TV Technology - 0456 - December 2020

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DECEMBER 2020 ➤ TVTECHNOLOGY.COM ➤ VOLUME 38, ISSUE 12

INSIGHT

NEWS 18 Meet the People

Transforming Media Production and Distribution

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CES Returns to Being a ‘TV Show,’ Albeit Virtual TV topics at the all-digital tech bazaar include ATSC 3.0, 8K and 5G

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Production Switchers Ready for Streaming Reality With a head start in IP capability, switchers thrive in the current climate of remote production

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Drones Now an Essential Part of TV Broadcasting Know the rules before you fly

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Audio 2020: Good, Bad and New Reality Inside Audio, Dennis Baxter

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Controlling Light Remotely Lighting Technology, Julia Swain

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4 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

New Blood I

f you’re like me, you’re probably relieved that we’ve finally reached the end of 2020, a year that none of us will ever forget.

But rather than re4TOM BUTTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF view the events of the tom.butts@futurenet.com year, which we usually do, we decided to focus instead on the people and the future of our industry.

Television (and video in general) has become an ever-increasing presence in our lives, and this has been particularly well illustrated in a year when we’ve been stuck at home most of the time.

In these pages, we profile the movers and shakers in our industry in our first-ever “2020 Watch List.” And for the purpose of bringing you a well-rounded image of our industry at the present moment, we are also including Watch Lists from our sister publications, B&C, Multichannel News and NextTV. As you read the profiles, you will probably identify with how many of these influential people got their start in our industry. Not surprisingly, a number of them never intended to work in media production but just sort of “fell into” the industry and liked it so much, they decided to make it their career.

Looking into the future, who will replace these people? We’re not just “broadcasters” but have evolved into an industry I like to refer to now as “Media & Entertainment Technology.” And this industry is facing a critical shortage of new blood to replace the current workforce. While automation and ML has had an impact on the number of personnel involved in broadcasting, there is still an urgent need for professionals knowl-

edgeable in RF, test and measurement and a variety of other highly technical skills—especially IT—required to keep today’s TV stations and media enterprises humming.

This is nothing new and has been the subject of debate for years in our industry. It’s perhaps one of the main topics of conversation at industry gatherings (even virtual ones).

Our industry has responded in a number of ways over the years. Last month, the Society of Broadcast Engineers announced the creation of the “Technical

Vol. 38 No. 12

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broadcast engineer, leveraging inherent strengths of current SBE initiatives—providing a step-by-step template that can be utilized by group owners, independent broadcasters, contract engineering firms, state associations… basically any organization concerned with finding and developing our next generation of broadcast technical professionals.”

SMPTE and HPA have also been active in the mentoring and recruitment of new talent in our industry. In 2017, HPA established the “Young Entertainment Professionals” program, designed to pro-

CONTENT VP/Global Editor-In-Chief Bill Gannon, william.gannon@futurenet.com Content Director Tom Butts, tom.butts@futurenet.com Content Manager Terry Scutt, terry.scutt@futurenet.com Content Producer Michael Balderston, michael.balderston@futurenet.com Contributors Gary Arlen, Susan Ashworth, James Careless, Steve Harvey, Kevin Hilton, Craig Johnston, Bob Kovacs and Mark R. Smith Production Manager Heather Tatrow Managing Design Director Nicole Cobban Senior Design Directors Lisa McIntosh and Will Shum ADVERTISING SALES Director of Sales, Media Entertainment & Tech Laura Lubrano, laura.lubrano@futurenet.com SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe, change your address, or check on your current account status, go to www.tvtechnology.com and click on About Us, email futureplc@computerfulfillment.com, call 888-266-5828, or write P.O. Box 8692, Lowell, MA 01853.

Mentoring and educational programs like HPA’s Young Entertainment Professionals (pictured is the 2020 class) help our industry recruit and train new M&E tech professionals.

Professional Training Program,” which the organization described as a response to “the ongoing concern about new technical talent choosing broadcasting as a career.”

“As technology and the average age and tenure of technical professionals advances… there is concern to adequately fulfill the technical staffing needs in the long term,” they added.

Geary Morrill of Alpha Media chairs the Education Committee of the SBE and is a member of the organization’s executive board. He told our sister publication Radio World that TPTP “is providing means to deliver support to a new

vide support, education and encouragement to young professionals. HPA says that more than 100 have taken part in the program thus far and that the 2021 YEP program will begin with an exclusive event in January.

These groups, along with NAB and numerous state and educational organizations are increasing their efforts at ensuring that tech professionals—particularly those of us in the traditional broadcast sector—remain relevant and informed.

Who knows, perhaps we’ll see one of these program participants on a future Watch List.

TV Technology honors excellence and innovation with the annual Product Innovation Awards, now in its seventh year. This year’s winners are:

Congratulations to the 2020 Product Innovation Award Recipients

December 2020

Blackbird—Cloud video editing and publishing platform Canon USA—CINE-SERVO 25-250mm T2.95-3.95 Lens Canon USA—EOS C300 Mark III Cinema Camera Dalet—Dalet AmberFin Cloud Transcoder Service EditShare—EFSv EVS—LSM-VIA DVEO—Channel in a Box

Grass Valley—GV AMPP LiveU—LU800 LiveU—LiveU Matrix LTN Global—LTN Cue LTN Global—LTN Flex Lynx Technik—HDR-Evie+ MediaKind—Aquila Streaming Platform Net Insight—Nimbra Edge Net Insight—Aperi virtualized, native live IP media platform

Qumulo—CloudStudio Ross Video—Graphite PPC Shure—DuraPlex subminiature omnidirectional lavalier and headset microphones Simplestream—Simplestream App Platform TVU Networks—TVU Partyline Zixi—Software-Defined Video Platform

The winners, as well as all nominated products arefeatured in the Product Innovation Awards Program Guide ebook that will be distributed this month (available at tvtechnology.com).

Check tvbeurope.com for award winners from our sister publication.

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IN THE NEWS ➤ FOR MORE INSIGHT AND INNOVATION VISIT TVTECHNOLOGY.COM

NAB Researches Best Messaging for COVID-19 Vaccines NextGen TV Update Here are some of the most recent developments regarding the transition to ATSC 3.0: Deployments: • Norfolk, Va.: WAVY, WVBT and WNLO-CD (Nexstar), and WTVZ (Sinclair)

WASHINGTON—The NAB is once again taking part in an effort to spread information about the COVID-19 pandemic, this time towards encouraging citizens to get their COVID-19 vaccines when they become available. NAB is partnering with the Reynolds Journalism Institute on a nationwide research project with the goal of identifying effective COVID-19 vaccine education messaging.

The research project will help develop tools and resources that local radio and TV stations, as well as other journalists, can use to craft public health messages and educational programming that can target their specific communities. All resources will be available in English and Spanish and and shared with all local radio and TV stations, as well as partner groups that represent broadcasters serving culturally diverse communities.

NAB expects the toolkit to be available in early 2021.

Michael Balderston

• Raleigh, N.C.: WTVD (ABC), WNCN (Nexstar), WLFL, WRDC (Sinclair), and WUVC (Univision) • Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.: WFTS (E.W. Scripps), WTVT (Fox), WMOR (Hearst), WFLA (Nexstar), and WTSP (Tegna) The Society of Broadcast Engineers has created an ATSC3 Specialist Certification, which was developed by the SBE Certification Committee and ATSC. First certification tests will be available in February; registration deadline is Dec. 31.

Pearl TV is leading a multimillion dollar campaign for the holiday season designed to raise consumer awareness about the benefits of NextGen TV. The 30-second and 15-second promos highlight how “the future of television has arrived.”

The Consumer Technology Association has released its 2021 model year test suite specifications for what qualifies as a NEXTGEN TV product. There are more than 135 tests covering 150 unique requirements from video to audio to interactivity and more to determine if a product or service meets the established ATSC 3.0 standards.

FCC Calls for Comments on NextGen TV Simulcast Petition WASHINGTON—Following an official petition

by NAB over the rules regarding NextGen TV simulcasting and multicast streaming, the FCC is seeking comments from the industry on the issue.

NAB is seeking clarification and reviews of the rules pertaining to stations simulcasting NextGen TV signals. Specifically, the NAB wants the FCC to recognize “the licensee who originated the programming rather than the licensee whose facilities are being used to distribute the programming is responsible for programming” when it comes to simulcasting agreements involving multicast streams.

This is of particular interest, per NAB, when it comes to the deployment of ATSC 3.0.

NAB’s full petition is available on the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System.

FCC has imposed an initial comment deadline of Dec. 24. The reply comment deadline has been set for Jan. 25.

Michael Balderston

Ajit Pai to Depart FCC WASHINGTON—FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has announced that he will be leaving the FCC on Jan. 20, 2021, when President-Elect Joe Biden is sworn into office and his administration takes over.

Pai, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012 to serve on the commission, has been FCC Chairman since 2017, appointed to that position by President Donald Trump.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve at the Federal Communi-

cations Commission, including as chairman of the FCC over the last four years,” said Pai. He cited the commission’s work on spectrum auctions and the modernization of media regulations as some of his proudest accomplishments while at the FCC. At the time of this publication, Pai’s successor to the role of FCC chairman has not been announced, but current FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworel is reported to be a leading candidate.

Michael Balderston

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IN THE NEWS

Ross Video Acquires Image Video OTTAWA—Ross Video has acquired Image Video, a Toronto-based company best known for its TSI Tally control

panel, which Ross says will complement the company’s product lineup. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The purchase, Ross’ 16th since 2009, will see Image Video’s product team, including Zach Wilkie and David

Russell, as well as its R&D and technical support team transition to Ross.

“As a fellow Canadian company that was founded in the same year [1974], we’ve obviously grown up alongside Ross Video, and we’ve seen the impressive growth and expansion of the Ross business, especially during the last decade,” said Wilkie. “We’re very pleased to become part of the family, and this acquisition will help us reach new international markets and scale much more effectively.”

Phil Kurz

Rise Awards 2020 Recognize Industry’s Outstanding Women LONDON—Winners for the Rise 2020 Awards, which recognize women across different sections of the broadcast technology industry, were announced in November.

Sandy Nasseri, CEO and founder of MelroseINC, was named the Woman of the Year by the Rise Advisory Board. Nasseri was recognized for her significant contributions to the industry, as well as dealing with major business incidents during the year, the organization said.

Other winners recipients included Lindsay Stewart, CEO and co-founder of Stringr (Business); Yulia

Rozmarin, R&D project manager, LiveU (Engineering); Donnelle Koselka, lead Employee & Crisis Communications, Avid (Marketer/ PR); Tove Bonander, strategic product manager, Red Bee Media (Product Innovation); Gabriella Luck, trainee, technical support engineer, ITV Tyne Tees & Border (Rising Star); Eunice Park, vice president, Global Sales & Revenue, Zixi (Sales); and Kerry Shreeve, vice president of Technology Operations, Discovery (Technical Operations).

Michael Balderston

OTT, CTV Will Help Fuel TV Ads in 2021, BIA Projects CHANTILLY, Va.—BIA Advisory Services forecasts that U.S. local advertising will rebound in 2021, helped by the emergence of OTT and Connected TV as key players in the broadcast industry’s advertising outlook, with BIA calling them “game changers.”

BIA reported that OTT local advertising generated $1 billion in revenue in 2020. With targeted advertising capabilities with quality video programming, BIA projects that OTT local advertising will grow to $1.2 billion in 2021.

Traditional broadcast advertising among local TV and radio stations will still be the biggest draws for the broadcast industry, however. Local TV is estimated to bring in $15.7 billion in 2021, while local radio is estimated to net $12.6 billion.

Total traditional media will account for $76.1

billion (55.3%) of local advertising revenue in 2021, per BIA, a slight dip. Digital media revenue, however, will make up for that dip, earning $61.5 billion in 2021 for a 44.7% share of the market; up 3.7% from 2020.

Overall, BIA projects U.S. local advertising revenue to hit $137.5 billion in 2021.

Michael Balderston

OPINION

8K OTA Is a Business—Not Technical— Decision Whether or not future 8K OTA transmission is in cards for U.S. broadcasters increasingly looks to be a business decision, not a technical one.

Dr. Sung-Ik Park, principal researcher with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in South Korea, and his team, 4PHIL KURZ along with broadcast engineers from the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) in mid-September demonstrated that 8K over-the-air transmission is possible using the ATSC 3.0 standard (I conducted an interview with Dr. Park available on tvtechnology.com).

Under the direction of Park, the team set up a 2x2 (two vertical and two horizontal polarized transmitting antennas) MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-out) OTA system—an option available as part of the ATSC 3.0 standard.

Transmitting from a KBS site on Gamak Mountain near the border with North Korea on UHF channel 56 (765-771MHz), the system achieved a data throughput of 113Mbps in a 6MHz channel allotment. With HEVC encoding, it is possible to transmit 8K with throughput of 90 to 100 Mbps, says Park.

As an alternative for 8K OTA transmission using ATSC 3.0, ETRI has performed computer simulations and verification testing on bonding two 6MHz TV channels. Park notes there is no need to bond adjacent channels, which may bring up interesting possibilities for VHF stations, many of which have struggled since the DTV transition to reach viewers via OTA. Moving ATSC 3.0 MIMO or channel bonding out of the trial phase and into the mainstream for 8K OTA delivery—or simply to increase the number of wireless bits broadcasters have to use and market to third-parties—is not a matter of technology or the ATSC 3.0 standard. The work being done in South Korea has shown that.

Ultimately, this all comes down to a business decision. Does it make financial sense to increase RF infrastructure spending 50%, as Park estimates, to transmit 8K or multiple 4K signals over the air by leveraging ATSC 3.0 MIMO? While broadcast engineers don’t make those decisions themselves, they play a critical role in informing management of what is possible. If collectively broadcast management at some point demonstrates sufficient interest, researchers and vendors will have a reason to take the technology—whether ATSC 3.0 MIMO, channel bonding or both—beyond the trial phase.

10 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS

CES Returns to Being a ‘TV Show,’ Albeit Virtual TV topics at the all-digital tech bazaar include ATSC 3.0, 8K and 5G

BY GARY ARLEN WASHINGTON—The International CES electronics extravaganza historically held in Las Vegas in early January, was once a “TV show”—that is, a massive annual exposition and convention to showcase the latest, greatest television receivers and consumer video equipment.

This year, the “All-Digital CES 2021” is a pandemic-induced virtual exhibit and conference taking place Jan. 11–14, (with a month of “reruns”). Registration opened on Dec. 3 (three months later than usual and after this issue went to press), and the Consumer Technology Association, which produces CES, is initially predicting that up to 150,000 people will tune in—approaching the 180,000-attendee range of recent years.

Although the number of exhibitors has dropped (about 1,500 vs. 4,500 last year), CES 2021 will maintain its exhaustive range of categories—from advanced TV, audio and gaming systems to automotive, health/wellness, smart cities and artificial intelligence.

things based on your areas of interest, to see what’s important to you,” Chupka explained. CTA’s goal is to “make things you’re interested in easier to find.

“We expect to have a digital arm to anything we’re doing,” she added, noting that CTA expects to learn lessons from the all-digital 2021 show that it will be able to use in the future.

will have links to companies’ microsites, where the exhibitors can offer in-depth demonstrations or private conversations.

There are also longer-form “activations,” which include open presentations.

CES will use an array of Microsoft strategic cloud platform tools (Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Power Platform) to deliver the exhibitor showcase, media events, conference programming and networking events.

“We want to use technology to produce the serendipity you’d get while walking through the show floor—to encounter things based on your areas of interest.”

—Karen Chupka, CES Karen Chupka, CES EVP - CTA

TV technology will still be a major feature—although skeptics are already wondering how 8K, NextGen TV, HDR and fold able/flexible displays will play out in the current virtual setting.

VIRTUAL MEETINGS Karen Chupka, CTA’s executive vice president for CES, explained that the show’s structure involves exhibitors, whose virtual booths will offer a variety of “activations,” as she calls the types of presence: a digital listing, short-form videos, brochureware and product images to showcase their devices and services plus a chat component. The ersatz showfloor

“Microsoft has the bandwidth to handle as much as necessary,” Chupka said, referring to peak online attendance loads. CTA will do advance credential checking to limit the show to bona fide industry participants who will have access to the Microsoft secure platform.

She explained that CTA chose Microsoft’s Teams because of its scalability: Capable of connecting with five or six people or several hundred people at one time. The association has not disclosed how much it is paying Microsoft, a member, to operate the technology for All-Digital CES. CTA planned to release a full exhibitor list in early December when it revealed other registration and conference

details; several major video exhibitors have already confirmed their intent to participate, including LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony.

Chupka expects some large exhibitors—which run many shows annually— will want to use their own platforms once visitors pass through the CES portal into the individual booths.

Reflecting on the decision to go all digital, Chupka said, “At first we were planning for both live and digital.” But, she continued, by July CTA recognized that it would have to be “totally virtually” so “we had to rethink formats.”

FROM THE ANCHOR DESK IN REDMOND The TV show prototype starts with the “CES Live” anchor desk at a studio in Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters. Two anchor teams of broadcast professionals will offer continual updates during the extended show hours of 7 a.m. to 9 pm. ET each day. They’ll talk about “what’s new and hot” at the exhibits and conference sessions and “talk through the complexity,” Chupka said, using “story lines we’ll select” dynamically, with the assistance of CTA media partners.

The setup also uses AI to “help people find what they’re looking for,” Chupka said. “Going beyond the usual directory of keywords, the AI software will enable convention-goers to set up appointments with each other and then find a virtual place for a face-to-face conversation.”

Attendees will be able to begin scheduling appointments for specific booths and with individual colleagues by midDecember.

“We want to use technology to produce the serendipity you’d get while walking through the show floor—to encounter

SHOWING OFF 8K, HDR, HFR Brian Markwalter, senior vice president, research & standards for CTA, expects that, “every TV maker will have 8K” on display. During CES, CTA will present its new sales forecasts, and Markwalter hinted that it will show 8K is starting “moderate growth now that the technology is fully available in the supply chain.” TV sets featuring advanced HDR technology will also be on display.

The CTA outlook also foresees “TVs with newer HDMI features, higher frame rates and gaming-specific modes.” He expects more exhibits on advancing technologies such as micro LEDs and foldable/flexible screens.

“We expect strong representation from Central Hall stalwarts,” Markwalter said, referring to the Las Vegas Convention Center venue where the major TV/electronics makers traditionally show their wares.

As for demonstrating features of 8K and other advanced display technology, Markwalter anticipates that exhibitors will use the same kinds of creativity they’ve demonstrated in TV commercials for 4K. “There are ways to explain the differences between HD, 4K and 8K,” he said.

The CES technology conference program will include sessions on 8K and other new display technology.

Other technologies on the CES exhibit menu include 5G, gaming (fueled by a slew of new consoles) and robotics. Markwalter observed that 5G technology is “hitting its stride and ramping so quickly,” citing more than 170 different 5G phone models available worldwide (although the current number of models available in the U.S. is considerably smaller).

He also pointed out that robotics is taking a big upward leap this year, thanks in part to the pandemic, which has generated more interest in such devices. “We’ll see if anyone leverages that.”

NEXTGEN TV More NextGen TV receivers will be showcased on the virtual CES exhibit area, according to representatives from

11

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

IN THE NEWS the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). Additional manufacturers—as yet unnamed, possibly some of the large Chinese manufacturers—are expected to introduce TV sets for ATSC 3.0, while LG, Samsung and Sony plan to expand their lines.

After hosting their first ever CES booth showcasing ATSC 3.0 at the 2020 show, the ATSC will return in 2021 with a virtual exhibit. According to ATSC President Madeleine Noland, at presstime the group was still working on details of how Sinclair/ONE Media 3.0, Pearl TV, device makers and other member organizations will present their services and products within the ATSC booth—with links to their own exhibit sites.

In addition to its virtual booth, ATSC will host two webcasts Tuesday, Jan. 12.

The 7 p.m and 8 p.m. (ET) time slots were chosen to make the live programs convenient for Asian viewers to tune in, according to Noland. Working titles for the sessions are “What’s Next for NextGen TV” aimed at manufacturers and “Television Gets Better and Better” focusing on what broadcasters are doing with advanced video and audio. The sessions will be available for on-demand playback.

Anne Schelle, managing director for Pearl TV

The goal is to “engage with memberships” including global standards organizations so that visitors are aware of the devices coming to market and “the progress we’ve made,” Noland said. “We want to make sure we aggregate and highlight the progress we’ve made and what we expect for NextGen TV in the coming year.”

Noland expects that ATSC’s presentations—which will be hosted independently from the CES agenda—will attract viewers from TV networks, stations and the content creation community seeking

a NextGen TV update.

ONE Media 3.0 and Pearl TV have replaced their snazzy NextGen TV demonstration suites at Wynn’s Hotel with virtual exhibits online.

ONE Media 3.0, the Sinclair Broadcasting subsidiary focused on ATSC 3.0, will explore business applications enabled through ATSC 3.0, which is being deployed in every market where Sinclair is transmitting in 3.0, according to ONE Media 3.0 President Mark Aitken. For the virtual CES demonstrations, ONE Media 3.0 has built an online ATSC 3.0 receiver to do “live demonstrations on the net using our application,” Aitken said.

The virtual CES demonstration will also feature radio-related services, hybrid internet microsites and OTT content from Sinclair’s STIRR.com free, ad-supported streaming service.

“We’ve taken our STIRR app and built 3.0 functionality into it,” Aitken said. The company is working on a brand name for the hybrid service, possibly to be unveiled in January.

Pearl TV, the NextGen TV consortium, plans to exhibit an applications framework for additional services including HDR transmissions, some of which have

been tested in its model markets, according to Anne Schelle, Pearl TV’s managing director. At CES, Pearl will unveil details about its accelerated outreach to retailers as more TV set makers begin to market NextGen TV receivers. It also is expected to announce additional stations participating in the Pearl TV consortium.

Schelle hinted that Pearl TV will discuss business applications for NextGen TV outside the traditional broadcast realm.

“Automotive is also a big push,” Schelle said, hinting that Pearl TV will announce “new opportunities” with carmakers following what she called the success of pilot programs in Detroit. During CES, Pearl TV will talk to more vendors in connection with the consumer-awareness campaign that the group has been running in selected markets to familiarize viewers with NextGen TV. Schelle also said that more details will be announced about opening Pearl’s applications framework to third-party developers.

Pearl TV’s demonstrations and presentation will remain accessible on demand after the original webcasts.

To register for the 2021 International CES, visit ces.tech.

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12 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS

Production Switchers Ready for Streaming Reality With a head start in IP capability, switchers thrive in the current climate of remote production

BY BOB KOVACS WASHINGTON—Even in this COVIDcrazy year, there is still lots of video creation that involves the use of production switchers. It’s easy to think of production switchers as being in the domain of studios, production trucks and other enclosed facilities that have shut down for the duration of the pandemic, but the ability to stream the output of switchers makes them key for delivering quality programming in a range of situations.

So not only are production switchers an active product category in this seemingly written-off year, they have thrived and continue to see innovation. One of the pioneers in combining switching with streaming is NewTek, which recent-

Brian Shiel, owner of Entertainment Services LA used a NewTek TriCaster 2 Elite to produce a live stream for last month’s HPA Awards show, honoring the post-production industry.

ly added the TriCaster 2 Elite to its family of software-defined live-production systems.

The TriCaster 2 Elite is capable of dual 4Kp60 mix outputs, a single 4Kp60 output with 4x 1080p60 outputs, or 8x 1080p60 outputs—all simultaneously delivered over SDI and NewTek’s popular NDI IP protocol.

“What sets the TriCaster 2 Elite apart is our groundbreaking ‘Live Call Connect’ feature that offers support for up to nine guests via Zoom, Teams, Tencent, Discord, Skype and more,” said Liam Hayter, senior solutions architect for the San Antonio-based company. “All run natively on the system with a dedicated multiviewer mode. Live Call Connect will also analyze the call and automatically separate out the nine callers into individual video inputs for use on the system, and this also includes talkback.”

Switcher manufacturers have embraced IP connectivity in addition to more traditional television standards such as SDI. One example is the Grass Valley Kahuna 9600 4K production switcher, which can be tied to other production resources using the company’s GV Orbit networking management.

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www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

IN THE NEWS “This switcher also has built-in dual response to its HVS-490 streaming to two platforms, and provides 3G/4K video produc9:16 and 16:9 formats directly to content tion switcher. An ace at distribution networks that support vertistreaming applications, cal streaming, such as Facebook or Instathe HVS-490 packs a gram,” Read said. lot of popular streaming features into a small 8K CAPABILITY package.

Although most companies have prod“[The HVS-490] proucts that can handle 4K, at least a couple vides the most ‘bang for are pushing into 8K capability. your buck,’” said Adam Panasonic’s new KAIROS is an IT/IP-centric platform that offers an open architecture system for live video switching.

“Blackmagic Design introduced the Daniul, director of sales ATEM Constellation 8K in April 2019 as a for the southeast, south central and Midwest regions at For-A an open architecture system for live vid- you can make two 4K cameras look as solution for customers who are currently America. “It’s built for reliable 3G-SDI or eo switching with input/output flexibil- though you’re using several HD cameras. working in HD or Ultra HD but want to The KMU-200 supports an additional future proof their investments,” Caniglia 4K live production, and is ideal for image ity, resolution and format independence, HDMI input for a computer with a Pow- said. “The ATEM Constellation 8K is demagnification [I-MAG] and live streaming and unlimited ME scalability.

“Unlike conventional switchers, KAI- erPoint presentation to add to a user’s signed as an 8K, Ultra HD and HD live applications. It’s easy to afford, easy to ROS isn’t restricted by the number of MEs live production, according to Rob Read, production switcher with so many fealearn, and easy to use.” or keys,” said Michael Bergeron, senior director of business development for tures that customers can combine them product manager for live production sys- Datavideo US, adding that the KMU-200 all to make an incredibly powerful 8K LIVE & POST PRODUCTION Blackmagic Design recently an- tems at Panasonic. “The platform achieves also supports vertical video as well.

SWITCHERS, PAGE 17 nounced the ATEM Mini Pro ISO, a low- higher performance by using the power cost switcher that integrates live produc- and flexibility of its CPU and GPU, baltion into a post-production workflow. ancing total processing loads without the The ATEM Mini Pro ISO has a new five- configuration constraints of traditional stream recording engine that allows all hardware-based systems. It also incorpovideo inputs to be recorded, allowing a rates software that processes SDI, ST 2110 live production to be easily edited after and NDI streams of independent resolutions such as HD and UHD to support the the conclusion of the event.

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2/22/19 12:26 PM

14 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS

Drones Now an Essential Part of TV Broadcasting Know the rules before you fly

BY JAMES CARELESS OTTAWA—In August 2016 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented Part 107 of its regulations, which governed the use of commercial drones in U.S. airspace. Many of the nation’s TV broadcasters were quick to add drones to their newsgathering arsenal, while carefully training their staff in the legal, proper, and safe use of these remotelycontrolled camera platforms.

Fast forward to today, with hundreds of drones now being flown by U.S. TV broadcasting teams, the aerial footage captured on these platforms has gone from being a visual novelty to an essential part of TV newsgathering.

Sinclair Broadcast Group uses drone footage daily in their newscasts, according to Jeff Rose, UAS Chief Pilot with the station group.

“We don’t just use drones for news stories,” he added. “Aerial bump shots of cityscapes, traffic and weather are used throughout the broadcasts.”

Sharri Berg, COO, News & Operations with Fox Television Stations and executive vice president of News Operations

Sinclair Broadcast Group uses drone footage daily in their newscasts

phones, a streaming kit and a drone.”

Becoming an essential newsgathering tool is just one trend with respect to drones and U.S. TV broadcasters. Here are some others that are just as important.

WAIVERS PROVIDE MORE FLEXIBILITY FAA Rule Part 107 imposes certain limitations on the use of commercial drones. These include only flying visual line of sight (VLOS) missions where the drone can always be seen by the pilot, and ensuring that flights are constantly monitored by an accompanying visual observer so that the pilot can aim and control the drone’s onboard TV camera.

Drones are also restricted from flying over people and at night, however, the FAA is willing to waive sections of Part 107 for operators who have proven

tain circumstances.

CNN received the very first waiver ever issued by the FAA for operations over people and has used it on several occasions for newsgathering, according to Greg Agvent, senior director of the CNN Aerial Imagery & Reporting unit, aka “CNN AIR.”

“When you go out the door, you make sure to take a camera, microphones, a streaming kit and a drone.”

—Sharri Berg Fox Television Stations

Fox recently established the “Fox Piloting Innovation Award” to acknowledge women’s contributions to the UAS industry. The first recipient of this award was the Fox Flight team in 2019. (L to R): Heather Lacy, Mindy Larcom, Sharri Berg, Lissa Kaplan and Faith Mangan

for Fox News, says it would be unusual for Fox to staff a news story without sending a pilot along with a drone. “It has found a place on the regular newsgathering equipment checklist,” she said. “When you go out the door, you make sure to take a camera, micro-

themselves to be responsible and reliable, safety-minded pilots. Thanks to the U.S. TV broadcast industry’s consistent adherence to professional drone pilot training and operations, the FAA has issued waivers for night flights and closerthan-usual approaches to people in cer-

“However, because of our concerns over safety and the protection of people and property, the editorial bar has to be very high in order for us to fly directly over people,” Agvent added. “We would rather fly adjacent to them instead.”

Fox has also been able to obtain waivers due to enhanced training. “We provide extensive education and training to our pilots who fly night missions, which teach them how to use lights and navigate safely in this environment,” said Rebecca Kesten, Fox News coordinating producer and drone pilot. “We also train some of our pilots to fly indoor missions and flights over people, which requires additional skills and solid flight experience.”

Much faster flight authorizations have been a major trend in TV drone deployments, thanks to the FAA’s Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) program. LAANC is an automated process that allows private drone pilots to quickly receive permission to fly in “controlled airspace” (e.g. close to airports and other restricted areas), rather than take hours or even days to obtain through standard FAA channels.

“LAANC provides a grid map of the airspace around an airport that we can see on our smartphones,” said Agvent.

“With this map, we can see what altitudes we are allowed to operate at—the closer you get to an airport, the lower the altitude that you are restricted to— and then file for that permission online.

When it comes to drone-based newsgathering, this is an extremely significant advance.”

PLANNING YOUR FLIGHT Deploying a drone is not simply a matter of turning it on and taking off; safe departure and landing areas should be determined prior to departure. Flight paths should be planned out to take any obstacles and off-limits areas into account.

Providing this kind of support is where a company like Skyward (skyward.io, a Verizon company) comes in.

Skyward makes software that simplifies the flight planning and approval process for broadcasters and other drone users.

“Skyward’s InFlight mobile ground control system was specifically designed DRONES, PAGE 16

16 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

IN THE NEWS DRONES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

with media organizations in mind,” said Ryan Wall, Skyward’s director of business development and strategic planning. “InFlight allows a news crew to request and obtain permission to fly a drone in controlled airspace at a moment’s notice via the FAA’s LAANC program.

“We have also updated Skyward’s InFlight mobile app to include three Automated Flight Modes for pre-planned missions and surveys: Survey, orbit and point-to-point,” Wall added. “Now, broadcast customers can fly automated missions to collect footage and automatically log their flights without ever leaving InFlight.”

COMPETITION ENDS IN THE AIR With ratings at stake, TV news teams are expected to compete aggressively for the best camera angles and eye-catching footage. But this competition ends once these broadcasters’ drones get airborne.

This is because there is no governmentrun air traffic control that manages multiple broadcaster drones operating in the same airspace. So when competing stations start flying drones close together to cover a news story, it is up to them

Due to the demand, pilots from numerous organizations negotiated their drone positions while covering the John Lewis funeral procession across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma, Ala.

to prevent mid-air collisions and debris fallout onto the ground below.

Fortunately, the trend in increased drone usage in U.S. TV news markets has been accompanied by a trend towards increased pilot cooperation as well. “The key word is ‘deconfliction,’” said Rose.

“When you get multiple news crews fly-

ing drones in the same area, it has become common for pilots to get together and decide where each of their drones will be flying, and their flight paths to and back from those positions.”

The July 2020 funeral procession of Congressman John Lewis over the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Ala., was a prime example of such cooperation.

“There were probably nine drones covering the passage of his flag-draped casket across that bridge,” Rose said. “The pilots from these organizations got together to negotiate their drone positions on either side of the bridge beforehand, so that everyone got the shots they needed safely.”

DIVERSE OPPORTUNITIES The evolution of drone footage into an essential element of TV newsgathering

FCC Hopeful About Drone Spectrum Opportunities

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has resulted in more staff being trained as pilots and visual observers. “The more people we’re able to train, the more missions we’re able to fly,” said Berg.

The need for more drone personnel has opened up career options for women and other groups who historically have not had the same access to opportunities as their white male colleagues.

A case in point: “At Fox we’re incredibly proud of the female pilots and visual observers in our division, and we want to give them the recognition that they deserve,” Berg said. “It is for this reason that we created the Fox Piloting Innovation Award, to acknowledge organizations that encourage women to disrupt and innovate within the UAS industry.”

The first recipient of this award was the Fox Flight team in 2019.

9/22/20 8:32 AM

WASHINGTON—The FCC has signaled absent some specific issue, flexible-use spectrum can be used to operate drones, but there is a “but.”

This came in an August 2020 report concluding that the 50305091 MHz band supports use of the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

“Absent specific restrictions in the spectrum allocation or service rules, current law does not prohibit UAS communications in the flexible-use bands,” the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau said in the report. But it also said that UAS do have the potential to cause harmful interference.

“We are optimistic about the use of flexible-use bands to support UAS operations,” said Ron Repasi, acting chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, in a statement. “However, we recognize that drone operations on flexible-use spectrum may raise interference issues for co-channel and adjacent-channel networks, so we recommend further work on using these bands for UAS.” The report was required by Congress in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. Look for NTIA and the FAA to weigh in on the drone spectrum, said the bureau, since Congress mandated reports from them as well.

John Eggerton

17

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

IN THE NEWS SWITCHERS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

switcher. In 8K, it features 10 Quad Link 12G-SDI 8K inputs, 8K DVE, standardsconverted 8K inputs, 8K SuperSource, 8K chromakey and 8K multiview.”

Other companies have 8K on their radar, but are focusing on providing more features at 4K than making the next resolution leap.

“Panasonic currently offers the AVUHS500 video switcher which is a successor to the AV-HS410 that operates almost identically in 12G as it does in HD,” Bergeron said. “All the inputs and outputs are 4K capable… for use in a variety of live production applications.

KAIROS is not limited to any format, as it can work with 720p, 3G, 12G or computer monitor resolutions simultaneously. KAIROS does not currently support 8K; however, given expected increases to

high demand just yet for 8K production.

“While we are not currently doing any 8K productions, it’s great to know that as the industry grows into 8K, we will already be positioned to provide this service to our clients,” Casadonte said. “In general, 8K production is still in the very early stages, and there is a lot that needs to be considered, not the least of which is transmission and distribution.”

through our LivePanel controls,” he added.

It has been a strange year, and we’re all still figuring out how to do the things we want to do in this new environment. However, one thing that’s clear is that well-designed products continue to be useful and in demand and meet the needs of real users.

Broadcast equipment manufacturers started building IP capabilities into

SIMPLE NO MORE There once was a time when video production switchers selected on-air sources, keyed in titles and performed modest transition effects. Not anymore.

Switchers today do all those things, plus act as storage for still images, graphics and video clips, as well as provide control for video playbacks from servers and dedicated players. How much more capability can be built into switchers without overloading the operators?

switchers more than a decade ago, and that has given this product category a leg up in the bid to stay relevant during the COVID-19 lockdown. That said, I don’t think there’s anyone who wants this new status quo to go on indefinitely—just that we should be glad that production switcher manufacturers were among the best prepared for our current streaming reality.

Wireless Systems

Honolulu-based Mid-Pacific Audio Visual recently added a For-A Hanabi HVS-490 video production switcher to its facility.

bandwidth and GPU processing power, 8K support for KAIROS is inevitable.”

USER PERSPECTIVE Perhaps the bottom line on the subject of 8K switching comes from a user, Brett Casadonte, president and co-founder at GlobeStream Media LLC in Dallas, which was founded eight years ago to support live production projects.

“We chose to build our business around Blackmagic Design’s ATEM production switchers because we felt they offered the best price/performance of the various offerings we considered,” Casadonte said. “About a year ago, we began engineering work on a small remote integration production facility.

When we were considering what switching hardware we would use, it quickly became obvious the ATEM Constellation 8K was going to be the best choice.”

But that doesn’t mean that there is

“With the NewTek VMC1 system— think of it as a super-powered TriCaster—we added the ability to route NDI signals downstream of system, and we’ve brought this to the TriCaster 2 Elite, too,” Hayter said. “The NDI output matrix enables operators to drive screens and video walls on set, on stage, even to distribute NDI video and audio around venues. Like every other aspect of TriCaster, this is macro-controllable. The integrated macro engine on all our production systems can create shortcuts and sequences of operation with a single keypress.”

Hayter says NewTek has delivered visual radio studios where PTZ cameras, robotic dollies and tracks, and real-time tracked virtual sets work in tandem from a single keystroke.

“In the corporate space, we have projects where lighting, in-room audio systems and video wall solutions are similarly controlled from simple webpage buttons

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Meet the People Transforming Media Production and Distribution

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n an industry where content is king, the people behind the camera responsible for creating and delivering the content are often the “unsung heroes” of the show. As most viewers know, it takes an army of people to produce and deliver the best in television today.

This year, we were reminded of their vital roles when COVID-19 forced media companies to adapt and improvise to the new normal of social distancing.

“The show must go on” took on a whole new meaning.

Fortunately our industry was already well on the road to IP and cloud, and these capabilities have vastly improved the flexibility and efficiency required to produce by remote. This year provided the “trial by fire” that validated these tools that will impact the direction of our industry for years to come.

In the following pages, we focus on the people who are making a difference in media technology, from acquisition to delivery and everywhere in between.

These are the “ones to watch.”

FROM THE EDITORS OF

19

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Madeleine Noland President, Advanced Television Systems Committee

1

The abiding saga of advanced television standards requires patience. Noland brought plenty of that, along with a consensus-building leadership style and an encyclopedic knowledge of NextGen TV when she became ATSC president in May 2019. Noland had chaired several ATSC 3.0-related and implementation teams since 2012 and in standards roles, at Backchannelmedia Inc., Telvue Corp. and LG Electronics.

Noland began to earn her geek credentials as a kid. Her father, a university professor, gave her access to an acoustic coupler, which gave her access to the “campus mainframe” computers.

“I was soon playing text-based adventure games and learning to write programs in Basic and Fortran on this amazing new toy,” she recalled. Eventually she applied her tech interest to the media business at Backchannelmedia, a pioneer in advanced advertising solutions for ATSC 1.0, which was just emerging.

As Noland moved through the standards process, she found it “gratifying to work with the brightest minds in broadcast engineering from around the globe.” As the groups discussed technical solutions, Noland was impressed to watch the “amazing intersection of technology and teamwork.”

She is also aware of on-going issues of the intertwined communications/media ecosystem. “ATSC 3.0 offers great potential to be a gamechanger for the media tech business,” Noland

reflected. “But history suggests that vigilance, creative thinking and continually striving for progress will all be required to make good things happen.

“With next-gen technology, broadcasting is emerging from a largely local solution onto the global stage, joining other global data/media delivery systems such as the internet, Wi-Fi and LTE/5G. Cloud technology, the international outlook, IP-based workflows and new business scenarios [are] all coming together,” Noland observed, which means “the industry needs a huge range of skillsets.”

As for ATSC’s agenda, Noland expects that camaraderie will continue to drive the group and fulfill her checklist: “How to help a group achieve its goals, how to build a great team, how to keep learning, how to make things happen, how to keep calm, how to stick up for your ideas, and how to listen.”

“And how we all need a good laugh from time to time.”

— Gary Arlen

David Mazza

2

Senior VP and Chief Technical Officer, NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics

When Mazza thinks about the “Olympics at Home,” his thoughts go not to a living room but to the “virtual International Broadcast Center” (IBC) that his NBC team developed for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. As director of engineering, Mazza led the team that developed an infrastructure, which let part of NBC’s massive control center operate at New York headquarters, fully integrated with the on-site control center in Atlanta.

Three dozen video feeds went up to New York, where replay servers, graphics creation terminals and other production tools were based. Live productions came from the control room in Atlanta, but taped or time-shifted material ran from 30 Rock in New York.

This corporate decision to put a permanent sports operations center at headquarters was designed to minimize the expense and effort of building a full control facility at every Olympics venue. The current IBC in Stamford, Conn. opened in 2013, built by Mazza’s team to supplement the re-usable infrastructure that NBC moves to new locations for Olympic

coverage.

“In ’96, we had to pioneer a lot of stuff that nobody thought would work,” Mazza recalled. “All the remote control and Ethernet-based controls did not exist.

File-based workflows did not exist; the concept of remote-controlled anything was brand new.”

Mazza is planning for the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He envisions six control rooms in Japan working with three trucks on site — all controlled from truck docks in Stamford.

Mazza said he and his team have been working like this for 14 years, adding that it’s the only way they could have produced such a large amount of video content. NBC has been using some of the same virtual tactics for college football productions during the pandemic.

He’s also enthusiastic about the value of tools such as media asset management, which has become vital throughout production.

“You need persistence, passion and insatiable curiosity about how things work,” Mazza said. “Also, an unrelenting attention to detail and testing.” Given everything that can go wrong during a live sportscast, Mazza said metaphorically, “You have to design your systems for resilience on a bad day, not a perfectly clear sunny day.” — Gary Arlen

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Aaron LaBerge

3

Executive VP & Chief Technology Officer, Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution

As a young software engineer, LaBerge joined Starwave. The company’s CTO was one of the creators of the Java programming language and he wanted to work with Java, which was being positioned in the 1990s as technology that would enable users to “connect all the electronic devices in the world, including TVs.” “It was an exciting vision of the future, and I wanted to work on that future,” he said.

Disney eventually acquired Starwave and LaBerge wound up working on automated products for NFL.com, NBA.com, NASCAR.com and what would become ESPN. com. He became the second CTO of Disney-owned ESPN, overseeing all media engineering, data and advertising.

LaBerge was part of the ESPN team that designed and built the world’s first 1080p, IP broadcast production facility. He also worked on the ESPN app and was a key architect in the design, development and engineering of ESPN’s facilities in Bristol, Conn., Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., and Austin, Texas. He was also involved in building the facilities and infrastructure that connects ESPN’s worldwide facilities and the technology design and development to support the SEC Network.

“The scale of our platforms and content is astounding — hundreds of live channels, theatrical and episodic VOD content in a multiplicity of languages, delivered to thousands of partners and hundreds of products, all around the globe,” he said.

His most recent challenge has been coordinating the technology teams from across The Walt Disney Co. and 21st Century Fox, which Disney acquired in 2018. Under LaBerge, the Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution technology team handles the development, engineering and deployment of consumer-facing digital products for the company.

“Right now, we are building a next-generation digital content supply chain that delivers Disney content to our partners [like MVPDs, distributors] and products [like ABC News, TV Everywhere streaming products, and our direct-to-consumer products like Disney+],” LaBerge explained.

“Between advances in wireless networking, the explosion of smartphones, shifting of media business models, and global access to the consumer,” he summarized, “it’s a great time to work in this industry, and it’s an even better time to be a consumer.”

— Gary Arlen

Grant Petty

Founder and CEO, Blackmagic Design

4

Take a high school TV studio and add an Apple II computer.

That’s how Grant Petty started his career.

“I found the technology interesting and enjoyed playing around in the television studio and programming the computer,” Petty recalled. That led to an internship at a local TV station.

The internship and other early experiences fueled Petty when he established Blackmagic Design, which creates video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video live production switchers, disk recorders and real-time film scanners for the feature film, post-production and TV industries. Its customer base ranges from “Oscar-winning cinematographers to 15-year-old students.

“Just look at YouTube,” Petty said. “Young kids are making absolutely fantastic content. They deserve access to professional gear just as much as the people in Hollywood. Our early capture cards allowed a lot of new designers to move into television, and you could see the change in broadcast graphics,” he said.

One of Petty’s favorite experiences was the acquisition of DaVinci, Blackmagic’s first purchase. “I enjoyed turning around DaVinci because of my history with telecine and color correction,” he recalled. “I was fascinated with how the

ou have to imagine Y a future and be able to try new ideas ...” colorists would manipulate the colors and create these beautiful images.” Since DaVinci’s products were “expensive and only available to high-end clients,” Petty focused on “making them available to all creatives as free software,” which he calls a “very significant moment.”

Attesting to the popularity of Blackmagic Design’s products is their widespread use. In the 2018 TV season, more than 55 shows (broadcast, cable, streaming) used the company’s tools, according to Petty, whose goal is “to empower creativity by making film, television and AV production equipment affordable for everyone.”

His company has more than 1,000 employees in seven countries now.

“You don’t get to a new product by market research or measuring a market,” he added.

“You have to imagine a future and be able to try new ideas and then accurately evaluate the results when a new product launches.

“The younger generation is more open to taking creative risks, which is great, and they should never let themselves plateau,” he said.

— Gary Arlen

21

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Werner Vogels

Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Amazon Web Services

5

WERNER VOGELS: PHOTO BY MARKRALSTON/GETTY IMAGES

As one of the architects behind Amazon’s cloud services, Vogels drives technological innovation at scale. Following a stint in the Royal Netherlands Navy in his youth, Vogels went into cancer research and soon realized “it wasn’t the field for me.” He shifted to computing research, focused on large-scale distributed computing (and is now deemed one of the world’s top experts on ultrascalable systems).

Vogels has seen many industries, including media and entertainment, leverage cloud agility to roll out new applications and innovate faster. “The original M&E processes and workflows were developed in a time where you didn’t have modern cloud capabilities and everything existed onsite,” he said. “So collaborating with another studio often meant literally shipping hard drives back and forth. But, we’ve started to see this model flip on its head.”

He says AWS now helps M&E customers with “everything from broadcast and film production workflows, to visual effects and

rendering, to live and on-demand streaming” and that customers use AWS “to collaborate in ways they couldn’t before.”

Vogels described many use cases where M&E companies are using AWS, highlighting how Hulu uses AWS to support more than 50 channels for its Live TV offering; how Netflix uses more than 100,000 server instances on AWS, and how Amazon Prime uses AWS for seamless targeted advertising. Other clients include CBS Interactive (CBSi), which employs the cloud to support major events such as March Madness and the Super Bowl at speed and scale, and film franchises like “Avatar” and the “Lord of the Rings” film franchises, which use visual effects from Weta powered by AWS. Vogels emphasized that customers are at the heart Amazon’s innovation. A recent example of that is the 2019 Tech Emmy Award-winning work that Discovery and Fox NE&O (of Walt Disney Television) undertook to shift their media supply chains to the cloud with AWS and partners at SDVI Corp. and Evertz Technologies.

Werner expects that with changing dynamics and economic demands, media companies will continue to move their businesses to the cloud “to make their video infrastructures more automated and scalable so that they can put all their energy into innovating new services.” The cloud will enable “high-quality viewing experiences with low latency and no buffering,” Vogel noted. He also foresees the growing use of machine learning for highlight creation, video clipping, live subtitling, metadata extraction and interactive features such as polling and live chat to engage more deeply with viewers. — Gary Arlen

Poppy Crum, PhD

6

Chief Scientist, Dolby Laboratories, Adjunct Professor, Stanford University

Crum is “a big thinker” about media optimization and the communications environment with years of detailed technology experience. From ITU and CTA standardization efforts and work on ATSC consumer efforts to HDR imaging and immersive technology innovation, she has helped develop new consumer experiences.

Crum enjoys examining topics such as “creative intent” and the “human technology connection” leveraging her background as a neuroscientist and technologist.

“As a technology company, we are about delivering creative tools that allow artists, developers and producers to tell the human stories they want to convey in the richest ways possible,” she said. “The methods we can use to do that are rapidly changing with the proliferation of on-device and in-home sensors paired with machine learning and AI.” At Dolby, Crum has spent the last decade integrating neuroscience and data science into algorithm development, technology strategy and redefining immersive experiences. At Stanford, she harnesses immersive environments, like gaming, AR and VR, to impact neuroplasticity and learning.

“Ray Dolby understood the importance of modeling human perception in building technology,” Crum said, and her career arc fits that framework. She worked in broadcast as a technical

engineer and on-air presenter at a local NPR station in Iowa. With advanced degrees in experimental psychology and neuroscience, she was research faculty in biomedical engineering before joining Dolby — all, she says, “to better understand human experience.”

“Personalization is key to our future,” Crum believes.

“It’s an important part of ATSC 3.0, [which includes] formats that support personalization. Our environments, bodies, devices and engagement are all dynamic when we experience content. Personalization is key to bringing these together to improve experiences for each of us.”

Crum has co-authored 10 patent families connected to about three dozen patents, is a board member of CTA and has served on DARPA’s Defense Science Research Council.

“If you’re too comfortable or confident, you’re probably not paying attention.

Check yourself,” she advised. “Be comfortable being the only one who believes. Then spend your time as your own worst critic. It’s empowering.” — Gary Arlen

22

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Joe Inzerillo

7

CTO, Direct-to-Consumer Group, Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, The Walt Disney Co.

The evolving TV business “is not a passive sport, it’s an active sport,” said Joe Inzerillo. From his first job for the Chicago White Sox (where he handled broadcasting and other business affairs) through Major League Baseball (and its MLB Advanced Media unit), Inzerillo has blazed through roles in the fast-changing world to media technology.

Now he oversees the technology aspects of streaming services Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, but he remembers the “early days” just 15 years ago.

“We were so early that we were making it up as we went,” Inzerillo said, calling the process “exciting but terrifying.”

During his Chicago days Inzerillo worked at the United Center (home of the Bulls and the Blackhawks), where he handled broadcast and telecommunications. When he became CTO of Major League Baseball in New York, he already had streaming video experience as well as a broadcast TV background — a useful combo when he launched MLB.tv, the first over-the-top sports package.

At MLB, Inzerillo oversaw technology development for BamTech Media, which powered MLB’s streaming service, as well as managed internet rights for all 30 MLB teams.

Bamtech licensed its technology for delivering digital content and applications to sports entertainment clients such as ESPN and World Wrestling Entertainment. When The Walt Disney Co. (parent of ESPN) bought Bamtech in 2017, Inzerillo moved to Disney.

Inzerillo credits “learning by failure,” making mistakes in order to gain valuable experiences. And he’s happy that “a lot of those happened before anyone else was paying attention.”

Given his media technology portfolio, Inzerillo expects that video will continue to expand.

“Just because the streaming business is booming doesn’t mean prior media will go away; it’s nowhere near tapped out,” he said. He is especially enthusiastic about “group watch,” a system that makes it more engaging for viewers to share a “communal experience” even though they are watching programs from different locations.

Inzerillo still loves the technology, citing the in-camera special effect used for the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian.”

“That kind of technology creates immersive effects to put people into places [in the story],” Inzerillo said. “That’s the most extraordinary development, letting you think about storytelling in a much different way.”

— Gary Arlen

Brinton Miller

8

Executive Vice President-Technology Strategy & Architecture, Discovery Inc.

Systems integration is at the core of Miller’s concept of the new television ecosystem.

“To do something transformational, you have to build it,” Miller explained, quickly adding that the process requires “an effective supply chain” and a constant awareness of “the creative processes.”

“You need all that system visibility to drive workflow in order to become a more efficient business,” he added. “Our goal has been to develop things that [expand] the creative process.” For the multiplatform, internationally based Discovery media network, that has necessitated a “single technical approach” to consolidate its digital and traditional platforms.

“The content factory is providing material for all the distribution platforms,” he explained. That requires integration throughout media operations, including ad sales systems, marketing systems, software development and more, Miller added.

“The next big thing is determining how to bring in new tools for production, including machine vision,” Miller predicted. “A lot of our focus will be on the live production process, including machine learning.”

In his 15 years at Discovery, Miller has supervised the design and construction of its production facility and broadcast center and manages day-to-day operations across Discovery’s North American production and broadcast facilities. He also oversees the company’s Global Media

Engineering, R&D and IT Development teams.

“People think we pioneered the move to the cloud; [we’ve seen it as] a means to an end,” he said. “We didn’t just want to lift and shift to the cloud. We wanted to reimagine how we do it.”

Miller believes the “monumental shift” toward digital platforms has been “the big disrupter,” which is driving the reimagining throughout the media technology business.

Miller foresees continuing growth of cloud services in all segments of the TV industry, including live news and sports.

That’s a vital factor given Discovery’s sizeable ownership role in Eurosport and news in Eastern Europe.

“As a tech leader in the industry, we had a jump start,” Miller explained. “We started our shift about three to four years before others,” he said. “We struggled like others with the stack and bringing everything together.” He cited the process of identifying appropriate technology, automation and advanced tools to get content onto “all those screens,” and the “elegance of software” as a primary tool in the transformation.

— Gary Arlen

o do something T transformational, you have to build it.”

23

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Lisa Pedrogo

9

VP, N.Y. Engineering and Strategic Initiatives, WarnerMedia Global Broadcast Technology Services

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?,” is not just an old song title. It was a daunting unknown objective for the ultra-organized project manager Lisa Pedrogo in mid-November. She has overseen major projects for CNN and Turner Broadcasting (prior to its merger into AT&T’s WarnerMedia), but didn’t yet know the plan for CNN’s live Times Square telecast on Dec. 31.

Pedrogo supervised last year’s WarnerMedia development of its new 110,000 square-foot Hudson Yards facility and, 15 years earlier, managed the creation of CNN’s production venue in the then-new Time-Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The uncertainty about this year’s New Year’s Eve party was frustrating, although she felt able to handle whatever task ultimately evolved.

Pedrogo manages the engineering team that supports news and sports production at Hudson Yards, including maintenance of all technical production equipment and facilities for CNN, plus desktop support for other WarnerMedia news, sports and entertainment groups.

When she began her career, with a nontechnical degree, Pedrogo worked as a production assistant for

CNN’s Business News and assigned to its flagship Lou Dobbs newscast. She moved up to an assignment editor and producer and eventually joined Dobbs when he launched Space.com. After the dotcom bubble burst, Pedrogo returned to CNN. At CNNfn, she oversaw the media management process during the conversion to Avid nonlinear editing. CNN was a beta test site for Avid, she explained, which had only one other customer for the product.

“The variety of formats that are out there and remain there,” is the major hurdle for today’s media industry, Pedrogo said, citing the strategic decisions that went into plans for WarnerMedia’s Hudson Yards studio, which supports multimedia content creation and other forward-vision features. “We are moving to softwarebased technologies.”

IP is the next big thing, Pedrogo added. “Making it affordable for smaller networks is the challenge,” as is security.

By mid-November, Pedrogo was still thinking about the New Year’s Eve telecast, knowing that whenever the production decision is made, her team will be up to the challenge. — Gary Arlen

John Mailhot

10

CTO & Director of Product Management, Infrastructure & Networking, Imagine Communications

Mailhot summarizes his career as “32 years, seven companies, one desk.” Despite multiple companies on his resumé, Mailhot said he has never “job-hopped.” The companies he’s been with have changed hands many times, but his focus has remained steady.

His biggest career move came with AT&T Bell Labs in the early 1990s when he worked on the team developing the first DTV encoders. He recalls the value of seven companies collaborating to create a new system.

“We were using the best electronics available to build these signal processing systems, and now the idea was to apply that design experience to television — digitally compressing the television signal for digital transmission to consumers,” Mailhot recalled.

He was involved in the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service and the Advanced Television Standards Committee, and now is deeply involved in NextGen TV standards through his role as editor of the SMPTE 2110 standard for video transport over IP. During his years at Harris Broadcast, Mailhot was involved in a variety of compression, video and audio processing and conversion and IP-based “virtual routing” systems and devices. In 2014, he accepted a Television

Engineering Emmy Award for Harris’s role in standardization implementation of interoperable JPEG2000 compression.

At the core of Mailhot’s thinking is moving the TV industry to IP “to leverage that to what we do in television.” He cites 100 GigE as “tremendous” and reminds colleagues that viewers now watch video through “delivery platforms” not just the over the air.

Since he moved his latest desk to Imagine Communications, Mailhot has focused on the development and deployment of standards-based uncompressed-over-IP routing systems and related control systems and the development of SMPTE 2110-based technologies. He is also currently responsible for traditional and IP-based routing, processing, multiviewer, and infrastructure portfolios.

Throughout his career, Mailhot has learned to keep in mind that, “Television is not a technology business. We are a content business — where engineering’s mission is to enable/facilitate the creation and delivery of the best content, on a supportable budget, at the necessary quality level.

“Standards matter because they are a form of communicating between organizations about technical expectations,” he added. — Gary Arlen

24

THE WATCH LIST 2020 broadcast industry with more than 35 years of experience in engineering and management. He joined NEP in 2000, becoming president in 2014. Levine’s positive impact at NEP is reflected in his successful integration of key businesses to create NEP U.S. Broadcast Services, and in his creative business strategies. Known as a down-to earth, get-it-done leader, Levine oversees some of the biggest events worldwide and a team of more than 600 staff.

16 Dr. Andrew Cross

President of R&D, Vizrt Group

11 Mark A. Aitken

SVP of Advanced Technology, Sinclair Broadcast Group, President, ONE Media 3.0

Aitken joined SBG in 1999 and is responsible for development and deployment of next-gen technologies such as ATSC 3.0. He leads Sinclair’s “ONE Media 3.0” and is a board member of “Saankhya Labs.” Aitken also is a member of the AFCCE, IEEE and SMPTE, and active participant in NAB, ATSC and other industry organizations. He is a recipient of multiple awards from Broadcasting & Cable, ATSC, TV Technology and NAB.

12 David Ross

CEO, Ross Video

Since Ross joined the company in 1991, it has grown into a global company with 900 employees making more than 15 acquisitions in the past 11 years. Along with live production products and solutions, Ross is now a full service packager creating content, operating a fleet of eight trucks, four flypacks and a new $4M studio. The company’s tech innovations has led to Ross receiving many awards, honors and degrees including an Emmy with his name on it.

13 Paul Shen

CEO, TVU Networks

Shen has 35 years in the TV industry. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has founded and built innovative companies targeting digital and IP-based video. Throughout his career, he’s been involved in developing HD video standards, ATSC, MPEG and video compression standards. He built TVU to help lead the evolution of the media supply chain by delivering innovative transmission technologies and data-driven workflows that use AI.

14 Richard Duke

Chief Cloud Solutions Architect, Avid

Duke is responsible for helping customers “cloudify” their workflows and infrastructure using Avid’s industry-leading tools, including the Nexis storage platform, Media Central solutions and Avid’s Creative Editing tools. Duke has been working in the film and broadcast industry for more than 20 years, and has developed and deployed some of the most industry-leading solutions in public and private clouds.

15 Glen Levine

President, NEP U.S. Broadcast Services

Levine is a leader in the television

In his tenure at NewTek as president and CTO, Cross oversaw the day-to-day operation of the company, establishing plans and strategy for the development of the full line of NewTek products. He has a Ph.D and has published more than 20 technical papers in peer-reviewed scientific conferences and journals. Cross is currently president of R&D for the newly formed Vizrt Group.

17 Chuck Meyer

Technology Fellow, Grass Valley

Meyer has contributed to numerous technology advances throughout his 30 years of developing products for the broadcast industry. His current focus is on virtualization of content creation workflows and development of the technology and tools necessary to enable them. He has held positions ranging from engineer to CEO; has published papers and articles, and co-authored “The Book” and derivative works. Meyer is a SMPTE Fellow, a recognized technology innovator and has been awarded more than 40 patents.

18 Dr. Eric R. Fossum

John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor for Emerging Technlogies, Dartmouth College

Fossum invented and commercialized the CMOS active-pixel image sensor with intrapixel charge transfer as part of his work at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, which is the basis of 30 billion cameras so far. He is a device physicist, entrepreneur and now a professor of engineering at Dartmouth. He has received honors including the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and election to the National Academy of Engineering.

19 Gary Demos

Founder, CEO, Image Essence

Demos has pioneered the development of computer-generated images and digital image processing for use in motion pictures, and was awarded an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scientific and Engineering Award along with John Whitney Jr., “For the Practical Simulation of Motion Picture Photograph By Means of ComputerGenerated Images.” He is currently researching the quanta image sensor. Demos also founded DemoGraFX. He earned the AMPAS 2005 Gordon Sawyer Oscar for lifetime technical achievement, and is a SMPTE Fellow.

20-Stephen Balogh

Technology Policy Specialist of Content Protection Technologies, Intel

Protecting content from piracy is an essential and necessary element in the age of digital media. Balogh has played an important role in developing the technologies behind HDCP, (high bandwidth digital content protection), a specification developed by Intel to protect digital entertainment content across digital

interfaces. He is also president of Digital Content Protection LLC, an organization that licenses technologies for protecting premium commercial entertainment content and received a 2014 Technical & Engineering Emmy Award for this achievement.

21 Katie Hinsen

Executive Producer, DI and Dailies, Nice Shoes

Hinsen is an award-winning postproduction executive with a background as a finishing artist, engineer, editor, VFX artist and colorist. She brings her expertise to bear in building, launching and running post-production facilities globally, and is engaged in exploring and researching the technical innovations transforming the entertainment industry.

Hinsen is a mentor for emerging talent, and the cofounder of Blue Collar Post Collective. She is building and developing digital intermediate and dailies facilities across North America.

22 Richard M. Friedel

EVP, Corporate Engineering, Fox Television Stations Group

Friedel supports Fox’s 29 local stations throughout the U.S. and is overseeing their rollout of ATSC 3.0. Previously, he headed Fox Network Engineering & Operations, responsible for the technical operations of the national and regional television businesses. Early on at Fox, he helped launch Fox News Channel. Friedel is a SMPTE Fellow and life member of IEEE. In 2018, he was awarded a lifetime achievement Emmy by the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

23 Renard Jenkins

VP, Content Transmission & Production Technology, WarnerMedia

Jenkins oversees teams that support global television and feature film productions and provide production technologies including studio and production applications, IT, production pipeline workflows and more. His teams manage the technical strategy, content acquisition, IP infrastructure and site connectivity for live events including sports, entertainment and news for all WarnerMedia brands.

He has more than 30 years of experience at companies including PBS, TV One and Discovery.

24 Mike Strein

Director, Engineering & Technology, ABC TV Networks/ABC News

Strein has spent the last 30 years with ABC News. He has overseen the transformation from analog to digital, from SD to HD and now from SDI to IP, and has been in the forefront of most technical advances at the network. Strein has more than 50 Disney Inventor awards, which have resulted in more than 30 U.S. patents. He is a SMPTE Fellow and currently on the board of AMWA.

25 Michelle Munson

Co-Founder & CEO, Eluvio

Munson leads Eluvio, which was awarded the 2020 Engineering Excellence Award by the HPA. She previously founded Aspera in 2004 and was CEO until 2017, including through acquisition by IBM in 2014. She created the Aspera FASP transport technology, an Emmy Award-winning technology used in the digital media supply chains for high-speed, low-cost secure digital content transport. She holds several patents and is a SMPTE Fellow.

26

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Brian Rolapp

1

[ Decline in pay TV is] going to mean some changes in the future, which we’re trying to think through.”

Chief Media and Business Officer, National Football League

Top TV execs are tightening up their chin straps as NFL rights negotiation season approaches. NFL games represent TV’s most powerful content, accounting for 22 of the 25 top-rated telecasts this year, and determine the winners and losers in the media world.

ESPN’s $1.9 billion a year deal for “Monday Night Football” expires after the 2021 season. The league’s deals with Fox, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS and DirecTV, worth a total of $4 billion a year, expire after the 2022 season. Bet that the new deals will be more.

Wall Street knows how important the NFL is to networks and analysts pepper earnings calls with questions about discussions with the league. Last month, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch called the NFL “our No. 1 programming partner” and tried to assure investors that “we look forward to continuing that partnership.”

Lining up for the NFL is Brian Rolapp, chief media and business officer for the league since 2017. The NFL’s objective — beyond getting as much revenue as it can — remains “maximizing the availability and reach of football and making sure

that, locally, you can watch your team,” he said.

But the decline in pay TV is creating a more fragmented landscape, making reaching humongous audiences more difficult. “That’s going to mean some changes in the future, which we’re trying to think through,” he said.

To see what the NFL is thinking, look at “Thursday Night Football,” a combination of broadcast with Fox, cable with the NFL Network and streaming with Amazon Prime Video. Rolapp said Thursday has been the NFL’s “strategic game package” and that its digital viewership is now bigger than the audiences other sports get on television.

Another experiment comes when playoff games go digital on CBS All Access and Peacock. Will that build reach? “We’ll find out,” Rolapp said. “We applaud their efforts to figure out how to innovate in this changing world, and we certainly want them to be successful.”

Rolapp doesn’t expect COVID to depress how much money the NFL will seek, or how much partners will be willing to pay. “We have not seen a lack of interest because of economic concerns,” he noted.

— Jon Lafayette

Jason Kilar

2

CEO Jason Kilar, 49, tends to be ahead of the curve. In 1997, after earning his MBA at Harvard, Kilar joined a company that was selling books over the internet called Amazon. For nearly a decade, he held a variety of leadership roles there, helping it grow into the behemoth it is today.

Then, before most of America really even knew what streaming was, Kilar left Amazon to become founding CEO of a streaming startup called Hulu. By 2013, he had led the company to more than $1 billion in revenue.

Along the way, he issued a 2011 blog as a manifesto that became famous in the industry for challenging the status quo (and his corporate bosses). “History has shown that incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and, in the process, lose focus on what matters most: customers,” he wrote, critiquing traditional TV for having too many ads and the industry as a whole for not understanding how people want to be able to control when and on what screens they can watch their programming. It also explored the importance of understanding the influence

of social media.

In 2013, Kilar became co-founder and CEO of Vessel, a next-generation online video service, bought by Verizon Communications in 2016.

He also served on the boards of Dreamworks Animation and Brighter and is currently on the board of Univision Communications, Opendoor, Wealthfront and Habitat for Humanity International.

Now at WarnerMedia, Kilar has quickly made an impact. While he acknowledged a large learning curve in the cable and film sides when he started in the spring — not to mention a pandemic and a shaky economy that is changing business dynamics daily — there clearly was confidence in his penchant for being detail-oriented yet also trusting of department heads.

Not surprisingly, he has emphasized the centrality of streaming and HBO Max in the company’s future. He also showed confidence in his grasp of the company’s situation. In August, three top executives — Robert Greenblatt, Kevin Reilly and Keith Cocozza — suddenly found themselves out of a job, with Kilar saying in interviews, “Disciplined companies have to make tough decisions.” — Stuart Miller

istory has shown that H incumbents tend to fight trends that challenge established ways and ... lose focus” on the customers.

BRIAN ROLAPP GROUP: BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Chief Executive Officer, WarnerMedia

27

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Tom Ryan

President and CEO, ViacomCBS Streaming

3

Ryan’s career as an entrepreneur, before he became overseer of ViacomCBS’s critically important global streaming strategy, journeyed through the music world (CDuctive, back in the days of custom CDs and Smule, a custom singing app) and the clothing world (Threadless and Trunk Club) before he entered TV as the co-founder and CEO of Pluto TV. “Since I became an entrepreneur back in the mid-’90s, I’ve always been highly focused on the consumer,” he said. “And I’ve also been a contrarian — to find the best opportunities you have to look for the white space where no one else is.”

Contrarian doesn’t mean going against the grain just for the sake of it, Ryan added: “It isn’t just being different; it’s also about what will be highly sought after and what can be done better.” At each of his stops, along with his new role, he has come to understand the “power of curation. It’s the paradox of choice, too much of which can be paralyzing so you need to curate for the consumer.”

In his new role, a promotion in October, Ryan will

Bela Bajaria

4

Vice President, Global TV, Netflix

Perhaps no one made a bigger 2020 splash in streaming video than Bajaria.

Bajaria’s elevation to Netflix’s top programming job, displacing 17-year veteran Cindy Holland, stunned Hollywood. Baharia then did Netflix’s version of the restructuring hitting Hollywood, work she’s still doing.

“I’m focused on building my global team so that we’re structured for the next five years,” she said in an email interview. “I wanted to put in place a structure that eliminated silos and leaned into everyone’s strengths. And I wanted it to be really user-friendly and clear for creators who want to work with us.”

As executives left, show pitchers were still confused. But the restructuring sets up Netflix for the global content battles to come. Simply put, as Hollywood studios’ streamers focus on winning the U.S. market, Netflix wants to win in nearly 200 countries.

“We don’t talk about the U.S. and label everything else as ‘international,’” Bajaria said. “Everything really is local, no matter where you live. The most important thing is that our stories are locally relevant and authentic, and when we do that really well, they travel the world on Netflix.

Books have done this for centuries, and we’ve seen music do it in recent years with hip-hop and K-pop. We have more members outside the U.S. than within, but there’s

have plenty of consumers. He is overseeing the company’s global streaming strategy across both paid and free services, including CBS All Access, which will relaunch as Paramount Plus with a vast library of TV episodes along with hundreds of movies from the Paramount library in early 2021, and Pluto TV, the leading free streaming television service. (The latter, which was acquired by Viacom for $340 million in 2019, is free and ad-supported streaming; in the third quarter it grew domestic monthly active users 57% to 28.4 million.)

“I’m super excited about our opportunities in both the free and paid arenas,” Ryan said. “We are well-positioned with a world-class brand that has near universal awareness in almost every major market globally. We will bring that to bear at the intersection of free and paid, so that consumers of our free content on Pluto TV can be funneled into paying for premium content and originals and people who churn out, because some do, can be kept in our ecosystem with Pluto TV.” — Stuart Miller

he most important thing is that T our stories are locally relevant ... and when we do that really well, they travel the world on Netflix.” enormous opportunity in both in the coming years.”

Bajaria will draw on her globetrotting background (a former Miss India USA, she lived in London until age nine) and international programming experience (including hit co-productions such as “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Bodyguard”). Among the 50-plus productions finished since the pandemic, Bajaria tabs two as must-watch: Cobra Kai’s season 3, and a reboot of durable French character Arsene Lupin.

What Bajaria isn’t doing is worrying about competition.

“We can’t focus on the road ahead if we’re looking over our shoulders,” she said. “So I try and stay focused on what’s best for Netflix and our members and not pay a lot of attention to what others are doing. It’s a competitive space, but it’s not zero sum.”

— David Bloom

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Pearlena Igbokwe This has been a difficult year for everybody and every business, yet Pearlena Igbokwe, who was promoted this fall to chairman, Universal Studio Group, doesn’t see obstacles.

“All I see is opportunity,” declared Igbokwe, who is now responsible for all aspects of creative affairs and production for Universal Television, Universal Content Productions (UCP) and NBCUniversal International Studios, reporting directly to Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal. “The opportunity to share resources and talent across our four content production businesses; the opportunity to tell meaningful, impactful stories no matter the format; and the opportunity to bring our global teams together with the common goal of creating great television.”

Igbowke oversees production of more than 2,500 hours of programming currently airing or streaming around the globe, but it’s an extension of a role in which she has repeatedly proven her chops. For the past four years, she was president, Universal Television, with dominion over creative development, casting and production for the studio.

Her tenure produced the sitcom “The Good Place,” the acclaimed “Russian Doll” and a new Dick Wolf franchise “FBI.” Igbokwe said she was most proud that “we were able to grow our volume of series by 100%. We produced approximately 25 series when I first arrived in 2016 and by early 2020, we were up to 50 series at 12 different networks or platforms.”

Programming has long been a passion for Igbowke.

In earlier positions she developed the top-rated new broadcast dramas for three out of her four years in the role, including “The Blacklist,” and “This Is Us.” During her 20 years at Showtime she helped shepherd into existence “Masters of Sex” and “Nurse Jackie,” among others, and was involved in developing the pilot and overseeing the first five seasons of “Dexter.”

Life at the top removes her further from day-to-day creative development, Igbowke acknowledged. “But I work with people who have instincts that I trust, and my job is to make sure they have all the resources they need to make hit shows,” she said. “I still watch dailies and cuts and read scripts, so I’m not too far away from the process. I can’t help myself.” — Stuart Miller

[ Rather than obstacles], all I see, is opportunity.”

Brett Jenkins

6

Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Nexstar Media Group

As broadcasters race to attract a new generation of viewers, the tech strategies being implemented by Jenkins will be worth watching over the next year.

Jenkins’ efforts to use technology to improve Nexstar’s business builds on a long career of innovation, including work on digital broadcast technologies for a variety of broadcast equipment vendors and senior tech jobs at Ion Media, LIN Media and Media General. He assumed his current position in 2017 after Nexstar acquired Media General.

As the nation’s largest broadcast group, with 197 TV stations and significant digital and cable network operations, Nexstar faces a rapidly changing media landscape. “Tech is bringing a lot of disruption to so many areas,” Jenkins said. “But I feel really privileged to be in a position to think about applying technologies to our businesses in ways that will help us navigate all these disruptions. Hopefully, we can look at these disruptions as opportunities, not problems.”

One major opportunity is the NextGen TV standard ATSC 3.0. Implementing ATSC 3.0 will help stations do a much better job of improving their traditional business of delivering content to consumers by allowing them to broadcast higher-resolution video, improved audio, new interactive services and advanced advertising systems, Jenkins explained.

Beyond that, Jenkins noted that ATSC 3.0 will enable a much more robust broadcast platform, opening up opportunities to offer spectrum and services to other companies in such areas as automotive, the internet of things or content distribution.

“We are still in early launch mode, but we will have stations in 12 or maybe 13 markets lit up with ATSC 3.0 by the end of this year and another 20 or so next year,” providing ATSC 3.0 signals on Nexstar stations to about 30% of the country by the start of 2022, he said.

Jenkins has also been playing a major role in the Television Interface Practices (TIP) initiative to develop standards that will help stations better compete against digital media by automating and streamlining the buying process. “TIP will benefit not just Nexstar, but the whole industry by making it easier for buyers” to buy local TV ads, he said.

— George Winslow

PEARLENA IGBOKWE: PHILLIP FARAONE/WIREIMAGE

5

Chairman, Universal Studio Group, Comcast NBCUniversal

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Matt Sweeney

Chief Investment Officer, GroupM

7

Sweeney came to his new post from Xaxis, GroupM’s programmatic media arm, signaling a new approach to a changing media landscape.

Sales execs call him very strategic and a great partner. “He learned extraordinarily quickly and he was well prepared for the upfront,” said an ad-sales head from a top media company who asked not to be identified.

But before getting to the upfront, Sweeney had to deal with the pandemic on behalf of his clients. “We ranked our preferred partners based on how flexible they were with us through COVID when we needed to move or even cancel some dollars,” Sweeney said.

Now, GroupM is judging them on delivering on their upfront guarantees. Ratings have eroded, but might rebound as scripted shows return to schedules.

Media companies are responding well. “We expect that to continue because it will impact what budgets look like in next year’s upfront,” Sweeney said. “If you can’t deliver consistently, why would I not option dollars away from you and put them where they can have the greatest impact for our clients?”

At a time when some wondered if there would be

an upfront, Sweeney convinced GroupM clients to mostly buy at the traditional time, a strategy validated by a scatter market where prices are high and little inventory remains available.

“We have to expand on the definition of TV and go beyond traditional pay TV,” he said, noting that one needs only to follow the money to see that media companies are investing in programming, data and technology to pursue more direct-toconsumer business. Similarly, ad dollars are increasingly following viewers towards streaming with outlets owned by the big media companies such as Hulu, Peacock and Pluto TV. “We have to make sure there’s value there,” he said, adding that the industry needs to collaborate so advertisers can measure and optimize across media brands.

Sweeney is not the only digital guy who believes TV advertising remains powerful. Some of the smartest, data-driven marketers — Amazon, Google, Facebook — spend more money on TV than they did three years ago as a percentage of their marketing budgets, he said. “There’s still tremendous value there.” — Jon Lafayette

Trevor Noah

Host, ‘The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,’ Comedy Central

TREVOR NOAH: GAVIN BOND; TREVOR NOAH GROUP: ASHLEY VLOTMAN/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

8

Noah may not have the decision-making power of the top executives on this list, but he is perhaps its most widely recognized face. And in a presidential election year, during a pandemic and months of social-justice protests, his was an important voice in the comedy world and also the cultural landscape.

Early in the pandemic, he paved the way as the first late-night host to shift to doing shows from his home, beginning March 23. (He also has paid the salaries of about two dozen furloughed staffers.) Steering away from the laughs, he gave National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci 13 minutes of airtime on March 26. In a subsequent interview, Noah explained that he worried about experts and facts being sidelined for opinions. “American news generally is geared more

toward entertainment and engagement than information, because information can be very boring,” he said. “We needed to give this expert a platform.” (The show was viewed on YouTube nearly 12million times.)

As the only Black host of a major late-night show, he also offered a unique perspective on the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests, explaining clearly and potently why, in some early cases, the protests shifted into violence and looting. (Noah, who is from South Africa, is interracial; his background is explored in incisive detail in his acclaimed memoir, “Born a Crime.”)

He also pushed the limits of linear television this year, persuading Comedy Central to extend the show to 45 minutes to allow more time for interviews, even if it meant the show no longer neatly fit the traditional half-hour time slots.

But Noah is more than just his nightly time on Comedy Central on the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning show. (The show earned six Emmy Award nominations in 2020.) He has helped the show move into the modern era, breaking free of the linear constraints with engaging social media content, including an award-winning digital series and podcasts for his global audience. This year, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” earned Webby Awards for Best in Comedy and Best Web Personality/Host.” — Stuart Miller

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Peter Rice

9

Chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content, The Walt Disney Co.

Rice, who joined The Walt Disney Co. when 21st Century Fox was acquired last year, is king of the Magic Kingdom when it comes to television content. He is responsible for the mine that produces more than 4,500 hours of TV programming a month. He’s also responsible for sorting which shows go to which outlet, a new “Mandalorian” for high-profile streaming service Disney Plus, another “Bachelor” for ABC to broadcast or a “Fargos” for FX and “Duck Tails” for Disney Channel on cable, and even election coverage on ABC News.

Disney has pivoted to streaming, which has changed everything from the way its business is structured to the way it measures results.

In October, Disney CEO Bob Chapek separated the people who create content from those concerned with profit and loss, distribution, advertising and technology, including managing Disney’s streaming services and domestic TV networks.

Rice explained the new mandate in a Nov. 10 memo to his staff: “For our team, this means we will wholly focus our

resources and efforts on developing, producing and marketing exceptional content to fuel the company’s streaming and linear platforms while our colleagues at Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution will distribute and monetize that content and run the linear networks and streaming platforms.”

Most of Rice’s group had been focused on linear TV networks. “As we look to the future and how consumers choose to watch their programming, this reorganization is an opportunity for us to fully focus on what we do best, making great programming for viewers wherever they choose to watch their favorite shows,” he said in the memo.

Making better television — and lots of it — might be Disney’s key advantage as it challenges Netflix for streaming superiority. The new structure should let him stick to storytelling in a business where successful creative executives tend to get bigger and bigger loads of business and administrative duties heaped on them.

“He was already functioning as head of the television studio and spent about 75% of his time on development, talent and scaling production,” an exec familiar with the situation said. “I think he’s really happy with this.”

— Jon Lafayette

Steve Rosenberg

10

Since taking over as president of Local Sports in July of 2020, Steve Rosenberg has found himself in a closely watched position that will have important implications both for the broadcaster and the future of regional sports networks.

Sinclair partnered with media entrepreneur Byron Allen to purchase the Fox Sports Regional Networks in 2019 for $9.6 billion from The Walt Disney Co. following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. At the time, there were already concerns about the future of regional sports networks, given the rising cost of sports rights and the impact of cord-cutting on subscriber fees. Those issues became much more worrisome with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which dramatically reduced the amount of live sports. Dish, Sling, YouTube TV, Hulu and fuboTV have dropped the channels from their lineups.

In its Q3 2020 earnings, Sinclair wrote down the value of its RSNs by $4.2 billion and reported that it will have to pay $371 million in rebates in 2020 to MVPDs for failing to deliver enough live sports. The Wall Street Journal has also reported debt-restructuring talks between lenders and the Diamond Sports, the Sinclair subsidiary that runs the channels.

Since then, promising news from vaccine trials has pushed up Sinclair’s stock and Sinclair executives remain bullish on the RSNs’ prospects. On Sinclair’s Q3 2020

earnings calls, President and CEO Chris Ripley stressed: “We’re very excited about the growth opportunities we have with the RSN [regional sports networks] .... [S]ports betting … we think is going to be a game-changer. And we intend on reinventing the RSNs around gamification, around community-based fandom and around direct-toconsumer [streaming apps].”

To implement those strategies, Rosenberg brings an impressive resumé with experience working in the television, entertainment and sports industry, including a 20-year stint at Universal. He also has a particularly strong background in distribution, marketing and sales that will help the networks find new audiences and revenue streams.

Turnaround hopes depend on the impact of COVID-19. How quickly the 42 major league teams that supply games to the networks can resume full game schedules in 2021 remains an open question. Sinclair declined to comment for this profile.

— George Winslow

Ready to roll out Marquee Sports at Wrigley Field (from l.): Jorge Vazquez, controller; Vincent Sollecito, senior VP, ad sales; Michael McCarthy, general manager; and Amy McDevitt, VP, marketing.

STEVE ROSENBERG GROUP: DAVID DUROCHIK

President, Local Sports, Sinclair Broadcast Group

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

15 Susan Zirinsky

President and Senior Executive Producer, CBS News

Zirinsky was named to oversee CBS News in March 2019 and, within her first nine months, overhauled the news division, including launching the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.” She also named new leadership and new executive producers of several flagship programs including “CBS This Morning” and “60 Minutes.” She began her career in the CBS News Washington bureau two weeks after the Watergate break-in.

16 Marianne Gambelli 11 Jennifer Salke

Head of Amazon Studios

Salke oversees all television and film development as well as production for Amazon’s global entertainment division. Hits at Amazon under her aegis include the TV series “The Boys” and the movie “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”

She joined in 2018, after a sexual harassment scandal forced out Roy Price, and is credited in leading Amazon to become a “storytelling powerhouse,” as Elle magazine put it. At NBC and at 20th Century Fox Television, she was a major force behind some of television’s most successful comedy and drama series, including “This Is Us” and “The Blacklist.”

12 Scott N. Brown

General Manager, Audience Measurement, Nielsen

Brown is responsible for innovating Nielsen’s measurement products and driving the unification of its linear TV, advanced TV and digital solutions. Nielsen said it would be adding data from 55 million set-top boxes and smart TVs to its national TV currency, allowing it to measure addressable advertising. Under Brown’s leadership, Nielsen is overhauling its digital measurement methodology enabling the company to create an independent platform that can adapt to privacy and policy changes.

13 Lisa Knutson

Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer, The E.W. Scripps Co.

When Scripps completes its acquisition of Ion Media in 2021, Knutson will lead the company’s new national television networks business, overseeing operations of the combined businesses of Ion Media, the five Katz networks and Newsy. As CFO, she has led the company’s financial operations, corporate development and strategic planning and manages functions including IT and risk management. She played a key role in the merger-and-spinoff deal between Scripps and Journal Communications in 2015.

14 Wade C. Davis

Incoming CEO, Univision Communications Inc.

In February 2020, Davis’s investment firm, ForgeLight, and partners agreed to acquire a majority stake in Spanish-language media giant Univision. Davis will be CEO when the deal closes.

He has talked up Univision’s potential with the Spanish-language U.S. population. Before founding

President of Advertising Sales, Fox

Gambelli, a leading figure on Madison Ave., oversees all linear and nonlinear sales across Fox’s portfolio of brands, including Fox Broadcasting, Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and the latest acquisition, ad-supported streaming service Tubi. Earlier, Fox News experienced record years in ad sales when Gambelli was advertising sales president for Fox News and Fox Business Network. Before Fox, she was at Horizon Media and spent 22 years at NBC.

17 Robin Roberts

Co-Anchor, “Good Morning America”, ABC

With big interviews like the first sit-down with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris after they announced their historic ticket this summer, Roberts helped keep “GMA” the number one morning show for the ninth consecutive year. In October, she sat down for an exclusive interview with Judge Esther Salas, whose 20-year-old son was killed and her husband wounded in a racially motivated assault. Her production company, Rock’n Robin Productions, creates original programming for ABC and other networks.

18 David Sambur

Co-Lead Partner, Private Equity, Apollo Global Management

Sambur set his sights on the TV business in 2019 acquiring Cox Media Group and Northwest Broadcasting. With Apollo’s resources and the benefits of scale in broadcasting, that’s seen as a good start.

COVID-19 slowed dealmaking in 2020, but Apollo will have its checkbook open in 2021. It likes the growing revenue from retransmission and sees political advertising as a business it can cultivate, in addition to stations. Apollo is reportedly talking to AT&T about DirecTV. We’ll be watching.

19 Ann Sarnoff

Chair and CEO, WarnerMedia Studios and Network Group

Sarnoff was named to her position in August and brings 30 years of industry experience to bear in overseeing all of WarnerMedia’s contentfocused teams, uniting the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, HBO and HBO Max, the Warner Bros. Television Group, DC, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Boomerang, TCM, Cartoon Network Studios, WB Animation, TBS, TNT, truTV, Wizarding World, consumer products and gaming. She was chair and CEO of Warner Bros., the industry’s first female studio head.

20 Miguel Penella

President of SVOD, AMC Networks

Penella’s record of building successful subscription video-on-demand products and brands for AMC Networks was rewarded in September with an expanded role. He added the AMC Plus premium service to his purview, which included Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now and UMC. Shudder has passed the 1-million-subscriber mark, as Acorn TV had a year earlier. AMC acquired Acorn TV and UMC in 2018 as part of RLJ Entertainment, where he was CEO.

21 Michael Barrett

President and Chief Executive Officer, Magnite Inc.

Riding a wave of consolidation, Magnite was created in 2020 as Rubicon Project bought Telaria, combining ad-selling platforms in hopes of grabbing more of the connected TV ad market. President and CEO Barrett had held that position at Rubicon Project. Prior to that, he was president and CEO at Millennial Media. A former Google and Yahoo executive, Barrett also was president and founder of Ichabod Farm Ventures LLC.

22 Jordan Peele

Founder and CEO, Monkey Paw Productions

Peele gained big screen accolades from his 2017 Academy Award-winning directorial debut “Get Out,” followed by the 2019 box office hit “Us.” On the small screen Peele — through his production company Monkeypaw Productions — put his stamp on Netflix’s 2019 reboot of “The Twilight Zone,” as both executive producer and narrator. In 2020 he collaborated on Amazon Prime Video’s Nazi-targeting vigilante drama series “Hunters” before drawing raves for his company’s HBO series “Lovecraft Country.”

23 Beau Ferrari

Chairman, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises

Chairman Ferrari succeeded Cesar Conde in the job in May. He oversees the company’s multiplatform portfolio, including the Telemundo broadcast network, which is now the No. 1 Spanishlanguage network. Reporting directly to Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, Ferrari had been EVP of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises since 2017. He joined NBCU from Univision Communications.

24 Kenya Barris Producer

Barris is an award-winning writer, producer and director nrdy known for his Peabody Award-winning sitcom, “Black-ish”, at ABC. With a focus on socially conscious storytelling that reflects our culture and tackles contemporary issues, his work has earned him praise for telling stories that make audiences more aware of the world around them while making them laugh. Current projects include “Blackish” and spinoffs, “Grown-ish” and “Mixed-ish,” with a third spinoff, “Old-ish,” in the works.

25 John Landgraf

Chairman, FX, Disney General Entertainment Content

Along with Landgraf’s official title, he’s unofficially known by critics as the mayor of television for his astute observations on the industry. He positioned FX for the future when FX on Hulu was launched earlier this year. FX’s streaming hub offers its own originals, including “Mrs. America” and “A Teacher.” FX shows have long played like indie films, despite the basic cable limitations. In the streaming world, those strictures don’t exist.

JENNIFER SALKE: GETTY IMAGES/AMY SUSSMAN; WADE C. DAVIS: ©DARIO ACOSTA ; SUSAN ZIRINSKY : CBS; ROBIN ROBERTS: ABC; DAVID SAMBUR: GETTY IMAGES; ANN SARNOFF: ROBERT VOETS / 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. ; JORDAN PEELE: RODIN ECKENROTH; KENYA BARRIS: MATT SAYLES; JOHN LANDGRAF: AMY SUSSMAN

ForgeLight, Davis was EVP and CFO of Viacom, helping to drive a turnaround of the business and pave the way for the $50 billion merger of Viacom and CBS.

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Kareem Daniel Starting in the mailroom and rising to the top is a Hollywood trope. But Daniel didn’t even begin at The Walt Disney Co. as an employee: his first position was as an intern. This fall, the 46-year-old Daniel became chairman of Disney’s new distribution division and the first Black person to be a division head, reporting directly to the CEO Bob Chapek.

That intern title is a bit misleading, though. Daniel wasn’t a college freshman but a Stanford University MBA candidate. After that internship, Daniel actually spent three years at Goldman Sachs before joining Disney in 2007.

As a child, the Chicago native loved movies but has said in the past, “I never imagined that there was a business side to entertainment.”

At Disney, he proved how much he learned as part of the team involved in the purchases of Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm that have spearheaded Disney’s revenue in the past decade.

Prior to his promotion, Daniel was president of Consumer Products, Games and Publishing, overseeing the creation and delivery of products across a variety of channels — including Disney Store and Disney Parks (bringing to life “Star

Wars” and “The Avengers” in that arena) — while managing the licensing organization spanning numerous categories. Daniel also oversaw the games and interactive experiences businesses plus Disney Publishing Worldwide.

In his new role, Daniel’s landscape grows even more. He oversees the organization responsible for the P&L management and all distribution, network and engineering operations, sales, advertising and data worldwide for all content engines. And with streaming revenues vital to survival, he is also responsible for the operations of Disney’s streaming services and domestic television networks while working in close collaboration with creative leaders across the company on content budgeting, as well as programming decisions and the execution of marketing campaigns.

Disney’s most recent numbers — Hulu Plus Live TV, 4.1 million subscribers; Hulu VOD, 32.5 million subscribers; ESPN Plus, 10.3 million subscribers; and Disney Plus, 73.7 million subscribers — show Daniel is off to a good start in his new role and he has a healthy platform from which to work his (Disney) magic. — Stuart Miller

Dana Strong

President, Consumer Services, Comcast Cable

2

Strong is in charge of Comcast Cable’s main profit center and the backbone for which its content services flow — Xfinity video, mobile and broadband. So far, Strong, who joined Comcast in 2018 after nearly two decades with Liberty Global where she held senior executive leadership roles, has risen to the challenge. Comcast reported the strongest quarterly broadband subscriber growth in its history, 633,000, in the third quarter, and signs all point to that momentum continuing.

Strong has been a big proponent of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program to bring low-cost broadband to low-income households. Since 2011, Internet Essentials has connected more than 8 million people with high-speed service.

“With learning looking very different this year across the country, we want to help give our educators the connectivity they need to support America’s youth during these unprecedented times,” Strong said in a statement.

Adding to broadband’s allure is Xfinity Flex, which gives broadband-only customers access to streaming services like Peacock, Hulu, CBS All Access, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Flex crossed 1 million devices

deployed in May and has been a big part of overall broadband growth.

“Flex was designed to fit seamlessly into the lives of our internet-only customers,” she said in another statement. “We are thrilled our customers are quickly embracing this device on such a large scale.”

While broadband appears to have a lot of growth runway left, the mobile business also presents opportunity. Comcast launched Xfinity mobile in April 2017, and currently has about 2.6 million customers. In Q3, Comcast added about 187,000 Xfinity Mobile customers, but the company increasingly sees the service as a gateway to its other products.

During its Q3 earnings call, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said Comcast wireless growth has been “material” for several quarters, despite closing down retail stores because of the pandemic. With those stores now reopened, and by bundling wireless with all of its products, not just broadband, Watson sees accelerated growth ahead.

“We’re already seeing, as we put our shoulder to bringing things back, some real early-stage success in terms of what mobile can do,” Watson said on the call.

— Mike Farrell

KAREEM DANIEL: IMAGE GROUP LA

1

Chairman, Media and Entertainment Distribution, The Walt Disney Co.

I never imagined that there was a business side to entertainment.”

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Julia Laulis

Chair, President and CEO, Cable One

3

Cable One set the trend for the rest of the industry back in 2013, deemphasizing video and setting the stage for the emergence of streaming services that dominate the business today.

Laulis has been an integral part of that transition, one followed by virtually every other cable operator since. She said former Cable One CEO Tom Might caught sight of some early signs of the decline of video that the team modeled out over time.

“We felt this trend was inevitable, so we embraced it and gained further confidence in our strategy given our early results,” Laulis said.

“While we had the foresight to ‘skate to the puck,’ we could not predict whether the timing was right. But by 2016, these higher growth and higher margin products made up a majority of our revenues for the first time, which dramatically improved our profitability in large part because we were no longer subsidizing video.”

That switch helped fuel the company to an unprecedented period of growth. Since splitting

from Graham Holdings (parent of The Washington Post Co.) in 2015, Cable One stock has been the top performer in the sector, rising more than five-fold from $399.85 to $2,021.25 per share in five years.

Laulis got her start in the cable business 35 years ago with Hauser Communications, later moving to Jones Communications. Since 1999, she has held several roles within Cable One ranging from marketing to operations and customer service, which has given her a breadth of experience across all lines of the company’s business, culminating in being named president and CEO in 2017 and, a year later, chair of the board.

While Cable One has profited from the switch in focus to broadband, Laulis is not ready to call the video business dead. She believes video still plays a vital role in informing and entertaining the public, even as consumers have myriad more choices and options to access that information today.

“So rather than saying video isn’t an option, it seems more likely that video as we know it today will continue to evolve,” she said. — Mike Farrell

Tedd Cittadine

Vice President of Content Distribution, Roku

4

With the pandemic dramatically accelerating the importance of streaming, Roku has emerged as the leading platform, with 46 million active accounts in Q3 2020, up 43% from a year earlier and triple the 15.1 million accounts at the end of Q2 in 2017. By way of comparison, Roku’s active account base was now more than double Comcast’s 20 million residential and business video subscribers in Q3 2020.

That has made Cittadine, who oversees Roku’s content strategy, acquisition and partner channel development, a powerful force in the TV and movie business.

Cittadine came to Roku with a resumé that includes an MBA from Georgetown University, work in corporate banking and expertise in digital media and the movie industry from a 2006 to 2017 stint at 20th Century Fox. In 2017, he joined Roku in his current role, overseeing Roku’s content strategy, acquisition and partner channel development.

A big part of the job, he said, is helping channel providers grow their subscription, advertising and content sales businesses. “When Disney’s ‘Mulan’ launched over Labor Day weekend, more people watched Disney Plus on Roku than all other streaming platforms combined,” he said.

That has helped programmers expand their streaming businesses but it is also crucial for Roku, which takes a cut of those revenues. In Q3 2020, Roku’s Platform business, which includes licensing and advertising, grew by 78% compared to a year earlier.

How those streaming revenues should be divided

e believe we have an W opportunity to make these new services incredibly successful.” has also touched off some contentious negotiations with streaming services like HBO Max, which is still not on the Roku platform. The standard distribution agreement publicly available on Roku’s website indicates that it asks for 20% of subscription fees and 30% of ad revenue.

“We believe we have an opportunity to make these new services incredibly successful,” Cittadine explained.

“We are the largest streaming platform in the world and we believe that these services need Roku in order to be successful. We are really excited about structuring agreements that will … allow them to create a tremendous amount of value and allow us to share in a fair amount of value. There is a lot at stake.”

— George Winslow

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Adam Silver

Commissioner, National Basketball Association

5

obody thought N we were going to spend months in a [bubble].”

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic forced the shutdown of all major pro sports this past spring, but no sport rebounded better than the National Basketball Association.

After shutting its 2019–20 season down in March, the league — under the leadership of Silver — began work on an innovative gameplan to resume the season safely within a quarantined environment in Florida that would host the league’s truncated regular and postseason schedule.

The Los Angeles Lakers in late October emerged from the nearly three-month bubble experience with the NBA Finals trophy after defeating the Miami Heat. Ratings for the competitive, six-game championship series were subpar, but competition was extreme against the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals, MLB’s World Series and the NFL regular season.

The “bubble” scenario at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports complex was unprecedented in its scope and operations, but achievable because of Silver’s dogged determination to see it through. Silver brought together a range of groups — including the NBA Players Association along with its television partners, as well as health officials on

call to administer strict COVID-19 protocols.

“Nobody thought we were going to spend months in a [bubble],” Silver said during a recent Reuters interview prior to the league’s Nov. 19 NBA Draft. “Ultimately, we concluded that’s the best we could do under the circumstances.”

Silver’s deft work with the players union on emphasizing social justice and racial equality messages throughout league play also earned him accolades across the sports world.

If that wasn’t enough, Silver has the league in position to start its 2020–21 season in December — the shortest period between seasons in NBA history. With the league set to play during its traditional winter/spring time period with a shortened, 72-game schedule, Silver has the league poised to continue its successful play as one of the pre-eminent pro sports leagues.

“We feel comfortable that the protocols that we’ll have in place in our practice facilities and our arenas will keep our players safe,” Silver said to ESPN. “We’re set out on a course to open on Dec. 22, but we will undoubtedly be learning new things every day.”

— R. Thomas Umstead

6

Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Charter Communications

With broadband services a necessity for people working from home and kids taking online classes during the pandemic, cable operators have been scrambling to build networks that can be even faster and more capable in the future.

That makes the tech moves by Mitchko-Beale, Charter’s top technologist, particularly newsworthy.

Work on the transition to blazingly fast 10G networks, efforts to expand its mobile offerings and plans to use artificial intelligence and data analytics to offer more reliable services are all part of an ambitious tech roadmap.

Inspired by her father’s career in engineering, Mitchko-Beale got an engineering degree at New York University’s Polytechnic School of Engineering in 1987, and then worked in a variety of high tech jobs before joining Cablevision Systems in 1999.

During a 15-year stint at the cable company, she earned two Technical Emmys and one Emmy for interactive TV as she worked on a variety of cuttingedge technologies, including the launch of high-speed data services, advanced advertising systems and the first U.S. cloud DVR deployment.

Mitchko-Beale further honed her skills in software development and data analytics between 2015 and 2019

at Cadent before rejoining some of her old Cablevision colleagues at No. 2 U.S. cable company Charter Communications.

Rapid growth in broadband services, which boosted Charter’s internet customers to 28.6 million in Q3 2020, make the transition to even faster networks an important part of the company’s tech roadmap.

“We’re working closely with the industry and CableLabs on 10G,” a suite of technologies that will offer 10-gigabit speeds, she said.

Mitchko-Beale stressed, though, that network upgrades are “an evolutionary process” that involve a range of technologies. “We are working on some big programs around home Wi-Fi, improving the reliability of our network, mobile and the whole idea of using data to improve business operations,” she said.

To speed the pace of innovation, diversity is also a top priority. “I really believe that great ideas are born from input from all different types of people,” said Mitchko-Beale, who recalls being the only woman in her college engineering classes and is one of very few women overseeing tech operations and strategies at a major company. — George Winslow

ADAM SILVER: PHOTO BY STACY REVERE/GETTY IMAGES

Stephanie Mitchko-Beale

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Aryeh Bourkoff

Founder, Chairman and CEO, LionTree

7

Anyone who has been in the cable business over the past 20 years is well aware of Bourkoff. Before founding LionTree in 2012, Bourkoff was one of the top cable analysts in the country, and the only one in the sector covering both the equity and debt sides of the business. Along with other previous positions within UBS, Bourkoff served as vice chairman and head of Americas Investment Banking at UBS and served on the UBS Investment Banking Executive Committee. Before joining UBS, he was a high-yield research analyst at CIBC World Markets from 1997–99 and Smith Barney from 1995–97, where Institutional Investor ranked him the number one ranked cable and satellite analyst for seven consecutive years.

LionTree has offices in New York, San Francisco, Paris and London, and Bourkoff and his team have been strongly influential in the deal market. According to a 2017 New York Times profile, Bourkoff first pitched the idea of using his investment in Charter Communications to roll up the cable business to Liberty Media chairman John Malone on Malone’s private jet.

The result was Charter’s $80 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable.

Since its founding, LionTree has had a hand in more than $500

he next decade will be the T stage for a clash of titans ... ” billion in transactions, including Liberty’s purchase of Virgin Media in 2013 and the sale of its German and Eastern European assets to Vodafone in 2019 for $20 billion. More recently, LionTree advised Viacom in its $20 billion merger with CBS, Virgin Media founder Richard Branson’s satellite venture Virgin Orbit and TiVo in its $3 billion merger with Xperi.

In his 2019 end-of-year letter to employees, Bourkoff said the focus for 2020 would be on whether scale players can move from the disruption of 2019, take an offensive posture and continue to innovate.

“The answer, of course, is that they must,” Bourkoff wrote.

“The next decade will be the stage for a clash of titans, as battle-tested platforms that have emerged stronger than ever will compete against one another for consumers’ attention. As advisers first and foremost, we must be cognizant of the fact that each scaled player’s ‘motion’ will be different.”

— Mike Farrell

Phil McKinney CEO, CableLabs

ARYEH BOURKOFF: ©MICHAEL PRIEST PHOTOGRAPHY

8

Faced with a period of rapid tech innovation that is disrupting much of the traditional TV business, research into new technologies at the CableLabs, led by CEO Phil McKinney, will be worth watching over the next few years.

The impact of this research is apparent in the research consortium’s work on 10-gigabit networks, mobile convergence, artificial intelligence and new 3D holographic entertainment experiences.

When McKinney took the top job at CableLabs in 2012, he brought with him a long career in software and tech startups, providng the expertise that he’s used to help operators speed up the pace of innovation.

“Around 82% of the U.S. now has access to 1 gigabit [of internet speeds, up from] less than 3% three years ago,” McKinney said, with more to come. “Today’s networks are not going to be the networks of 10 or 20 years from now. We are going from 1 gig to 2 gigs, to 10 and 25 gigs. It is never-ending. There is nothing to indicate that you get to some speed and you’re done.”

To help with that, CableLabs launched a 10G initiative that has already produced some

successful trials with blazing 10-gigabit network speeds. “10G will not only enable the continuing growth of our networks but also improve economic growth,” McKinney said.

Other top priorities include: research into mobile and mobile network convergence that will create new services and allow content and data to seamlessly flow between mobile and traditional cable networks; work on artificial intelligence to create more reliable, networks; cybersecurity; and new ways of creating and experiencing content like the upcoming holographic Light Field technologies, McKinney said.

Rapid change will also require more investment in training for tech teams. That imperative led to the recently announced merger with Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers /International Society of Broadband Experts (SCTE•ISBE), which will become a subsidiary of CableLabs. “There are hundreds of thousands of employees who have to be trained to deploy these new technologies,” McKinney said. “Bringing the two organizations together will create reduced overhead costs so we can invest more in training programs.”

— George Winslow

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Allison Page

President, Magnolia Network

9

Discovery will take a bold step in 2021 within the traditional linear cable universe with the launch of a channel that will feature two of the most popular stars in the home renovation genre.

Page is up for the challenge with Magnolia Network, a joint venture between Discovery and “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines. The veteran Scripps Networks executive will look to establish the new network’s footprint in a crowded linear cable marketplace.

“Magnolia Network is a network that people very much want, need and look forward to because it represents positivity, family and comfort,” Page said.

Prior to Discovery’s acquisition of Scripps Network in 2018, Page was general manager of U.S. Programming and Development for the company’s HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and Great American Country brands.

It was at HGTV where Page displayed her programming acumen, launching such network franchise shows as “Flip or Flop,” “Brother vs. Brother” and “Fixer Upper,” which will be part of the new Magnolia lineup. Page’s influence on the network continues to fuel its success today: HGTV is one of the highest-rated cable networks in a year dominated by shifting programming lineups due to production schedules

disrupted by to COVID-19. “[HGTV] is real comfort food for viewers,” Page said. “I think brands with a clear, consistent, compelling brand promise provide a lot of comfort for viewers because you know what you’re coming for and your expectations are met.”

While the network has yet to set a firm launch date, the Magnolia Network has already generated awareness through content previews on sister networks Food Network and DIY. Magnolia programming will be prominently featured in the Discovery Plus direct-to-consumer service launching in January. Discovery Plus will offer episodes from 10 Magnolia Network original series, as well as preview specials such as “Magnolia Table with Joanna Gaines” and “The Courage to Run with Chip Gaines and Gabe Grunewald.”

“Our role in it will be something that will be a great offering to people who want that Discovery larger product, but also serves as a great marketing tool for us,” Page said of the streaming product. “Hopefully it serves two great purposes of giving people a real sense of what we’re going to be, as well as showing some highly anticipated content.” — R. Thomas Umstead

agnolia Network is a M network that people very much want, need and look forward to ... ”

10

President, HBO Programming, WarnerMedia

HBO’s drama series “Watchmen” was the most celebrated scripted series at the 72nd Emmy Awards this past September, winning 11 awards and pacing the cable network to an industry-high 30 statuettes — a feat achieved despite having nearly 60 less nominations than rival Netflix.

Yet exceeding expectations is nothing new for Bloys. Since taking over the position at the leading premium service in 2016, he’s always answered the call from viewers and critics as to whether the service can continually remain the industry’s leader in creative, innovative and entertaining scripted content. The question most recently was posed after Emmy record-holder “Game of Thrones” ended its eight-season run in 2019. Bloys’s post“Thrones” answer was not only the development of “Watchmen,” but also the successful and Emmy Award-winning series such as “Succession,” “Big Little Lies” and “Euphoria.”

“As long as we continue to find talented artists with something to say, we hope we will do well with the Emmys,” Bloys said. “Total nominations and wins may fluctuate year to year, but we are not changing our strategy of betting on the storytellers.”

Now with HBO Max under his creative belt, Bloys has a wide canvas to develop original content for an ever-growing digital audience.

“We try to keep in mind that the goal for HBO Max is to broaden the audience for HBO,” Bloys said. “While HBO will continue to produce the kinds of shows you would expect, the shows for HBO Max will continue to push into new genres, like reality, DC [superhero franchises], tentpole dramas and young adult content.”

Indeed, the future success of the subscription-based HBO Max service relies on the fortunes of its anchor HBO. Given the successful runs of such acclaimed series as “Lovecraft Country” and “I May Destroy You” this year, as well as the 2021 returns of “Succession” and multiple Emmy Award-nominated comedy series “Insecure” — along with new limited series “Mare of Easttown” with Kate Winslet and “The White Lotus” from Mike White — Bloys is poised to keep HBO in its creative leadership position and to make even more noise during the 2021 Emmy season.

— R. Thomas Umstead

ALLISON PAGE: AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES FOR DISCOVERY; CASEY BLOYS GROUP: JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC FOR HBO

Casey Bloys

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THE WATCH LIST 2020 battle with Comcast over alleged patent infringement, signing a retroactive licensing pact. The settlement removes an expense and opens opportunities in other pay-TV markets, including Canada. Previously Kirchner was president of Xperi following the completion of the acquisition of DTS in December 2016.

Before that, he worked for the consulting and audit groups at what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

16 Kevin Keefe

Senior VP and Segment Leader, Broadband Networks, CommScope

11 Chris Wallace

Anchor, ‘Fox News Sunday’

Wallace is the anchor of the Sunday morning public-affairs program, and moderated the stormy first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden on Sept. 29. The debate was the highest-rated in cable news history with nearly 18 million viewers and was his second time moderating for the Commission on Presidential Debates. In July, Wallace’s wide-ranging interview with Trump was met with praise from both sides of the aisle.

12 Craig Moffett

Partner and Senior Research Analyst, Moffett Nathanson

The authoritative voice on U.S. cable and satellite broadcasting, Moffett has been elected to Institutional Investor magazine’s All-American Research Team in the U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite sectors on 18 occasions. Prior to founding MoffettNathanson, he spent more than 10 years at Sanford Bernstein & Co. as a senior research analyst. He was previously at Sotheby’s Holdings and The Boston Consulting Group.

13 James Pitaro

JAMES PITARO: JOE FARAONI / ESPN IMAGES ; JAKE TAPPER: GETTY IMAGES/JIM SPELLMAN

Chairman, ESPN and Sports Content

Pitaro was named to oversee ESPN and Sports Content on Oct. 12, as part of The Walt Disney Co.’s strategic reorganization of its media and entertainment businesses, focusing on ESPN’s live sports programming, as well as sports news and original and non-scripted sports-related content for Disney’s cable channels, ESPN+ and ABC. He was named ESPN president and co-chair, Disney Media Networks, in 2018, after eight years as a top Disney executive.

14 Charlie Ergen

Co-Founder & Chairman of the Board, Dish and EchoStar

Ergen co-founded Dish, formerly EchoStar Communications, in 1980 and currently acts as chairman for both Dish and EchoStar. He oversees Dish’s business development and strategy as well as its emerging wireless division, the focus of much speculation. Recently, Ergen has focused on reaching new markets and expanding product and service offerings including Sling TV and acquisition of wireless spectrum.

15 Jon E. Kirchner

Chief Executive Officer, Xperi

Kirchner’s Xperi, parent company of TiVo, recently resolved TiVo’s four-year

Keefe oversees development and delivery of CommScope’s end-to-end product portfolio of CCAP, PON, video systems, access technologies and fiber, coaxial and copper connectivity solutions serving the telco and cable provider broadband market. He joined CommScope through its acquisition of Arris, and he joined Arris after the acquisition of Motorola Mobility’s Home business. CommScope pioneered many of the technologies and specifications that define today’s networking landscape.

17 Gil Katz

Senior Vice President, Cable Access Business Operations, Harmonic

Katz oversees sales and sales strategy of cable access solutions at Harmonic, the worldwide leader in virtualized cable access and video delivery solutions.

He accelerates deployments of the company’s CableOS solution and ensures technical support for new deployments. He is also responsible for managing and developing the global CableOS lab integration and field trial team. Earlier, he led the development and implementation of next-generation architectures for Harmonic’s cable edge and access markets.

18 Michelle Sneed

President of Production and Development, Tyler Perry Studios

Sneed oversees all film, television and digital media projects for the prolific Tyler Perry Studios and serves as executive producer on several TV series, including “The Oval,” “Sistas” and “Ruthless.”

Earlier she was a director of physical production for BET Networks. She has been affiliated with Tyler Perry Studios for more than 10 years. As a member of the studio’s original team (at Greenbriar), she produced more than 400 episodes of television content.

19 Chris McCarthy

Pres., MTV Entertainment, ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks

McCarthy, who has steadily risen in responsibility at ViacomCBS, is in the position of overseeing franchises MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, Smithsonian Channel, Pop TV, CMT, VH1, TV Land and Logo Media and their respective content studios. He assumed his current title in November 2019 shortly after the ViacomCBS merger. Known for a successful track record in transforming businesses and creating content that shapes pop culture, McCarthy had been president of MTV since October 2017.

20 Suzanne Scott

CEO, Fox News Media

Scott’s purview encompasses Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network (FBN), Fox News Digital, Fox News Audio, Fox News Books and the direct-to-consumer subscription streaming services Fox Nation and Fox News International. She became the company’s first female CEO in May 2018.

Since then she has added four new platforms to the brand (two of which launched just this year), which expects to continue growing under a Biden-Harris administration: FNC’s highest percent share of the ratings came during the Obama-Biden years.

21 Jake Tapper

Anchor and Host, “State of the Union”, CNN

Tapper guided viewers through the presidential election, just as he’s done throughout the many bizarre events in recent times. His commentary at the end of “State of the Union” has been vital in helping political insiders and viewers make sense of these times. On Nov. 15, he blasted the GOP for not admitting Biden won. “How long is the Republican Party going to continue to defer to unhinged mendacious desperation, led by the gang that couldn’t sue straight?” Tapper said.

22 Wonya Lucas

President and CEO, Crown Media Family Networks

Lucas took the helm at Crown Media Family Networks in August, overseeing linear networks Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama; subscription video-on-demand service Hallmark Movies Now; and publishing division Hallmark Publishing. The former Discovery and The Weather Channel executive had been president and CEO of Public Broadcasting Atlanta, and before that was president and CEO of TV One, where she became the second African-American woman to hold those titles at a cable network.

23 Jessica Rosenworcel

Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission

Rosenworcel, whether it is as senior Democratic commissioner, acting FCC chair or chair, will be a big player in regulatory policy in an upcoming Biden Administration. She is likely to lead an effort to reimpose net neutrality rules unless Congress beats her to it, and could expand broadband subsidies to more pandemic-sequestered students. She first joined the FCC in May 2012, exited due to political infighting unrelated to her service, then, was reinstalled in 2017.

24 Stephen Espinoza

Pres., Sports & Event Programming, Showtime Networks Inc.

Espinoza was promoted to his current role in January 2018. Under his leadership, Showtime has become the leading outlet for live boxing. He helped orchestrate one of the biggest deals in boxing history when Showtime secured the exclusive TV rights to Floyd Mayweather in 2013. He’s responsible for developing and executing overall strategy, including acquiring all sports and event programming for Showtime and Showtime PPV. The original lineup includes “All Access” and “Inside The NFL” and sports documentaries.

25 Lena Waithe Actor, Producer

Emmy Award-winning writer, creator, producer and actor Lena Waithe has proven herself a talent to be reckoned with. In 2019, she signed a new overall deal with Amazon Studios and will work to create and produce original series, which will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. She had previously been under a first-look deal at Showtime to produce projects through her company, Hillman Grad Productions.

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Greg Peters

1

Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer, Netflix

Peters has a lower profile than, say, co-CEO Ted Sarandos, or even just-elevated Head of Global TV Bela Bajaria. But he’s the guy, after a dozen years, who’s figuring out how to tweak the user interface or bump up the price, or give away the service for a weekend in one big corner of the planet.

Peters is one of a handful of people on every quarterly earnings call. And this year, he added chief operating officer to his previous title of chief product officer . So, he’s crucial if not always noticed outside the world’s biggest streamingvideo company. That makes him a lock for a list of people to watch in streaming video.

Peters had career stops at several companies a long way from Hollywood, including Wine.com, Red Hat and NOCpulse, before becoming a senior executive at video-technology firms Mediabolic and Rovi (before it merged with TiVo).

Peters joined Netflix in 2008, initially as chief streaming and partnerships officer for nearly nine years, before becoming chief product officer in 2017. Now he’s in an even more central position

with the streaming giant, even as it continues to evolve its succession strategy, and its customeracquisition strategy across the globe.

Peters will continue to experiment with the Netflix value proposition across the world. Even as the company ended its free promo offering in the United States, Peters talked at Netflix’s latest earnings call about going free for everyone in India (a country with 1.3 billion people and perhaps Netflix’s single biggest growth opportunity).

“We think that giving everyone in a country access to Netflix for free for a weekend is a great way to expose a bunch of new people to the amazing stories that we have … and how the service works, really create an event, and hopefully get a bunch of those folks to sign up,” Peters said.

Expect to see Peters continue to pull the strings on price hikes, free weekends, interface tweaks and so much more that makes Netflix the most dominant streaming-video service on the planet.

— David Bloom

We think that giving everyone in a country access to Netflix for free for a weekend is a great way to expose ... people to the amazing stories we have ...”

Neal Mohan

2

Chief Product Officer, YouTube

In 2013, Mohan was called Google’s $100 million man after the company paid the online ad wizard a prodigious retention bonus to keep him from bolting to Twitter.

These days, Mohan might be worth even more to Google for one of its biggest divisions, YouTube. Mohan oversees the user experience on not just the iconic ad-supported video service, but also YouTube Music, Kids and VR, and subscription services YouTube Premium and YouTube TV. Mohan’s remit includes trust and safety, a Sisyphean task in this fraught year of pandemic misinformation, election disinformation, deep fakes and other headaches. YouTube in 2020 may be more central than ever to its 2 billion users who consume everything from 15-second shorts to feature-length movies to hours-long live streams.

“We’ve always thought of YouTube as an open platform where people come to connect with each other, learn how to do

virtually anything, be entertained and informed,” Mohan said in an email interview. “This came to life during COVID-19, when we saw an acceleration of many trends that were already in progress.”

Those trends include online education, which Mohan said accelerated substantially during the pandemic.

“Now people have really seen how this can work at scale, and I expect we’ll see a lot of evolution of education as a result,” Mohan said.

He also expects more live streaming and large-screen viewing, already up 80% year over year for YouTube and YouTube TV. “While the majority of YouTube consumption happens on mobile, our fastest growing area is actually the TV screen,” Mohan said. “In the U.S. alone, over 100 million people watch YouTube and [YouTube TV] on their TV screens each month. The Living Room presents a great opportunity for YouTube.”

Mohan is a self-described “huge sports fan,” rooting for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and looking forward to next year’s Tokyo Olympics. That may be one reason for the many live sports on YouTube TV. “I am always looking for the latest sports content on YouTube TV and trying out our new features — Key Plays is a game changer,” Mohan said. “It tracks important plays and lets you easily rewatch them.”

— David Bloom

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Alison Levin

3

Vice President, Global Ad Revenue and Marketing Solutions, Roku

Six years ago, Levin was Roku’s first ad sales person, charged with explaining why brands should send ad dollars to this newfangled device.

Levin’s group now has more than 200 employees, and a broader client base, including Fortune 500 clients, “channel partners” such as Peacock and Disney Plus, and local companies connecting to nearby consumers. She has a much easier time explaining why linear TV advertisers should jump to Roku.

“We spent the last six years growing that business from the ground up, helping brands understand how much they should move out of linear into OTT as the right targeting tactic,” Levin said. “How do they right-size media spend to consumption and make the best path to those consumers, depending on what they’re trying to accomplish? It’s been an exciting journey, and we’ve only really just gotten started.”

That spade work has paid off in the pandemic, as locked-down consumers have increasingly turned to streaming, especially free, ad-supported services, including the Roku Channel and its many competitor/partners. The company doesn’t

break out ad revenue, but Q3 earnings saw a 70% jump year over year in “platform” revenue, which includes advertising. That positions Roku to “help shape the future of television — including TV advertising — around the world,” the company’s shareholder letter said.

Expect Levin, who formerly worked at YuMe, IAC and BusinessWeek, to be at the center of that.

“What we witnessed as the largest streaming platform in the U.S. is that the No. 1 thing people search for on Roku is ‘free,’” Levin said. They’re looking for free content to supplement their viewing behaviors on Netflix or other places. And that only accelerated during COVID.” “Free” means ads. Going forward, Levin expects two trends to shape 2021: identity and frequency. Knowing your viewer’s identity means you can build a direct connection to the consumer with better data and better advertising. And then you have to figure out how often does a given ad run.

“What’s the right balance, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish?” Levin asked.

“What’s the right consumer journey? That’s a big focus for us in the next year.” — David Bloom

Bozoma Saint John

Global Chief Marketing Officer, Netflix

4

When Netflix named Saint John CMO in June, it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

She’d spent the previous two decades working in executive roles at some of the world’s most formidable brands and tech companies, including Apple Music, Beats Music, PepsiCo and Uber. Saint John was the first African-American woman to join Netflix’s group of C-Suite executives and the streaming giant’s third marketing chief in less than 18 months.

At Apple, she spearheaded campaigns geared toward growing consumer brand recognition and loyalty around the world. She made a name for herself at Apple’s 2016 Worldwide Developer’s Conference, when she managed to get a room full of tech developers to rap— slightly—along to The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”

In June 2017, Uber hired Saint John to repair the company’s reputation and morale. One year later she left to serve as CMO at entertainment and sports agency Endeavor. And she reportedly left that job after receiving a $7 million-a-year offer from Netflix.

Over 15 million people subscribed to Netflix in the first three months of 2020, marking record growth for the top subscription video-ondemand service. In all, Saint John will be responsible for marketing to the 182.8 million Netflix subscribers.

She joins the streaming behemoth at a time when the company is up against a slew of new competitors, including Disney Plus, HBO Max and Apple TV. But Saint John, who says she learned at an early stage in her career to “trust her gut,” seems to have plenty of ideas up her sleeve about how best to promote shows on the streaming service.

The exec told a packed crowd at the 2019 online marketing festival in Germany that performance marketing is key to success. “All of our businesses and corporations require a level of intimacy with our consumer that can only be reached through performance marketing,” she said. “[We need to understand] what are the expectations of our audience? What do they want us to know about them and therefore we can service them better.” — Addie Morfoot

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Shalini Govil-Pai

5

Vice President and General Manager, Google TV & Android TV, Google

Even close observers could be forgiven some brand confusion discerning the differences between Alphabet Inc.’s Google TV and the older, closely related Android TV. But make no mistake; the combination on a global scale represents Google’s most coherent effort yet to connect the streaming-video industry’s hardware, software and content sides in a way that consumers find compelling and useful.

Making that initiative work on a global scale is Govil-Pai’s job.

The best way to understand Govil-Pai’s streaming empire: Android TV is an operating system for streaming devices. Google TV is a viewer-friendly interface that sits “atop” Android TV. Google TV ties together technologies including search, machine learning, mobile, smart home and smart assistants, while making it easier for viewers to unearth interesting programs across SVOD, AVOD, live TV and other sources.

“Many of us are realizing that while there is a lot of great content, it’s really hard to find something to watch,” Govil-Pai said in an email

Sandeep Gupta

6

Vice President and General Manager, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon

In January, Amazon Fire TV surpassed 40 million active users, as the platform continues to battle Roku for the lofty title of “World’s Top Connected TV OS.” The clout of these two device ecosystems was on full display over the summer, when two major streaming services, Comcast/NBCUniversal’s Peacock and AT&T/ WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, both tried launching without support from either Amazon or Roku. (Fire TV has since enabled an app for HBO Max.) Sitting at the controls as an emerging distribution paradigm unfolds, with OTT device ecosystems serving as the new gatekeepers, Gupta considers Fire TV fierce competition with not just Roku, but also Google and Apple, “a good thing because it provides customers with more options and more selections. We are Amazon and we believe in open customer choices.

But we at Fire TV feel like we are delivering the best product.”

The former Apple and Yahoo executive joined Amazon in 2011, and was put in charge of the company’s quickly aborted FirePhone initiative.

That early misstep aside, he has helped lead the company’s successful Fire TV-fueled OTT ambitions

since early 2015.

As they have for Netflix, Roku and other big streaming companies, the pandemic’s changing consumer habits have helped fuel rapid growth for Amazon’s Prime Video content and Fire TV software/hardware initiatives.

“What we’ve seen during the lockdown is people looking to TV as really a way to connect with the world,” Gupta said. “They want to understand what’s going on and get entertainment. It’s redefined what people are looking for in our devices. The amazing growth in live usage [on Fire TV] is a great example of that.”

Making Fire TV a better conduit for live streaming is where much of Gupta’s focus is these days. There’s also international expansion of the platform to consider.

“We want to (expand) in a way that we don’t ever sacrifice or compromise the customer experience,” explains Gupta. “Meaning that when someone gets a Fire TV, they know they are getting a great experience that they are going to love. We will never ever go into a region if we can’t provide that.” — Addie Morfoot

interview. “That is where Google [TV] comes in, providing an interface which helps you find content in a seamless search and discovery experience.”

Google TV launched this summer alongside a $50 dongle and remote control called Chromecast with Google TV. Coming soon: Google TV in Android TV-powered connected TVs, third-party streaming devices and more.

It’s a potentially potent combination.

With Android TV gaining momentum with both pay-TV operators and consumers, Alphabet hopes Google TV will take it over the top in the global connected-TV arms race with Amazon and Roku.

That’s the challenge facing Govil-Pai, a Bollywood-born former child actress who made a savvy career pivot, picking up two computer science degrees from the Indian Institutes of Technology before becoming technical director on early Pixar animated films such as “Toy Story.”

Even as pandemic viewership has shot up across the streaming industry, Govil-Pai’s unit has “continued to stay focused on providing an experience that meets users’ needs … helping them find something to watch” with a “platform with features such as watchlist and screensaver mode that help entertain and delight our users at a time when it’s needed more than ever.” — David Bloom

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THE WATCH LIST 2020

Andy Forssell

7

Executive Vice President and General Manager, HBO Max

Forssell is in charge of the new HBO Max business group, overseeing international expansion.

Already, there have been plenty of challenges. The $14.99-a-month service launched in May with a confusing brand proposition, and lacking distribution deals with Amazon Fire TV or Roku. More than 30 planned original shows had to be scuttled or delayed as a result of the pandemic.

In October, however, WarnerMedia reported that HBO and HBO Max were reaching 38 million combined subscribers — up from 33 million at the end of March — including 8.6 million on HBO Max. “From programming to product to technology to marketing and everything in between, the team did not miss a beat when we went into lockdown in March,” Forssell said. “While we had to adjust some of our plans, especially marketing, which planned extensive campaigns around live sporting events, the launch was pretty seamless.”

With an Amazon deal now in place, a Roku pact reportedly on the way and an

end to the pandemic at least in sight, HBO Max has aggressive growth benchmarks to meet.

AT&T CEO John Stankey, who has pledged to invest $4 billion into HBO Max over the next three years, has also told investors that he wants the service to have more than 50 million U.S. subscribers by 2025.

Forssell’s international agenda is also ambitious.

The SVOD’s first international launch will be in Latin America in the first half of 2021. HBO Max will also “start upgrading HBO branded streaming services in Europe to HBO Max,” Forssell said.

Forssell is also focused on content. Hit TV franchises like “Friends” and “South Park” are available to HBO Max subscribers, as are series and movies from within the broader WarnerMedia portfolio and superhero sequel “Wonder Woman 1984” is set to debut on Dec. 25.

“We’ll need to add capabilities to accept new payment methods for each region and, of course, provide full local language support,” he added. “To be successful, streaming services must be global in operation but local in appeal, so that means adding regional programming as well as very tailored marketing efforts that authentically reach audiences in each country.” — Addie Morfoot

Peter Stern

In 2016, Apple hired the former Time Warner Cable executive to handle cloud-based subscription services. At the time, the Wall Street Journal speculated that in addition to increasing Apple’s investment in Apple Music, Apple Books and iCloud, Stern’s duties would include helping the tech giant tap into the television streaming service industry, which had been on the table for years.

Stern’s executive vice president-level tenure at a large cable company, where he led product and strategy, made him a perfect candidate to, according to Digiday, bridge a contentious divide that had erupted between various entertainment companies and Apple due to the Cupertino giant’s alleged hard-nosed negotiation tactics.

Cut to November 2019, when Apple launched Apple TV Plus. The subscription platform, which was originally intended for original content only, has become a formidable player in the streaming wars. Apple TV Plus currently offers 16 original TV series and movies, including Emmy Award-winner “The Morning Show,” “Ted Lasso” and “Greyhound.” (Last spring Apple announced that it would acquire older movies and shows for TV Plus to build a larger catalog of content in an attempt to compete with the massive libraries available on competitive platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Disney Plus.)

While Apple hasn’t released TV Plus subscriber numbers in its first year, the company’s broader services unit — which houses not only the SVOD platform and the app it runs on, but also things like iCloud and Apple Music — generated $13.2 billion in revenue in the third quarter, up 16%.

Stern was also behind the 2019 launch of Apple TV Channels, which offers both premium networks like Showtime and Starz, as well as streaming services such as

CBS All Access, in a single app and billing system, similar to Amazon Prime Video Channels. Stern said last year that Apple TV Channels is a way to provide subscribers “only the channels you want, on-demand, ad-free, for the entire family, and all of it inside the new Apple TV app.”

Also in 2019, Stern helped launch Apple News Plus, which gives paying subscribers access to more than 300 magazines, select newspapers and premium digital news services. — Addie Morfoot

PETER STERN: APPLE

8

Apple Business Leader for Video, News, Books, iCloud, Advertising, Fitness Plus and Apple One, Apple

46

THE WATCH LIST 2020

Krishan Bhatia

Executive VP, Business Operations and Strategy, NBCUniversal’s Advertising Sales Division

9

In January, just ahead of the introduction of new streaming service Peacock, NBCUniversal introduced its One Platform advertising initiative.

Created to streamline ad buys across all Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky platforms by uniting linear, digital and streaming ad inventory, the initiative provides marketers with tools to target key consumers. Bhatia, a veteran advanced ad man, was put in charge of ushering in this transformation.

“Industries that adapt to change fastest end up being in a leadership position,” he said. “So our call to action is for the agencies and advertisers to join us in that transformation and shed legacy from a measurement, planning and buying perspective [and] to follow where the audiences are going. That is ultimately what One Platform is intended to do.”

While plenty of time is spent “making the future feel less threatening” to marketers, Bhatia noted, so far they don’t seem too intimidated.

“There’s definitely a trend towards using data and technology to target and optimize media buys,” he explained.

To do just that, NBCU created AdSmart, a technology that unites client data with NBCU’s audience data to make sure

marketers reach both linear and digital audiences.

“Two thirds of our Adsmart business is actually doing custom matches with advertisers’ CRM databases,” Bhatia said. “They are looking to find those at scale across our TV, digital and OTT properties. So we work with them to create these custom matches and create a segment that then dimensionilizes those audiences across all of our properties and run an optimized media campaign against it.”

The national launch of Peacock in July meant another NBCU platform for advertisers to infiltrate. Unlike Netflix, Peacock is an ad-supported streaming service with subscription tiers. The service launched with 10 advertisers, including Target, Subaru Unilever and Verizon, as well as a promise to run no more than five minutes of advertisements per hour.

Bhatia said that it is critical for brands to be where consumers are. “Follow the audience,” he said. “If audiences are consuming content on streaming platforms at a growing clip, then our offer to advertisers is to enable them to follow those audiences into those environments.” — Addie Morfoot

here’s definitely a trend towards using data and T technology to target and optimize media buys.”

Dwayne Benefield

10

Vice President, Entertainment, T-Mobile

Benefield honchoes T-Mobile’s latest effort to disrupt an industry: a low-cost, no-contract OTT skinny bundle that notably expands the wireless carrier’s

services.

TVision is a suite of offerings priced between $10 and $60 a month, targeting different TV-watching audiences, with optional Android TV-based hardware, a free year of Apple TV Plus, and even a $99 deal on the Apple TV 4K. Benefield calls the various tiers “right-sized lineups featuring the content they love most,” backed by support from “real humans” in thousands of T-Mobile retail outlets, online and on the phone.

TVision launched Nov. 1 for prepaid T-Mobile customers, with more tranches to come, and the promise that prices would stay low, tech support human and contracts non-existent. A licensed pilot since he was 16, Benefield must navigate those sometimes conflicting promises and make TVision a sustainable part of the T-Mobile portfolio. That’s proved difficult for competitors, including Benefield’s former employer, Sony, where he presided for five years over its skinny bundle, PlayStation Vue, which shuttered in January.

Benefield joined T-Mobile just as it wrapped up a

transformative merger with Sprint, adjusted to new CEO Mike Sievert, and accelerated buildout of its hugely important 5G network.

According to Benefield, “5G has the potential to change the mobile-viewing experience by allowing even faster load times, faster download speeds, seamless playback, and reduced playback delays. As 5G evolves, it will deliver lower latency for a better interactive experience and more efficiency through multicasting.”

A Wharton grad, Benefield worked at Disney and Google before Sony.

Now, he’s charged with helping T-Mobile navigate a fast-changing sector far from its carrier, or even “un-carrier” roots.

“As people return to work, we expect the time spent watching TV to continue to exceed pre-pandemic levels, and the manner in which they watch, including more mobile and interactive viewing, to forever change,” he added.

Just ahead, TVision’s part in delivering another Sievert promise, 5G-based wireless home internet, to rival the cable powerhouses and deliver to areas they can’t reach. T-Mobile plans to have in-home internet in more than half of U.S. households by 2026.

— David Bloom

47

THE WATCH LIST 2020 15 Lauren Anderson Co-Head of Content and Programming, IMDb TV

In February, Amazon moved the content team for its fast-growing AVOD platform, IMDb TV, under the Amazon Studios management umbrella, putting Anderson in charge, along with Ryan Pirozzi.

Anderson and Pirozzi oversee production, licensing, research and strategy for the free-to-consumer platform. Among free, ad-supported streaming platforms, IMDb TV stands out, not only with high-profile acquisitions like AMC’s “Mad Men,” but original shows including “Alex Rider.”

16 Michael Hawkey General Manager, TiVo

11 Michael Ahiakpor

Chief Product Officer, Tubi

Ahiakpor joined AVOD platform Tubi in 2012, as one of six original staff members in a business then known as adRise. During his tenure, he has led the startup’s product management, data science, design, user research, content experience, customer support and QA efforts. The company now has more than 33 million monthly active users across more than 25 device platforms. In March, Tubi was acquired by Fox for nearly $500 million.

12 Michele Barney

Senior Vice President of Content and Programming, AT&T

The former mergers and acquisitions attorney is responsible for AT&T’s programming relationships and deal negotiations with a variety of content providers, ranging from premium networks to SVOD providers to cable networks, securing content distribution rights across AT&T’s traditional, OTT and mobile video platforms. She also oversees the content deals and scheduling for advanced formats, including 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos, AR, VR and IoT for AT&T’s curated 4K channels.

13 Devin Emery

Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President of Content Strategy, CuriosityStream

With 13 million subscribers in 175 countries, CuriosityStream touts itself as the biggest publicly traded pure-play streaming video company behind Netflix. The SVOD service has carved out a niche in science and nature shows and factual programming.

Emery oversees innovation, development and design across all CuriosityStream platforms as well as strategic content creation for the brand. He was recognized as one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 in media in 2019.

14 Craig Erwich

Senior Vice President of Content, Hulu

Since joining Hulu in April 2014, Erwich has overseen the straight-to-series orders for Hulu’s premium slate of originals, including award-winning series “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Ramy.” He has also spearheaded efforts to acquire libraries from other networks including AMC and Turner Broadcasting, while expanding Hulu’s film offerings through deals with partners including Epix and Magnolia Pictures.

Hulu had 36.6 million subscribers as of Q3, Disney said.

Since 2015, the former Slingbox engineer has led growth initiatives for TiVo. This includes helping to oversee overall strategy and product offerings in multiple areas for the company’s User Experience group. That unit is key to TiVo’s master plan — that is, to differentiate itself by developing the kind of personalization and search-anddiscovery features that truly cut down the complexity of finding something to streaming on television.

17 Mike Hopkins HOPKINS

Senior Vice President, Prime Video and Amazon Studios

After roles at Sony Pictures Television and Hulu, Hopkins joined Amazon in February 2020, overseeing all aspects of the tech giant’s video entertainment businesses and reporting to CEO and chairman Jeff Bezos. Amazon doesn’t break out the number of active Prime Video users from its regular Prime subscribers, but as of January 2020, there were over 150 million Amazon Prime subscribers, a number that is expected to surpass 200 million this year.

18 Robert Gelick

Executive VP & General Manager, Streaming Services and Chief Product Officer, ViacomCBS Digital

ViacomCBS is currently planning to rebrand its CBS All Access service under the Paramount Plus brand, which will roll out next year. Gelick leads ViacomCBS’ direct-to-consumer entertainment experiences and network-based sites, apps and SVOD services, including the CBS All Access subscription service, as well as the multiplatform experiences for Viacom-branded networks and the Smithsonian Channel. Gelick’s team also produces original online content to support CBS Television Network’s shows.

19 Amy Kuessner

Senior VP of Content Strategy and Global Partnerships, Pluto TV

Kuessner manages hundreds of deals with major Hollywood studios, TV networks, distributors, sports leagues, news and publishing outfits for ViacomCBS’ free streaming service, Pluto TV. The AVOD platform recently passed 28.4 million monthly active users in the U.S. and 7.5 million worldwide. The company expects to reach 30 million domestic users by the end of the year and is planning to expand to Brazil, followed by France and Italy in 2021.

20 Chris Larson

Senior VP of TCL North America

TCL introduced its low-priced smart TVs, powered by the Roku OS, into the North American market just two years ago. Today, TCL is the No. 2 brand, controlling 14% of the market,

trailing only Samsung. The fast proliferation of these TVs is the biggest reason Roku is the top U.S. device platform. And Larson, a long-time top Toshiba sales exec, has led the team responsible for this growth.

21 Jon Lin

Vice President of Product, Sling TV

Lin joined Sling TV earlier this year where he directs the Dish Networkowned live-streaming service’s product management and design functions. Lin oversaw the launch of Sling Watch Party, which lets subscribers invite up to three friends for co-viewing. He was also involved in the integration of OTA channels directly into the Sling TV user interface on LG Smart TVs. The virtual MVPD service recently reported that it has 2.5 million users.

22 Val Boreland

Executive Vice President, Content Acquisition, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming

Boreland oversees acquisitions across all NBCUniversal entertainment networks and platforms including NBC, USA Network, Bravo, E!, SYFY, Oxygen, Universal Kids, and Peacock. With the latter surpassing 22 million sign-ups within a few months of its national launch, Boreland and team have secured programming for Peacock from across NBCUniversal and beyond, including a wide variety of third-party networks and studios including A&E, ABC, CBS, The CW, FOX, HISTORY, Nickelodeon, Showtime, ViacomCBS, Paramount, Lionsgate, Warner Bros and Blumhouse.

23 Michael Paull

President, Disney Plus and ESPN Plus

Paull is responsible for leading the Disney Plus and ESPN Plus streaming platforms including marketing, product and technology, data science, and business operations. Paull joined Disney in 2017 with the acquisition of Bamtech Media, where he served as CEO. Disney recently reported that its Disney Plus streaming service hit 73.7 million subscribers in its first year, exceeding expectations. The company is planning to launch a new general entertainment, streaming platform overseas in 2021 under the brand Star.

24 Katherine Pond

Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Vizio

Pond leads OTT distribution, content acquisition and strategic partnerships for Vizio. Since joining the consumer electronics company in 2012, she has initiated, negotiated and closed distribution, ad tech and licensing deals across content, technology, advertising and data verticals. She was named Concordia University’s 2020 Alumna of the Year for Professional Achievement and was chosen as one of Cynopsis’ 2020 Top Women in Media.

25 Soumya Sriraman

Head of Prime Video Channels, U.S.

Sriraman recently joined Prime Video after serving as founding CEO and president of BritBox. Under her oversight, that niche SVOD channel grew to 1.5 million subscribers in just over three years. Prime Video Channels lets users subscribe to third-party networks and streaming channels ranging from HBO, Starz and Showtime, to niche fare like Shudder and Broadway HD. The Prime Video Channels model now accounts for a significant share of subscribers for many streaming services.

48 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

MARKETPLACE SOLO-Q TRIPOD

DALET PYRAMID FOR NEWS PRODUCTION

Solo-Q is a new version of Miller’s Solo brand of tripods featuring new Q-lock technology.

Q-lock enables fast unlocking or locking of the tripod. By pressing the Q-lock button, all tripod legs drop down completely, provided they are loosened. Q-lock also automatically latches onto the legs when stored away.

A new leg angle control with safety lock eliminates the need for a spreader.

In addition, each leg has height markings and can be tightened with a quarter turn of the “Rapid Locks.”

For additional information, visit Miller at www. millertripods.com.

TOUCHDRIVE CONTROL PANEL FOR CARBONITE An update to Ross’s Carbonite production switcher panels, TouchDrive control panels are available in five different sizes and feature touch technology on every display. The panel includes ISP LCD technology for high-resolution displays and a curved design so all buttons are within reach. Custom color schemes can be deployed to configure and organize the panel.

Dalet Pyramid is an integrated solution for news production, content management and multiplatform distribution through a web-based user experience. IWith integrated tools, it enables 360-storytelling and can disseminate breaking news across all viewing platforms, Dalet says.

Media asset management and orchestration power ingest, production, delivery; and archive workflows allow for producers to create content from anywhere. The system also has a digital-first multiplatform workflow for access to editorial, graphics and distribution tools through desktop and mobile devices. In addition, advanced AI capabilities automate metadata tagging.

For additional information, visit Dalet at www.dalet.com.

NEON HDR MONITORS Neon HDR monitor-recorders from Atomos are now available in two sizes: 17 and 24 inches. Both models are designed to provide accurate and consistent SDR/HDR monitoring and recording functionality for shot preview or render free output delivery to Apple ProRes or Avid Dnx at up to 4K DCI 60p.

The Neon 17-inch features a 1920x1080 panel with 10-bit display processing and 4K to HD scaling, while the 24-inch features a 4K DCI resolution panel with true 10-bit fidelity and HD/2K to 4K UHD/DCI upscaling. Each monitor also features the AtomHDR engine built-in.

For additional information, contact Atomos at 503-388-3236 or visit www.atomos.com.

A built-in DashBoard computer enables DashBoard control of other Ross products. Power/ display/control connections are also available for an additional external display.

For additional information, contact Ross Video at 613-652-4886 or visit www.rossvideo.com.

MOBILE APPS FOR MEDIACENTRAL Avid’s new MediaCentral | Collaborate mobile app is designed to keep team members connected, giving supervisors the ability to give and monitor assignments and resources through the app. MediaCentral | Reporter’s mobile app enables journalists to capture video, edit multitrack sequences, add graphics and send finished stories to the newsroom via IP. MediaCentral has also added direct integration with third-party newsroom computer systems, including ENPS and Octopus NRCS. This gives MediaCentral users an HTML5 MOS plugin for visual access to the platform.

For additional information, contact Avid at 978-640-6789 or visit www.avid.com.

DAVINCI RESOLVE 17 The latest version of Blackmagic Design’s editing platform, DaVinci Resolve 17, adds more than 300 features, including HDR grading tools, redesigned primary color controls, next-gen Fairlight audio core and support for 2,000 real-time audio tracks. Also new are a redesigned inspector, new bin sorting and metadata clip views.

Blackmagic has also released a public beta of DaVinci Resolve 17.1, which offers universal app support for Apple’s M1 powered Macs, providing better use of the platform on laptops.

For additional information, contact Blackmagic Design at 408-954-0500 or visit www.blackmagicdesign.com.

49

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

MARKETPLACE MSLED 5-S LIGHT

CE MINI CONTRIBUTION ENCODER

The MSLED 5-S broadcast studio LED unit—measuring in at 9 inches wide, 6.5 inches tall and 7.25 inches deep—is billed as Primetime Lighting’s smallest commercial LED light.

CE Mini is a single-channel contribution encoder designed for live event coverage. Part of MediaKind’s Cygnus Contribution package, CE Mini provides quality video contribution using HEVC or MPEG-4 AVC video compression. The encoder facilitates the delivery of content over managed IP networks or via the open internet. There is also support for encoding HD content, with the ability to deliver over Secure Reliable Transport and Real-Time Messaging Protocol.

MSELD 5-S draws 20W of power and features high Color Rendering Index and Television Lighting Consistency Index with strong photometrics, according to Primetime. It is designed for use in both commercial broadcast studios or broadcasts from remote locations; a pair of MSLED 5-S units are now included in Primetime’s Remote Lighting Kit. For additional information, contact Primetime Lighting at 214-393-5998 or visit www.primetimelighting.com.

Users can connect CE Mini to professional or prosumer cameras via a built-in SDI and HDMI input interface.

For additional information, visit MediaKind at www.mediakind.com.

NDI PTZ CAMS Marshall Electronics has introduced two new PTZ cameras with NDI support.

The CV730-NDI features 4K60 over simultaneous 12G-SDI, HDMI 2.0 and NDI|HX with up to 3840x2160p UHD resolution at 60 fps. The CV630-NDI, meanwhile, supports up to 3840x2160p UHD resolution at 30 fps with 3G-SDI, HDMI and NDI|HX.

IAM-12G-SDI AUDIO/ VIDEO MONITOR Wohler’s iAM-12G-SDI audio/video monitor has integrated with the Dolby Audio Professional Decoder as part of its decoding and monitoring options. The integration enables users to monitor Dolby Atmos and other traditional Dolby Audio technologies, as well as the mixing of Dolby signals with other broadcast signals in customized presets.

Each model has an extended 30x optical zoom range wrapped around a Sony broadcast sensor. The CV730 features a 65-degree viewing angle, while the CV630 offers a 70-degree viewing angle. Each camera has a 340-degree pan and 120-degree tilt range.

For additional information, contact Marshall at 800-800-6608 or visit www.marshall-usa.com.

Other new features for the iAM12G-SDI monitor include loudness measurement, phase indication, support for 12G fiber options, preset enhancement and pre-fade or post-fade selection of both XLR and DB25 output connectors.

For additional information, contact Wohler at 510-870-0810 or visit www.wohler.com.

KVD200-2H KVM SWITCH The KVD200-2H 4K HDMI dual-head desktop KVM switch enables control of two computers with a single keyboard and mouse.

The unit can handle dual HDMI and DisplayPort signals from the computers and dual output video signals to one or two 4K HDMI monitors. The DisplayPort and HDMI inputs can support advanced video cards. Two USB, two USB 3.1 Gen.1 ports and USB Type-C 3.1 port supports storage devices, flash drives and cameras. In addition HDCP 2.2 support enables the streaming of 4K video from online platforms over the computer.

For additional information, contact Black Box at 724-746-5500 or visit www.blackbox.com.

AG6000 DECODER CARD FOR OPENGEAR Sencore has added an ST 2110 output option to its AG6000 openGear decoder card, enabling HD/SD output via dual 10GB SFP+ ports.

The ST 2110 streams from the decoder card are protected with ST 2022-7 hitless switching and synchronized with PTP. The card can receive MPEG/IP, satellite and ASI streams, and decode to new ST 2110 uncompressed workflows. It can also decode up to 10x services in 2RU with support for HEVC/H.264/MPEG2 video and all common audio codecs.

For additional information, contact Sencore at 605-978-4600 or visit www.sencore.com.

51

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

INSIGHT INSIDE AUDIO ➤ FOR MORE INSIGHT AND INNOVATION VISIT TVTECHNOLOGY.COM

Audio 2020: Good, Bad and New Reality W ho would have thought that we would end 2020 with accelerated entertainment and sports schedules, athletes, judges, contestants and TV crews wearing masks— 4 DENNIS BAXTER along with virtually no audiences or spectators in venues? Here’s my assessment of what the past year has meant to our industry:

THE GOOD I really don’t mind empty seats with close shots of the athletes to disguise the fact there are few fans, but I do mind goofy cutouts that cover empty seats. My favorite shot of the baseball season was from the 2020 MLB World Series that Joe Carpenter mixed for Fox Sports. Not only did Carpenter have the biggest parabolic microphone I have ever seen behind home plate, but he had a total of three parabolic microphones: not just directly from behind home plate, but also one on the left and one on the right of home plate. Carpenter not only obstructed the prime viewing area of fans that were not there, but he delivered an engaging sound for the TV audience.

This was the season when audio proved to the many video skeptics the true importance of sound. It’s not that audio is 10% of the show and 90% of the problems; and it is certainly not that audio just follows video. When the sound of the fans and spectators are gone it seems the show really suffers.

As a retired road mixer, I fully understand that home time for many weary broadcast engineers, technicians, camera operators and the audio crew is often not enough. As my wife told me over 30 years ago, “You have it made. You don’t cook, clean or participate in the family.”

What an eye opener—I am still married to a very patient woman.

THE REALLY GOOD It also seems that many audio professionals have spent some time expanding their audio chops. I have heard from and read about many “audio-ettes” who are spending some education time getting Audinate/Dante Certification and expanding their intercom and mixing desk skills.

More home and education time is a

huge benefit to the crews, but for the last four to five months, I have listened to baseball, basketball, hockey and football and truly believe that it sounds better with fewer people in the venues and sampled sounds.

One of the first times I tried synchronous playback was of pad crunches when I mixed a University of Georgia football game. How can you compete against close to 100,000 exuberant (most-

With COVID-19, much of that income was gone for a shortened season. A regular home season for baseball and basketball is a luxury, but there are thousands more who travel to cover sports on a contract for weeks and months at a time, committed to cover college and professional football, basketball, golf, tennis, NASCAR and much more.

I heard from some of my freelance friends who experienced COVID-19 can-

Greg Briggs practices safe audio mixing during a 2020 season NFL game on CBS.

ly drunk) fans? The games I have listened to this season with perhaps up to 10,000 fans are dynamic, detailed and interesting for the home listener because you can hear the field along with a nice balance of the fans.

Clearly, the MLB World Series and most basketball coverage took the sound to a different level with alternative microphone placement and practices. For example, using the contact microphone under the floor could certainly lead to interesting Audio Tech Emmy nominations for the 2020 season.

THE BAD It is hard to understand the lifestyle of the thousands of broadcast technicians in our industry. For the lucky number who can work out of a major sports city, a sport like baseball means 82 home games, which means employment for a large hometown crew (30 to 40 people) for 82 days.

cellations after being booked before the season had even started or was subsequently postponed, and I was told that many of the major sports networks paid freelancers for missed work—for awhile.

The broadcast crew needs to have live sports competitions in order to earn a living. With COVID-19, much of that income was gone, but hopefully, only for a period of time.

THE NEW REALITY What do drones, cameras and microphones have in common? They can all be controlled remotely. Is that bad or another significant paradigm shift? The pandemic accelerated a process that had already begun—remote production.

I honestly am surprised that it had not happened sooner. For example, the latency gap is something that Dave Maza of NBC Sports has worked at since before the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Clearly, this season of sports broadcast has prov-

en that remote operation works.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, executive management has seen fewer people in the control rooms and on-site in general, providing ample proof and months of experience that crewing and staffing can be changed. Workflow and operator interfaces have been tested and proven and there has been improvement and refinement in all areas of remote operation.

Additionally, there is a broad interpretation of what the term “broadcast quality” has come to be defined along with an abundance of less expensive digital equipment that helps achieve amazing quality for marginal costs. I am astonished at what I have seen on the major networks and often surprised at the quality of many streaming productions. Quality production is only getting better and cheaper.

There is obviously a symbiotic relationship between all the skills that contribute to an Emmy Award-winning production, but job skills and content production have shifted as capture and production have become simplified and decentralized. From the directors, producers, commentators, camera operators,

This was the season that audio proved to the many video skeptics the true importance of sound. sound mixer, audio assist, stats, spotters and on and on, I advise you to keep one simple thing in mind as you look ahead to 2021… it’s all about entertainment.

Dennis Baxter has spent over 35 years in live broadcasting contributing to hundreds of live events including sound design for nine Olympic Games. He has earned multiple Emmy Awards and is the author of “A Practical Guide to Television Sound Engineering,” published in both English and Chinese. He is currently working on a book about immersive sound practices and production.

He can be reached at dbaxter@dennisbaxtersound.com or at www.dennisbaxtersound.com.

52 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

INSIGHT LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY

Controlling Light Remotely R

CONTROL AT YOUR FINGERTIPS We saw remote control over lighting come about in the 1980s, when a cable could be run from the unit to a board, and from the board a technician could dim or strike the light. The board communicates to the light from afar and was developed with stage lighting in mind. It took a little more than another decade to begin to see wireless control come about. Now, after decades of advancements in this technology, so much can be done wirelessly, though cabling is still very often needed and easy in studio setups and situations where lots of units play for long periods of time. The point is, DMX control is at our fingertips.

DMX lighting has become a popular solution to carry out dramatic changes in frequency, color and more.

With this technology being so accessible comes a modern trend in cinematography that is light changing during a shot. Because it is so dramatic to watch the color, frequency and intensity of light adjust during a shot and quite unlike real life where we use continuous light, these effects are seen mostly in the commercial and music video worlds.

One great example is the latest music video from Carla Morrison (https://youtu. be/JW4MNCA4j_U). Light changes from warm to cool, a lightning effect happens over and over again, and is controlled remotely. To achieve this, a technician such

Getty Images/Keystone/Stringer

emote control for lighting in the television and film industries has become a new standard.

Production requires more setups in less time and so it has be4 JULIA come crucial to have the SWAIN ability to change the settings of our units without even having to touch them. Units can be rigged up high and the crew no longer has to use a ladder or lift to change settings like intensity and color. As cinematography becomes more sophisticated and lighting gags become more complicated, this practice of DMX lighting has become a popular solution to carry out dramatic changes in frequency, color and more.

A stage in the 1970s before DMX

as the gaffer or board op is nearby controlling the units based on the cues in the song. Timing light gags, whether to music or an action like an actor flipping a light switch, usually requires some rehearsal.

Everyone needs to be in sync and understand when these changes happen.

For wireless control, LED chips are found inside each unit that are essentially small computer chips that communicate a variety of adjustments and control the unit in general from overheating, etc.

The Astera Titan is a popular example of lighting that is completely wireless.

They’re battery-operated and controlled completely remotely. These lights use their own proprietary software to operate from a distance.

However, there are systems with receivers that can go into a large variety of units that connect with a transmitter like Cintenna from RatPac Controls. These then use apps such as Luminair to control everything. Just as on physical boards, you can save presets on digital boards as well, and control what fixtures are grouped together with each of their individual settings. The transmitter is essentially somewhere within reach of everything or even placed on the technician’s belt SMART BULBS Alongside film and television lighting, home lighting has also followed suit in the ability to have bulbs grouped together and different effects programmed.

Consumers who aren’t in the lighting

The Astera Titan is a popular example of lighting that is completely wireless.

space can easily learn to program and control their household smart bulbs.

Companies such as Astera and Aputure have recently come out with smart bulbs that take it a step further with bulbs that can be dialed between thousands of color temperatures.

Both the Astera NYX and Aputure B7c bulbs are controlled with apps and one of the biggest improvements with these LED bulbs is that they are completely flicker-free at any shutter speed on camera. They’re also super color accurate, which has been something LED technology has been battling to get right for some time. Another bonus is that you can charge multiple bulbs all using the case they come in. A variety of attachments and power options is also available so placing in different locations is easy.

DMX saves us time, which we all

know is money. Time is taken with the more complicated cues you have within a lighting setup, but the ability to dial things in so effortlessly is incredible.

They’re real-time adjustments as well, so there’s no waiting around for color to change or a light to be dimmed down.

The technology of remote controlling lights will continue to improve, with higher output LEDs becoming more portable and adjustable and with even more options within the apps.

Julia Swain is a cinematographer whose work includes films such as “Lucky” and “Speed of Life” alongside dozens of commercials and music videos. She continues to shoot on a variety of formats, seeking to create compelling visuals for every story and brand.

She can be reached through TV Technology.

53

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

EQUIPMENT GUIDE

STATION AUTOMATION/ MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

➤ FOR MORE INSIGHT AND INNOVATION VISIT TVTECHNOLOGY.COM

Aveco MAM Manages TCT’s Current, Legacy Content

BY BRUCE HART VP Engineering and Operations TCT Network AKRON, Ohio—AI-driven automation and media asset management are key components of today’s state-of-the-art broadcast facility. At TCT, we achieve this with Aveco and TVU.

USER REPORT TCT, a religious television network primarily covering the midwest, operates 53 channels of master control automation on 24 call letter stations in SDI and transport stream splicing, all centrally managed. We produce 12.5 hours of new studio programming per week, plus we’re digitizing our 43-year tape library, 70,000 hours, which includes many famous interviews and TV shows. We’re building a unique online portal featuring this vast amount of content.

The automation of these processes into one integrated system has transformed our operation.

A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT To use content, first you have to find it. TVU’s MediaMind AI does transcription, facial-and-object recognition, onair captioning and compliance reporting. This is integrated with Aveco’s Media Asset Management, Master Control and Production Automation, making all content easily searchable, automatically, with a rich set of workflow innovations.

Aveco’s MAM technology helps TCT operators find content from the network’s 24 stations.

We have been researching AI, MAM and latest-generation automation for the past five years and our selection of Aveco and TVU reflects exceptional duediligence from our team and from our main consultant, Jim Ocon, the wellknown ex-CTO of Gray Television and a recognized pioneer on several key areas of broadcast technology.

To make this huge step, the engineering design teams at Aveco and TVU provided extensive guidance, especially Jim O’Brien, president of Aveco, and Paul Shen, CEO of TVU. The vendor teams along with TCT’s engineers,

BUYERS BRIEF Dalet OnePlay Dalet OnePlay is a studio automation system available within the Dalet Galaxy five and an extension to Dalet On-Air. With Dalet OnePlay, producers can control a wide set of equipment devices; expose a web-based user interface that a single operator can manage; provide integrated show tracking; feed second screen and social media platforms in sync with the newscast; synchronize the trigger of custom BPM workflows; and play Automated Objects via Carts Player.

OnePlay can also use MAM, NRCS and workflow orchestration capabilities of the Dalet Galaxy five for new forms of audience engagement and revenue opportunities.

For more information, contact Dalet at 212-269-6700 or visit www.dalet.com.

especially Royce Erikson on our staff, have together achieved a system that could’ve only been dreamed about a short time ago.

A highly automated MAM, master control and production process allows individuals to focus on their contributions to TCT, knowing each part is integrated into a full system. The automation and MAM screens are configured to reflect the level of experience and responsibility of each user group. To find and use content is profoundly faster; the efficiency and bottom-line management benefits are enormous.

SIMPLIFYING THE PROCESS It’s not just the overarching impacts, but often the details that make a big difference. For example, one master control automation screen run from home or at the TCT facility easily shows all details of every location, whether it’s SDI or streamsplicing (the same Aveco user interface also extends to cloud resources.)

FCC compliance logging and reporting used to take up most of one person’s time across all stations; with the automated system, it’s a few minutes. Finding out what was said in famous interviews of the past used to take realtime viewing and typing— now it’s fully transcribed and fully searchable in minutes.

Producers wanting to use a clip from an interview earlier in their live show used to require a staff member to quickly type notes; now the transcript is there while the production is underway.

For those producing and editing TV shows, finding content is the most time-consuming task; now media can be located instantly, the quality of productions skyrocket and the required production time plummets. That’s a good combination.

TCT has a long reputation for excellence in broadcasting. For decades, the company has innovated and, in the process, has developed into one of the strongest and healthiest broadcast groups, with particularly rapid growth in recent years. We’re poised for more.

Having an automation and MAM platform like what we’ve developed with Aveco and TVU makes expansion dramatically easier and all aspects of the company more scalable.

We’re proud of what we’ve achieved, the growth path is clear for many years to come and matching the accelerating pace of consumer consumption, in broadcast on-air as well as online, gives TCT great ways to continue growing.

Bruce Hart is the vice president of engineering and operations at TCT Network. He can be contacted at brh1@ tct.tv.

For more information, contact Aveco at 818-292-1489 or visit www.aveco.com.

54 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

EQUIPMENT GUIDE

Sinclair Takes Playout to the Cloud With Imagine’s Versio

BY MIKE KRALEC VP Technical Operations and Deputy CTO Sinclair Broadcast Group

Sinclair’s built on its experience with Imagine Communications’ Versio, with Versio helping to automate channel playout.

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Early in 2020, Sinclair made the business and operational decision to migrate three of our national networks—Comet, Charge! and TBD—to

USER REPORT automation and playout in the public cloud. This entirely new infrastructure and services platform allowed us to take a greenfield approach and let us consider how we really wanted to operate.

As a broadcaster, we sought to add value by streamlining the media supplychain and operations workflows, automating processes to remove manual touch points and reducing the effort required to build and maintain racks of equipment. We looked to remove the hardware wherever practical and move the signaling processes from manual operations to embedded in the creation of the linear stream itself.

We had some experience in public cloud playout in the past, with Imagine Communications as our primary technology partner. It made sense to build on this experience, as we were already familiar and comfortable with the Versio platform. This time we decided to originate these channels from Versio playout instances controlled by Versio automation and running within AWS.

FAST AND SIMPLE The first thing to say about cloud playout and automation is that it is swift to implement. Our timeline was to design in April, start implementation in May and finish in the third quarter. That left us with development testing in June and production deployment in July and August, in time for shadowing in September when we also went on air. All this took place in a year when external forces limited everybody’s mobility and every design, implementation and training session was remote.

This is a big point in favor of the cloud.

With automated infrastructure deployments, you can build large infrastructures

in days, not weeks, and without any requirement for hands-on servers, switches and storage.

The second point is that this migration allowed us to streamline our playout operations with extensive automation. The software and infrastructure now leverage the metadata that accompanies our media to ensure it’s in the correct distribution path with the correct segment timings, and that any information that does need manual review is handled by exception.

Public cloud serverless computing means our traffic team no longer works from a spreadsheet—the BXF segment timings are reformatted, embedded in a message and distributed.

EVOLVING WITH THE TIMES Similar to letting our metadata drive multiple outputs, our linear stream itself now serves multiple distribution paths.

Our streams used to be created individually, with broadcast sent to LTN Global for distribution and separately sent to digital encoders for OTT. Now the same stream serves broadcast and digital using embedded signaling.

What are the results? First and most obvious, we are much more efficient. We have increased our capability for ad delivery and distribution, which is critical to any media company.

Second, we are no longer constrained by hardware, making our operations more flexible. We’re not stuck making assumptions that we’ll need to live with or face as obstacles in the future. We’ll build the system we need now and as business requirements change, we can change with them.

Essentially, our architecture does not age, it evolves. As AWS, Imagine or one of the other partner providers innovate, we can quickly take advantage of any new capabilities.

It becomes a living system on which we can improve and innovate at any time we choose. That gives us remarkable flexibility as a broadcaster: The freedom to efficiently match infrastructure and operations to business models.

Mike Kralec is vice president of Technical Operations and deputy CTO at Sinclair Broadcast Group, responsible for media technology and operations. He can be contacted at mkralec@sbgtv.com.

For more information, contact Imagine Communications at 866-446-2446 or visit www.imaginecommunications.com.

BUYERS BRIEFS Enco ClipFire ClipFire organizes, manages and automates broadcast production and integrated channel playout tasks.

Combining ingest, media asset management, graphics, live production and playout automation, ClipFire also integrates with third-party systems to form end-to-end media workflows.

Enco’s MOS Interface bridges news production and playout operations.

ClipFire supports the ingest and playout of many industrystandard file formats, resolutions and frame rates. It also automates recorded video clips and can manage live video inputs from cameras, routers and production switchers, switching between inputs and recorded content. Live inputs supported include SD, HD, 3G-SDI, and over the network using NDI. For more information, contact Enco at 800-362-6797 or visit www.enco.com.

Cablecast Community Media Cablecast 7.2 Version 7.2 of the Cablecast Community Media broadcast automation, playout and content publishing platform expands support for IP-based media workflows alongside enhanced clip trimming and metadata tagging. Cablecast 7.2 can ingest NDI streams from NDI-enabled production switchers and solutions from anywhere on the network as an IP input source. New virtual clip editing features enable users to cut out sections of a recorded program without a separate editing system or creating multiple versions of the file. Meanwhile, content searching and metadata consistency are improved by allowing multiple defined values in a single Tag field.

For more information, contact Cablecast at 866-866-4118 or visit www.cablecast.tv.

Tedial Hybrid Cloud Tedial’s Hybrid Cloud architecture, based on its aSTORM content management solution, migrates from an onpremise system into a Hybrid Cloud system to enable remote production—important in today’s production environment.

Leveraging a mixed computing storage and services strategy combining the privacy and security of a private cloud with the scalability of a public cloud, it enhances orchestration among various platforms and multiple sites. The architecture enables broadcasters to meet business objectives quickly while maintaining full control of media archives and costs and ensuring a low-risk transition into the cloud by moving the operation in-line with business needs.

For more information, visit www.tedial.com.

55

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

EQUIPMENT GUIDE

Primestream Xchange Keeps Cisco TV Operational During COVID-19

BY JOHN WILLIAMSON Senior Manager Cisco TV SAN JOSE, Calif.—Like multinational organizations everywhere, Cisco Television started 2020 with one set of goals and expectations in mind, and then

cess to the assets they need.

Pre-pandemic, Cisco TV was already using these tools to produce around 20% of its shows either as partially or fully remote events, including a mix of on-premises and off-premises presenters. When COVID hit in early March (California was one of the first states to

staff—TD, producer, technical manager, Primestream operator, graphics operator and audio engineer—all work and collaborate remotely.

Reaching this capability was relatively easy; it involved making sure the remote Primestream operators could easily access the on-prem control points, provid-

USER REPORT woke up to a harsh reality when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Almost overnight, we had to transition from producing major, high-profile, in-person events to an almost completely remote operation. Here’s the rundown on how we’ve accomplished that and the enabling technologies that have come into play.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND Nested within the Cisco sales and marketing ecosystem, Cisco Television provides video production, creative services, engineering and connectivity for the company’s internal and external meetings and events. With main studios and control rooms based at Cisco’s main campus in San Jose, Calif., we also operate from four other geolocations: Research Triangle Park, N.C.; Bedfont Lakes, U.K.; Bangalore, India; and Singapore.

Globally, Cisco Television produces about 1,500 broadcasts a year including around 250 external productions—ranging from our Cisco Live tradeshow, Cisco Partner Summit and Impact national sales meeting to product launches, webinars and events such as those for the Cisco STEM program.

Cisco is already well-known for its technologies and product lines enabling collaboration and remote workflows.

Two great examples are the Webex video conferencing platform and the TelePresence SX80 product line, which works almost like an extremely low-latency “satellite in a box” for video collaboration. Another important element is our Primestream infrastructure, which includes comprehensive ingest, automated master control playout, and the Xchange media asset management platform.

At our San Jose hub, we operate with 18 record and 16 playback channels in Primestream. The Xchange MAM acts as a “single source of truth” for our entire operation—providing a centralized archive for all content produced by each Cisco region and giving our teams at the other four geolocations immediate ac-

that these events are more effective when people can meet face to face.

One thing is certain: as a video operation, we’ve all learned just how much is possible with remote workflows and how little actually needs to be done on-premises. It’s valuable insight, accelerated and sharpened by a short-term, acute need. Cisco has always been a very video-centric company, with top-level leadership committed to connecting over video. That commitment, coupled with our mature technologies and product offerings for seamless collaboration, means our remote capabilities will continue to grow and evolve into the future.

John Williamson is a senior manager at Cisco TV for the Global Engineering Worldwide Sales and Marketing Team. For more information, visit www.cisco.com.

For more information, contact about Primestream at 305-625-4415 or visit www.primestream.com.

BUYERS BRIEF With help from Primestream, Cisco TV was able to easily adapt to the remote production requirements during the pandemic.

go into quarantine), we were therefore well-prepared to transition to an almost 100% remote operation.

THE CURRENT SETUP Within a week of pivoting to our new COVID reality, we jumped right in with a weekly, 90-minute “COVID Check-in” presented by Cisco executives to employees worldwide. These early presentations were very basic, but as we have continued to build out our remote studios, our shows have become more elaborate, incorporating elements like PowerPoint graphics, lower thirds, and roll-on videos.

We’re now able to leverage our TelePresence SX80 units to include multiple presenters on separate outputs of the same box, enabling back-and-forth interaction like banter and Q&A sessions.

We are now operating nine virtual studios and six control rooms that run shows concurrently. The remote setup is powered by the TelePresence SX80s, Blackmagic ATEM live production switchers, and the Primestream master control playout and Xchange MAM based on-premises in San Jose. For a typical show, the full complement of

ing an easy means for remote editors to perform ProRes editing, and making a minimal capital purchase of additional ATEM systems. As we mentioned, the single source of truth already in place and powered by the Xchange MAM made it easy to expand our remote capabilities as needed.

REMOTE WORKFLOWS FOR THE LONG HAUL More than six months since the onset of the pandemic, we’ve produced more than 1,000 shows remotely—and we just wrapped the 2020 edition of the Cisco Impact national sales meeting. Over the course of three days, our teams played out more than 180 pieces of content to an audience of 22,000 people.

Impact was a ringing success, but it begs the question: Do we see ourselves staying with mostly remote workflows even after the danger of COVID has passed? In the short term, our company has adopted a shelter-in-place policy until June 2021 and possibly longer. In the longer term, we do see a return to inperson events like Impact and Cisco Live, because there’s no getting around the fact

RUSHWORKS A-List Streamster A-List Streamster is a version of RUSHWORKS’ A-List Broadcast automation system for IP operations. Featuring NDI and streaming input and output, the hardware/ software combination allows users to manage and stream content over IP. Two models are available: A-List Streamster features the latest i9 processor, 16 GB of memory, 256 GB NVMe boot drive, 1 TB SSD storage drive and keyboard mouse and monitor. A-List Streamster Pro includes additional capabilities that support a revenuegeneration model similar to over-the-air broadcasting.

For more information, contact RUSHWORKS at 818-894-7874 or visit www. rushworks.tv.

56 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

BUYERS BRIEFS EcoDigital DIVA 8.1 The DIVA 8.1 from EcoDigital—recently acquired by Telestream—adds new capabilities along with more than 30 performance enhancements to the DIVA Software Suite for digital asset management. This is the third major software upgrade and enhancement to the DIVA Software Suite in the past 16 months.

Enhancements in DIVA 8.1 include expanded and improved configuration, reporting and notification options, as well as a new RESTful API, a new metadata and object database, and an array of fixes and updates—including performance improvements for Amazon S3.

For more information, contact EcoDigital at 877-231-3482 or visit www.goecodigital.com.

Masstech Kumulate Kumulate is a modular platform that serves as an object storage ecosystem, utilizing asset management workflow orchestration and transcode modules to keep assets stored efficiently and delivered in the proper format.

Kumulate can interface with MAMs, PAMs or NRCS, as well as work with cognitive services and machine learning systems on platforms like AWS, Azure and IBM for storage and automated asset lifecycle management. Additional features include Avid and Adobe search, as well as federated search functions to locate content anywhere within an organization.

For more information, contact Masstech at 917-268-9270 or visit www.masstech.com.

Pixel Power Gallium Playout Gallium Playout is an integrated, virtualizable platform for automated multichannel playout. It is a reactive and scalable scheduling, asset management and automation system that enables the building of a variety of playout solutions.

Gallium provides scalable workflow, scheduling and automation for single or multichannel installations by automating control of transmission devices for graphics or complete channel playout. A built-in automated branding and promotion system offers in-channel/cross-channel capabilities. Its IT capabilities include client/server architecture, advanced redundancy and reliable failover features.

For more information, contact Pixel Power at 818-276-4514 or visit www.pixelpower.com.

Bitcentral CentralControl The CentralControl master control system is designed to deliver playout with advanced workflow solutions.

CentralControl is built around an integrated playout model and has the ability to natively play a range of codecs and formats.

The platform offers ingest functions, with baseband and file-based ingest tools including versioning and media transfer; a media asset management server that integrates with traffic systems, storage management and media synchronization; and content playout, transition control and channel branding.

The unit offers automated master control workflows wherever possible.

For more information, contact Bitcentral at 800-272-4004 or visit www.bitcentral.com.

Avid MediaCentral

Vizrt VizOne 7 Viz One is a centralized and scalable platform to ingest, manage, edit and deliver content for multiple types of viewing experiences. The software-defined platform includes a feature set that connects with Vizrt and third-party software, and enables creative teams to work collaboratively to produce media faster, and directly manage processes in a unified environment.

Viz One reduces complexity to streamline production from acquisition to distribution through a browser-based interface using desktops or mobile devices. As a centralized repository for media and associated metadata, Viz One enables the management of the entire life cycle of content.

For more information, contact Vizrt at 212-560-0708 or visit www.vizrt.com.

Avid’s MediaCentral is a unified platform with customizable creative tools and media management that enables production and post-production teams to collaborate remotely. Among the key features MediaCentral offers are integrated media ingest, storage, task management, video editing, asset management, graphics, playout and multiplatform distribution.

Additional features for the MediaCentral platform include intelligent search capabilities; connection with Avid and third-party applications, including NRCS; Maestro integration for graphics; and the ability to leverage AI, speech-to-text and machine learning when using MediaCentral with Microsoft Azure.

For more information, contact Avid at 978-640-6789 or visit www.avid.com.

PRODUCTS & SERVICES SHOWCASE

57

www.tvtechnology.com TV TECHNOLOGY December 2020

EQUIPMENT EXCHANGE A u d i o • C a m e r a s • C a m e r a A c c e s s o r i e s • E d i t i n g / G r a p h i c s • E m p l o y m e n t • M e d i a • R e c e i v e r s • Tr a n s m i t t e r s • V i d e o P r o d u c t i o n TV Technology’s Equipment Exchange provides a FREE listing service for all broadcast and pro-video end users. Brokers, dealers, manufacturers and other organizations who sell used equipment on an occasional basis can participate in the Equipment Exchange on a PAID basis. All free listings run at the discretion of the publisher. Call 1-703-852-4610 for details. Submit your free listings on your letterhead and state the make, model number, a brief description, sale price and complete contact information and mail it to: TV Technology, 5285 Shawnee Rd, Suite 100, Alexandria VA 22312

AUDIO WANT TO SELL Music Director Programming Service’s “Safest Oldies” reels (50+), call for details.

Music Director Programming Service’s “Safest Oldies” reels (50+), call for details; Gentner Digital Hybrid I, call; JK Audio Digital Hybrids, call; ADC patch bays, 1/4” and Bantam, start at $39; Hotronic AU51 Audio delays, call; Sound Ideas CD effects library, call; Rane AVA22 delay, call, Tom, 856-222-0636 or info@bibbteck.com or www.bibbteck.com.

Yamaha PM5000 52-chnl audio mixer, $4900. 908-879-9590 or www.mccom.tv.

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MISCELLANEOUS WANT TO SELL Selling TV audio soundtracks from the 50’s through the 70’s. Variety shows, talk shows, etc. Call 925-284-5428 for details.

AJA IoLA, $89/ea; AJA C10, D5D, $75; Degaussers: Aerovox, Garner, please call; Blonder Tongue processors, modulators, combiners 30+ pcs, BO; Ross DAC-9213PVM SDI to RGB, $199. Tom, 856-222-0636 or info@bibbteck.com or www.bibbteck.com.

WANT TO BUY I’m looking for complete American Bandstand shows from 1969-1974. If possible, I would like for these shows to have been originally recorded off of video tape as opposed to film. I will pay for DVD copies. Contact Ron at 925-284-5428.

2” plastic “spot” reels 6.5 or 8” diameter, as used for quad video. Wayne, Audio Village, 760-320-0728 or audiovlg@gte.net.

Sony BVM/PVM monitors, Philly So. Jersey area. Tom, 856-222-0636 or info@ bibbteck.com or www.bibbteck.com.

RF CONNECTORS WANT TO SELL RF CONNECTORS & GADGETS – Parts, Products & More! www.W5SWL.com

SWITCHERS WANT TO SELL Panasonic AV-HS6000 2ME, 32-input HD switcher; Panasonic AW-HS50 switcher demo; Panasonic AJ-PCD2500 P2 demo, call; Panasonic AG-HPD24 P2 rcdrs, call.

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Transcom Corporation Solid State Digital & Analog TV Transmitters

Rohde & Schwarz & Larcan Magnum up to 6KW DTV UHF Complete Package for Less than $40,000.00 System includes Spare Amplifiers, tuning and testing to any UHF channel.

VIDEO WANT TO SELL Grass Valley 8500 series frames and cards, pls call; Sony Alignment kit; scales, torque and tension sets, call. Tom, 856222-0636 or info@bibbteck.com or www. bibbteck.com.

VIDEO PRODUCTION

Also Available Harris Platinum Analog VHF Transmitters

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WANT TO SELL Sony HDW-2000 HDCAM call; Panasonic AJ-PD500 P2 rcdr, Panasonic AJ-PG50 P2 rcdr; Sony DVW-M2000, call; Sony MSW-M2000 VTRs, call; Sony DVR-28, call; Fast Forward Video 2-chnl Omega HD rcdr, BO; Panasonic AJ-HD3700B, call. 908-8799590 or www.mccom.tv.

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ADVERTISERSINDEX PAGE

ADVERTISER

WEBSITE PAGE

ADVERTISER WEBSITE

WEBSITE

33...............AMC................................................................www.amc.com

25...............Grass Valley ............................................ www.grassvalley.com

16...............Arri ............................................................ www.arri.com/en/

5,7..............LAWO............................................................. www.lawo.com

56...............Computer Modules - DVEO Division......................... www.dveo.com 11...............Comrex Corporation......................................... www.comrex.com

9.................Lynx.................................................. www.green-machine.com 12,56...........Mobile Studios ............ www.mobilestudios.com/portacast-cases.php

39...............Crown.............................................. www.hallmarkchannel.com 13...............Moseley ..................................................www.moseleysb.com 17...............Eartec........................................................... www.eartec.com 3.................Enco Systems, Inc.............................................. www.enco.com 60...............Evertz............................................................www.evertz.com

56...............Tactical Fiber............................................www.tacticalfiber.com 2.................Wheatstone ............................. www.wheatstone.com/strata-32-tvt

31...............E.W. Scripps.................................................. www.scripps.com

15...............Video Flow................................................ www.video-flow.com

45...............FOX................................................................. www.fox.com

1.................Voice Interaction................................. www.voice-interaction.com

While every care is taken to ensure that these listings are accurate and complete TV Technology does not accept responsibility for omissions or errors.

ADVERTISING SALES REPRESENTATIVES U.S. & CANADA: DIRECTOR OF SALES, MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT & TECH LAURA LUBRANO 917-301-3815 laura.lubrano@futurenet.com

AD DIRECTOR PAUL MAURIELLO paul.mauriello@futurenet.com

ACCOUNT MANAGER KATRINA FRAZER katrina.frazer@futurenet.com

EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA RAFFAELLA CALABRESE +39-320-891-1938 Fax: +39-02-700-436-999 raffaella.calabrese@futurenet.com

JAPAN EIJI YOSHIKAWA +81-3-3327-2688 Fax: +81-3-3327-3010 callems@world.odn.ne.jp

U.K. NATHALIE ADAMS +44 (0) 203 998 2850 nathalie.adams@futurenet.com

ASIA/PACIFIC WENGONG WANG +86-755-8386-2930/40/50 Fax: +86-755-8386-2920 wwg@imaschina.com

58 December 2020 TV TECHNOLOGY www.tvtechnology.com

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE ANNA LEE

KEN DILLARD

JESSICA HAGAN

Chief Strategy Officer

North American VP Sales & Marketing

President and GM KTVB and KTFT

Actus Digital

TEGNA

Deluxe Deluxe has hired Anna Lee for the newly created position of chief strategy officer. Lee is responsible for developing, communicating, executing and sustaining strategic initiatives for the company. She will report to Deluxe’s CEO Cyril Drabinsky. Lee was most recently at Netflix as head of Global Content Services. She began with Netflix in 2008 as vice president, Supply Chain Development, and later became vice president of Content Acquisition.

She also was named head of Global Screenings in 2019.

Actus Digital has hired Ken Dillard vice president of sales and marketing, North America.

He is tasked with securing new strategic partnerships, maintaining customer relationships and expanding sales in North America. Dillard, who has more than 30 years of experience in the broadcast industry, joins Actus Digital after having served as the vice president of sales for North America at TVU Networks and as director of sales at Dejero Labs.

Tegna has appointed Jessica Hagan president and general manager of KTVB and KTFT, Tegna’s NBC affiliates in Boise and Twin Falls, Idaho, respectively. She is responsible for the development and execution of revenue and sales strategy. She joins KTVB from KING 5 Media Group, which includes TEGNA’s NBC-affiliate KING and independent station KONG in Seattle, where she had been on the station’s leadership team as director of sales since 2016.

KEN FRIERSON

TÉA GENNARO

MARK GOINS

Vice President/General Manager, WNEM-TV 5

Executive Vice President/ Chief Financial Officer

Vice President of North American Sales

Meredith Corp.

National Association of Broadcasters

GatesAir

Meredith Corp. has promoted Ken Frierson to vice president and general manager of WNEM-TV 5, Meredith’s CBS affiliate in the Saginaw-Flint, Mich., market. Frierson has held various sales and business operations positions throughout his career at local television stations in Peoria, Ill., Syracuse, N.Y., Detroit and Troy, Mich.

He returned to Meredith in 2010 as WNEM-TV 5’s local sales manager and was promoted to general sales manager in 2018.

NAB has named Téa Gennaro as its new executive vice president/CFO. She joins at a time when the NAB, and associations in general, have been challenged financially by the business impact of the pandemic and the dramatic reduction in major in-person events. Gennaro is former CFO of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC National) in Washington. She has also worked as a controller in the Outsourced Accounting Client Service branch of Tate & Tryon, a CPA firm.

DAMON ROACH

MERRI HANSON

Business Development Manager at CDS

Vice President/General Manager, KIVI

Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark

E.W. Scripps

Damon Roach has joined Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC as business development manager at Comark Digital Services (CDS) and is responsible for the company’s NextGen TV projects and opportunities. CDS was relaunched in 2018 to help customers migrate to ATSC 3.0. Roach was recently with AWS Elemental, where he served as the federal sales manager of encoding and transcoding, including cloud media services.

The E.W. Scripps Co. has promoted Merri Hanson to vice president and general manager of KIVI, its ABC affiliate in Boise, Idaho, effective Jan. 1, 2021.

Hanson has more than 25 years of sales and broadcast experience and most recently served as station manager at KIVI. She joined the station in 2016 as local sales manager.

Prior to joining Scripps, Hanson held roles with Stevenson Advertising, Tegna; KTRV and KSVT.

GatesAir has promoted Mark Goins to vice president of North American sales. Goins reports to chief financial officer Joe Mack, who in turn answers to CEO Bruce Swail. Goins joined GatesAir predecessor Harris Corp. 19 years ago. His focus will include NextGen TV, single-frequency networks (SFN), AoIP, as well as GatesAir’s Intraplex product range.

JOHN ZEIGLER Chief Marketing Officer Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group has hired John Zeigler as its new chief marketing officer. Zeigler will focus on the development of brand marketing strategy for all Sinclair affiliate stations and 21 Regional Sports Networks (RSNs), and assume responsibility for Sinclair’s Promotions, Creative Services and Marketing departments. Zeigler’s career spans two decades leading creative and marketing strategy for sports news brands. Most recently he was vice president for the YES Network.

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