what keep the websites running.

I recently visited a website called Hulu where you can watch streaming video of several full-length television shows that air on major networks like Fox and NBC. Popular shows include Family Guy, The Simpsons, House, Fringe, and Saturday Night Live. I thought this was great, no need to record programs at home. I can go on Hulu anytime I want and watch an episode of Family Guy. This is all true, but you still can’t skip out on the advertisements.

The commercial breaks come in increments similar to the ones in the television version, but all of the ads in one show are by a single company. At the beginning of the show there is a message saying how this program has been brought to you with limited commercial interruption by so and so company, then often times shows the same commercial over and over during the breaks. This is annoying, but will probably change once Hulu starts to sell more ad space.

Sites like Hulu are probably targeted towards those who use DVRs or TiVo to record programs and then watch them later. These sites are comparable to digital video recorders, but do not allow viewers to fast-forward through the ads like they are capable of doing with shows recorded on DVRs. As technology develops more ways to avoid advertisements, advertisers are coming up with more ways to keep their products constantly in your peripheral vision.

Nearing the End

The upcoming weeks are looking to be pretty hectic. I'll be completing my final project for Broadcast News, my Networking/Field experience paper, and my Final Paper for Expository Writing. These are my main concerns, but there are several other things I need to get done also.

Project 3 for broadcast news will be a "Reporter Package" where I will need to film an on-camera stand up, an interview, b-roll footage, and record a voice over. I have decided to do my story on skateboarding in Tampa. I will focus on how it is illegal to skateboard in downtown Tampa, and include footage of places in Tampa where skateboarders are welcome to skate including the Skatepark of Tampa and the "Bro Bowl" near downtown. I'll shoot video of my friends skating and get an interview from them.

The Networking paper is based on my visit to the Bay News 9 studio that I mentioned earlier in my blog. I have to write a two-page paper about my experience there and everything that I learned. This shouldn't take too long to write, I just hope I took enough notes to be able to write two pages and make it interesting. I'm supposed to be hearing back from Bay News 9 soon about an internship over the summer but no word yet.

For my final paper in Expository Writing I will be writing about Internet piracy and how it will affect the future of the recording industry. I have found a few good sources including Andrew Keen and Kevin Kelly. I will include different viewpoints on the issue and provide a background on what music piracy is, how it is done, and the different viewpoints concerning it.

I'm pretty confident about doing well this semester, and I’m glad I have everything planned out now and am not procrastinating too badly. I'm looking forward to my fall semester where I’ll be taking a class called Production and Direction. I'll actually be able to work in a studio with advanced cameras and production equipment and produce fun projects and short films.

Satellite Pirates

I recently came across an article on Digg titled "Satellite piracy costing TV industry billions." After reading the article, I scrolled down and read some of the comments. Never having used Digg before, I was surprised to see people commenting on peoples comments' comments. I couldnt even keep up with what was going on.

The article was about how over 2 million households recieve satellite TV for free using modified "Free to Air" satellite recievers. I found it interesting to see the commenters' views justifying the act of pirating satellite signals.

One user posted this comment that basically sums up my own attitude towards the issue:

What a bunch of crap. Their loss is based on the idea that those that pirate would otherwise pay for the signal if they couldn't steal it? Hardly. Consider them free extra eyeballs to the advertisers.

The gas analogy is stupid, gas is a necessity for transportation. Satellite tv is not necessary. And, I'm driving to the gas station to get gas. I'm not getting it poured all over me.

If you don't want pirates stealing signals, then don't send the signals to the pirates. The pirates are in their own house, on their own private property. It's like blaring a radio on their front lawn, and accusing them of listening.

Why steal satellite anyways? Torrents are so much easier. ;)

I agree that if satellite companies send out a signal that can be picked up and decoded by anyone, there will be people doing it. Just like if people upload movies and music onto the internet, there will be people downloading them just because they can and it's convenient.

Recently I learned a bit about licensing agreements in my Telecommunications class and I can understand how satellite companies could be affected by this. Licensing agreements are based on audience size, and if a large portion of the audience is pirating (assuming they would pay for the service if they couldnt pirate) the artist would lose out on money because it would appear that their work is being broadcasted to a smaller audience than it actually is.

Film Pirates

The Motion Picture Association of America has been dealing with movie piracy since long before the creation of Web 2.0, but today the MPAA is seeing severe losses of revenue because of this new trend of illegal file sharing. Unlike a pirated DVD being sold on the street, once a movie is uploaded onto the internet can be copied an infinite amount of times and easily downloaded by anyone who has a computer.

In Andrew Keen's book The Cult of the Amateur, he explains the enormous impact that movie piracy has on the industry. Keen says:

But the worst is still to come. As the bandwidth revolution makes it increasingly easy to download movies from the internet, Hollywood is about to become engulfed in the same storm that has wrecked the music industry.

I agree that downloading movies is easy. One can download a full length movie that is still in theaters in less than 30 minutes for free. With technology rapidly advancing, Keen predicts the number of people downloading movies online to jump from 600,000 in 2007 to over 50 million in 2010. He says that 49 million of them will be downloading illegally.

When production companies lose money die to piracy, they are forced to lay off employees and work with a smaller production budget. Potentially compromising the quality of the films they produce. Keen presents an example of this in his book:

At the Walt Disney Company, domestic ticket sales plummeted from $1.5 billion to $962 million between 2003 and 2005, and studio entertainment revenues dropped 13 percent in 2005, largely due to lagging DVD sales. Recently, Disney was forced to eliminate 650 jobs and substantially cut the number of films it produces each year.

I'm hoping that the film industry finds a way to adapt to the changes that web 2.0 is bringing, or else our future will be filled with low-budget cookie-cutter films that no one will even want to pirate.

Fisheye Lenses

Professional filmers in the skateboarding industry use a specific camera setup to capture the best angles for different tricks in different locations. If you watch a skateboarding video you will notice that there are several different types of shots. Some are wide shots of a single trick, some are close ups of a single trick, and some are close ups of several tricks in a "line" where the filmer is following the skateboarder.

To capture the most action in the shot while filming from close up requires a special type of lens called a fisheye. Shown above paired with a Sony VX1000, the fisheye gets it's name because it resembles a fish's eye in both it's look and it's function. The fisheye lens's convex shape allows it to capture video at an extremely wide angle

Fisheye Lenses create an effect called vignetting which makes the outsides of the image less clear and bright than the center. You can actually see the circular edges of the fisheye in the corners of the video. This gives you an idea of how wide the lens actually is.

The video below is a clip from a skateboarding video titled Fully Flared which was produced by the Lakai Footwear team . This clip shows the variety of camera angles and lenses used. See if you can spot when the filmer is using a fisheye and when they are using a normal lens.

MiniDV Trouble

I recently went to Best Buy to buy a Firewire cable and a MiniDV head cleaning kit to try and revive my old camcorder and transfer some old skateboarding footage onto my laptop. After purchasing the items and returning home I tried to use the head cleaner but it failed and proved to me that my 7-year-old camcorder was now obsolete.

I began to search the Internet to see if I could buy a tape deck specifically for transferring video from MiniDV tapes to a computer but had no luck. I realized that I was going to have to buy a new camcorder. I searched Amazon.com to see if I could find some good deals on cameras. I came across the Sony DCR-VX2100, Panasonic Pro AG-DVC30, and Canon GL2. For years I have wanted to own one of these models but they’ve always been a bit out of my price range. After drooling for a bit, I continued on down the list to the cheaper cameras.

While I was browsing through the camcorders I noticed that many of the affordable consumer cameras could film in high definition. Some save the video onto a hard drive, eliminating the need to deal with tapes. Others still use a MiniDV tape but they are a higher resolution HD MiniDV tape. This surprised me because now the HD revolution has reached not only films, but now home video as well. Since I was not too interested in filming in HD and was just looking for a good 3CCD MiniDV camcorder, I continued my search but found nothing worth spending the money on. I decided to save up and put the money I would have spent towards one of the cameras I listed above.

Sometimes the advancement of technology is exciting to me and sometimes it just makes me frustrated. Now if I want to produce professional quality video, sooner or later I will most likely have to move into the realm of High Definition. Leaving me questioning whether or not it is even worth investing in one of the listed cameras. Everything is moving towards becoming completely digital. It might not be long until MiniDV tapes are obsolete.

Producer Jobs

There are now two types of producing jobs that I am interested in. Those are web producing and line producing. I was initially interested in show producing, but after learning about web producing in my Broadcast News class I am looking more into it. I first found out about the position while visiting the Bay News 9 studio and it seemed like a very interesting job.

The show producer’s shift begins with an editorial meeting where they and several other members of the production staff discuss the stories available for coverage. After the meeting the producer sorts through local newspapers, wire sources, and news feeds to decide which stories will go into the day’s newscast. They then must choose the right mix of stories, place the stories in correct order, and make sure the broadcast is precisely timed.

Web producers have a similar job. It is the web producer’s job to make sure that the most important stories are being posted to the website as soon as possible. In news, the Internet is the first priority because it is the quickest way to provide breaking news to the public. The web producer is in charge of the layout of the web page and which graphics accompany each story.

I recently applied for Bay News 9’s summer internship program in producing. I stated in my cover letter that I would like to work with both web producers and show producers, as well as editors, photographers, and reporters. If I am selected for the internship, I think I will gain enough experience to decide on a career that suits me best.

VOs and VO/SOTs

Even though you might have no idea what a VO or VO/SOT is, I’m sure you are more familiar with them than you think if you have ever watched the daily news. These are terms used in the television industry that are short for "voice-over" and "voice-over to sound on tape." Before taking my Broadcast News course I had no idea what either of these were, but I now understand that they are a very important part of a newscast.

A voice-over is a short story, usually around 30 seconds, that is read by an anchor that also incorporates video. The anchor reads the story over the video hence the name “voice-over.” As the anchor reads the story, the footage changes accordingly. For example, my first project was a voice over and when I mentioned Cooper Hall the video was a shot of Cooper Hall. When I was talking about construction the footage or “b-roll” was of construction workers using heavy machinery. If the video does not match the copy, it is known as wallpaper video. This is when video is used just for the sake of using video, which is usually inappropriate.

For my second project I will create a VO/SOT. This is similar to the VO but is about a minute longer and includes a sound bite of someone being interviewed. The voice-over leads up to and introduces the sound bite. After the sound bite the anchor ends the story on camera. Since I will be continuing my story on construction on campus, I will interview a student who has classes near the construction and ask them how much the closure of sidewalks interferes with their commute between classes.

Knowing how to produce a VO and VO/SOT will be very useful to me in my future career as a producer. The show producers are usually responsible for deciding the content of these short stories and how they are put together. Every story you see on the news is a VO, VO/SOT, or a reporter package (a story done by a reporter that includes narration, bites, a stand-up, and accompanying video with natural sound). Next time you watch the news, see if you can distinguish these different types of stories.

Broadcast News Project 1

I recently finished filming for my first project that is due in my Broadcast News class. I was required to film and edit a video and write a voice over to accompany it. I had to find a "hard news" story somewhere on campus so I decided to focus on the construction side on the side of Cooper Hall. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a part of the sidewalk blocked off and a huge hole in the ground surrounded by orange fencing.

In case you're wondering what they're doing, USF's department of Facilities and Planning is installing new pipes as an improvement to the chilled water plant on campus. The plant provides air conditioning and cold water to the campus.

The angle of my project was to focus on how the construction is interfering with transportation on campus. I shot video of students walking around the orange fencing and also video of construction workers using heavy machinery. I turned my project in last week and am eager to find out how I did.

What Comes After HD?

I'm sitting around watching a Blu-Ray movie on my Playstation 3 and I begin to think to myself, "How can video quality get any better than this?" Then I realize that this is the same thing people were thinking when the DVD was invented, or even when the now prehistoric VHS was invented. I thought about my box of old VHS tapes in the attic, most of which I replaced with the DVD version. I then looked at my collection of Blu-Rays and wondered if one day they will be sitting in the attic in a box next to the VHS tapes and DVDs.

I interrupted my movie to do what everyone does nowadays when they have a question. I typed, “what comes after HD?” into Google and began skimming through the results. I came across a technology blog with a post that matched my question. The author of the blog, Christopher Null, listed a few possible technologies that could potentially surpass the HD-DVD.

Lasers have evolved since the first “red lasers” used in CDs and DVDs. Our current Blu Rays and HD DVDs use a “blue laser” which has a shorter-wavelength laser beam, making it possible to pack more data onto a disc. Null says that the next step up would be an “ultraviolet laser,” which could put up to 500 gigabytes onto a disc.

Another possibility still uses lasers, but in a completely different way. Null says that,

Holographic data storage uses lasers to store information in multi-dimensional space instead of just two dimensions, like current optical discs. Theoretically, capacity could be about one trillion bits in a cubic centimeter of storage material, or about 125GB per cc, and maybe a terabyte on something roughly the size of a standard DVD.

Imagine the quality of picture and sound a movie could have if storage capacity is practically limitless.

Flash is a technology that shoves lasers to the side. Researchers have developed a “terabyte thumb drive” that is smaller and more durable than any optical media. As of now pricing is a concern for the technology but Null says that he wouldn’t be surprised if studios start releasing movies on Flash cards by the year 2012.

After researching the technologies in development. It’s hard to think that HD DVD and Blu Ray will be the end. Technology never seems to stop moving forward, capitalizing on itself. I’m happy with my Blu Ray technology now, I’ll try not to think about what new hardware I’ll have to buy next year to "keep up with the Joneses."

Break Out the Zoloft

I recently came across this article on the New York Times website titled "Behavior: TV Time Linked to Depression in Future." It seemed like it was going to be an interesting article but it didn't really provide any good information.

Researchers began the study with over 4,000 healthy adolescents, and then followed up after seven years to find that seven percent of them had developed signs of depression. The rate of depression was higher in those who watched TV for more than 9 hours a day, and lower in those who watched less than 3.

I thought that this study would have brought about some valuable information, but Brian Primack, the assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburg, said

We really don’t know what it was specifically about TV exposure that was associated with depression, whether it was a particular kind of programming or some contextual factor such as watching alone or with other people. Therefore, I would be uneasy to make any blanket recommendations based on this one study.

To me this study seemed like a complete waste of time. Some adolescents are going to grow up to be depressed, and sitting around all day watching television probably isn't going to help a kid's self esteem. Also, the things that we see on television are often false or glorified images of reality. This can cause an adolescent to become depressed if his life is nothing like his favorite TV shows.

Even though too much TV is bad, I believe that watching TV in moderation can be good for an adolescent. It allows them to watch the same things that other kids their age are watching, giving them common interests with peers to help start conversations and build friendships.

I am all for research on television's effects on humanity and I like to read about studies that have been conducted on the subject. I just hope that next time I click on a link that looks interesting to me it will actually give me some information. Why was this article published?

Recovered

After a follow-up visit with the surgeon yesterday, his words to me were to "eat, drink and be merry." I wasn't expecting to be off the hook this early but it couldn't be soon enough. Friday I’m leaving to go on a four day cruise to the Bahamas, and I was worried about not being able to enjoy it.

The doctor told me he was surprised by my speedy recovery as he ripped one of the bandages off of my stomach, revealing a tiny spec of a scar. He told me that the stitches are under the skin, and the other two bandages would need to stay on a bit longer to heal. I was expecting hideous scars, but I just might make it away with none.

My previous fears of not being able to swim or enjoy my coming of age were absolved by the visit. He told me I could pretty much do anything i wanted within good judgment. I'm just going to enjoy my vacation and forget about this whole ordeal while relaxing in the Bahamas.

Vestigial Organs

Even though it does not have anything to do with production, I would like to share an experience that I had last week. It's amazing to me how a part of the human body that serves no benefit at all can all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, turn into a horrible torture device.

Tuesday afternoon after getting home from class I noticed a slight pain in my stomach. I figured it was because I hadn’t eaten anything all day so I got something to eat. Still, four hours later, the pain was much worse. After looking on the Internet at all the horrible things associated with prolonged stomach pain, I had my mom take me to the hospital at about 8pm.

I waited at the hospital until 12am to get a CAT SCAN, then waited in pain for about 45 more minutes for the results. The doctor came back to my bed and told me I was diagnosed with acute appendicitis and I had to go into surgery the next day. At that moment I turned cold and pale, realizing that I was about to endure something terrible.

I was then hooked up to an IV and taken to my room where I would spend the night and the next few days. I was given a painkiller through the IV called Demerol that hit me hard but only lasted about an hour. At about 2am the pain came on full force and there was nothing the nurse or I could do about it. I was vomiting profusely and clenching my stomach for hours, rolling around trying to find a position that would make the pain let up. It felt like a flaming knife was being twisted into my stomach, or something from John Carpenter's The Thing was about to burst out.

The next morning, after the surgery which I remembered nothing of, I found myself back in my room with three bloody bandages on my swollen stomach. The surgeon came in and told me that I had an infection because my appendix had ruptured. He described the way my insides looked by saying that "It looked like someone had poured a can of cream of chicken soup into my abdominal cavity"... delicious.

I spent the next four days in my bed watching TV with a remote that could only cycle up through the channels, not down. Getting up to go to the bathroom or try to walk around while connected to an IV was an agonizing ordeal. So was being woken up at 5am every morning to someone sticking a needle in my arm to draw blood, or when the nurse had to start a new IV in a different vein because the old one wasn’t working right.

I finally got to go home on Valentines Day, only to lie around and do nothing. My girlfriend and family were there to comfort me at least. Sunday was my 21st Birthday, I was able to go out to dinner and a movie thanks to my Darvocet, but couldn’t drink. Oh well, at least I sort of felt like I had thanks to the painkillers.

Well, that was my ordeal and at least I know that it will never happen again. I'm a pretty healthy guy. I’ve never had surgery before or any real problems like that. This just hit me out of nowhere without any real cause. Anyone out there that still has their appendix, beware, and be sure to eat plenty of fiber or this little insignificant tube could put you through a living hell.

Layoffs

Layoffs due to our current economic crisis are sweeping the television industry. Two major corporations, NBC and Disney-ABC, are planning to lay off hundreds of workers in the near future according to articles by TVNewser and Mediaweek.

Layoffs at NBC are part of an effort to cut $500 Million from the budget. NBC president Jeff Zucker stated in a letter to company employees:

“...All of our business leaders are being asked to cut their spending projections for 2009. We are asking for a reduction of approximately $500 million across the company, which represents about 3% of our overall budget. While each business leader has flexibility in how to meet this goal, we have asked them to focus on three areas: reductions in promotion expenses; in discretionary spending, such as travel and entertainment and outside consultants; and in staffing costs."

I can’t think of too many other ways to reduce staffing costs than to lay people off, and $500 Million can pay a vast amount of people. Employees who are losing their jobs are not only those new to the company. Reporters and correspondents who have been with the company for years are being laid off.

Disney-ABC president Anne Sweeny put it this way told it a bit more straightforward in her memo to employees:

"After months of making hard decisions across our businesses to help us adjust to a weakening economy, we're now faced with the harsh reality of having to eliminate jobs in some areas. This was not an easy decision, nor one made lightly,"

Over 200 jobs at Disney and ABC will be cut and all open positions will be eliminated.

Layoffs come from both small and large markets. Basically no one is safe except for the people holding executive positions. It’s a scary situation for someone like me looking into a career in the television industry, since these are not just small companies, but huge corporations that are struggling.

Bay News 9

Yesterday I drove out to St. Pete to meet with a producer for the Bay News 9 On Demand channel. This meeting was part of a networking project for my Intro to Telecommunications class. I was assigned to seek out a person with my desired job and spend some time with them at their workplace, getting a feel for what they do.

After asking a few career related questions, I was taken on a tour of the station. It was a slow Saturday and surprisingly there were only a few people working. This was good for me because I was not overwhelmed and people had time to talk to me. I was able to hang out with one of the editors for a while who was a former USF student. I learned some things about editing and she gave me a walkthrough of what her workday entailed. I even got to step inside the control room and meet the director while they were filming the meteorologist's weather report.

The station offers a paid summer internship program that I'm definitely going to apply for. The station seems like a really nice work environment with top of the line equipment and a very knowledgeable and friendly staff.

Networking

In my Introduction to Telecommunications course I am required to complete a "Networking/Field Experience" presentation where I must find someone who has the job that I want, go out to their workplace, interview them, document my experience in a 600 word paper, and present it to the class.

After sending out emails to several televsion stations in search of a producer who would be willing to help me, i was surprised to recieve replies from two producers within a day of my email. Both of them are producers at Bay News 9 in St. Petersburg. One is a producer for the On Demand Channel, and the other, a USF graduate, is a senior producer for the news broadcast.

I emailed my professor about interviewing them both and she thought it would be a good idea. She said i could do my project on one of them or both if i choose. Visiting with them both will give me a good idea of the diffeneces in producing canned On Demand shows and actual live news. Also it will add to my contacts and open up opportunities for an internship over the summer.

My first interview is with the On Demand producer and will be on February 7th at noon. I'm still waiting for a reply to find out when i will be meeting with the senior producer.

The Big Switch

February 17th is a big day for millions of households that are still using analog televisions with rabbit ears. On this day television broadcasters are required to stop transmitting programming over the air as an analog signal and switch to a completely digital signal.

Even though Congress has voted to delay the switch until June 12th, broadcasters are being allowed to turn off analog signals as soon as the original February 17th date if they choose to do so. Transmitting both the analog and digital broadcast signals simultaneously is more expensive than transmitting only in digital. The reason for this delay is because of concerns that too many Americans will not be prepared for the switch. An article by ABC News states

The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals could see their TV sets go dark next month if the transition is not postponed.

During this postponement period, the government will be gathering more funds in order to supply coupons to the public that can be used to purchase analog-to-digital converter boxes. The Commerce Department hit a $1.34 billion funding limit and is trying to send out new coupons as old ones expire and free up additional money.

The converter boxes cost anywhere from $40 to $80 each when purchased without a coupon. They will allow analog televisions to receive the digital signal and convert it into an analog signal that is supported by the television. The digital signal will provide improved video and sound quality and a better reception.

The analog to digital switch just goes to show how technology is rapidly advancing. This is one of the reasons i am so interested in working in the telecommunications field. With the way things are going now with HDTV and the Internet, i can't wait to see what the future will hold in terms of broadcasting technology.

Television vs. the Internet

In recent years, with the sudden uprising and rapid advancement of the Internet, many people are beginning to question whether television will be able to hold it's ground, and it's viewers. I believe that with the further development of the two mediums, they will become integrated into one technology that will offer the best of both. I have come across a couple of online articles regarding the topic. One blog by Brian Stelter is titled "In TV Versus Internet, TV Still Wins." Another article by Phil Coger is titled "TV vs. the Internet: Internet wins." The two provide contrasting evidence that one medium will prevail overall.

Stelter enforces his opinion that television is winning the battle by presenting a statistic from the annual analysis of TV viewing levels by Neilson Media Research. The company's research shows that the average amount of time per day that a television is tuned is 8 hours and 14 minutes. This number had not wavered far from the previous year's average. I find that this research can be misleading because I'm sure that a very large portion of those viewers were using the Internet simultaneously. I myself am guilty of this, my television is on now as i am typing this blog and i am paying no attention to it whatsoever. Stelter opens his article with this statement:

Amid the buzz about DVR playback, iTunes downloads, YouTube video streaming, and Slingbox place-shifting, it’s easy for prognosticators to dismiss television as an antiquated medium.

Stelter fails to realize that Americans are doing these things while the television is running in the background, an old habit providing a familiar background noise in the home.

Cogar presents research from a survey conducted by IBM. The results of the survey showed that

19 percent of all respondents stated that they spent six hours or more per day on the Internet versus nine percent of respondents spending the same amount of time in front of the television.

This supports my hypothesis that the majority of people who are still tuning into the television are devoting most of their attention towards the Internet during their viewing time. This is a time where people want their information as quickly and easily as possible, and the Internet can offer such information in a couple of clicks.

Channel surfing has become far too tedious for most people, and the DVR has partially solved this problem. A device that enables the viewer to record programs and watch them on his or her own time. To me television is becoming more and more like the Internet, and i believe that one day it will no longer be a competition between the two. I see the two mediums merging into one, where people will be able to communicate, find information, and tune into their favorite shows when and where they want to, all on a single screen.

First RTNDA Meeting

Yesterday was the first meeting for the RTNDA student chapter at USF. The RTNDA is the Radio-Television News Directors Association. The RTNDA's Student Chapter Affiliate Program improves communication among students, educators and working professionals in radio, television and online news.

As an aspiring television producer, I am planning on becoming a member of this organization and several others during the semester. Many of these organizations, especially the RTNDA, are practically required to be considered for any job in the telecommunications industry.

Begin Transmission...

This semester I am beginning my program for my major in television programming and production. I plan to dedicate my blog to my major and include information about the television industry and my experiences in my production classes this semester.

I will be attending meetings for several organizations and visiting local television studios, documenting my experiences along the way. In my Broadcast News class I am required to go out and film and edit my own news stories. I will include my experiences with these projects in my blog as well, and possibly some video clips of my work.

Information contained in my may be beneficial to someone who is curious about what goes on behind the scenes in a television studio and all of the work that goes into producing a news broadcast. I will post this type of information in my blog as I learn more about the television industry through my courses and experiences throughout the semester.