Not too long ago, I produced a :30 and :60 commercial for a new DVD release. These commercials were aired on Network “F” during the March basketball madness. Fine. But there was a problem. You see, the sales contact (or whatever he was) for Network “F” insisted the ONLY way to get a commercial to air was to deliver on Betacam SP tape. Now, I’m a fully digital media producer and have never owned, needed or wanted a Betacam deck. In addition, project turn-around time was tight (a couple of days), so I had a big problem.
Ultimately, I got it done and delivered (more on that in a bit), but I find it hard to believe that, in this modern connected age, a major network can’t offer producers the convenience of uploading video files. I’ve done this very thing for other clients (much smaller than Network “F”) and, at the very least, I should be able to overnight a CD-R with the video ready for conversion. Alas, no. Sharing my frustration with others, a few theories have risen to explain this phenomenon.
#1 – Old Farts
This theory states that the broadcast industry is filled with old farts that just don’t know or care how to do new things. I’m sure there’s an element of truth to this but, as you’ve probably noticed, the world has gone digital. My phone is digital, my “typewriter” is digital, my music is digital and, certainly, all my video gear is digital. It’s been this way for some time now. Television is produced and delivered digitally, so what’s the problem here?
#2 – Organization and Infrastructure
In this argument, we’re reminded that television stations and networks are comprised of little sub-groups of people who don’t communicate well (ironic, don’t you think?). The news department is completely separate from production. Sales and traffic departments only discuss scheduling and engineering doesn’t talk to anyone. I actually like this theory because it’s essentially true.
#3 – Betacam SP is a Professional Format
Out of curiosity, I looked up Betacam on Wikipedia. It’s really pretty interesting reading, if you’re into that sort of thing. But my favorite sentence reads, “…Beta SP (for "Superior Performance") became the industry standard for most TV stations and high-end production houses until the late 1990s…”. As I write this, it’s May 2006 and the ‘late 1990’s’ were at least 7 years ago. Everyone – including TV stations, cable systems and networks – edits commercial video on Avids, Final Cut or Premiere. The finished product is converted to a compressed digital format for playback. My original quandary stands.
#4 – Job Security
If I had my way, I’d be able to contact the production department of Network “F”, work my way through the red tape and talk to the person who will actually process my commercial. Of course, I can’t do that. When asked about delivering a digital video file or tape, Mr. Sales Contact beat around the bush, explaining that “it’s not as easy as it seems” and that he’d have to make some calls. He then called his person at the home office who, in turn, called her person in production. This resulted in a return call to me, reiterating the mantra “it’s just not that simple” and reminding me I’d have to find a way to deliver a Betacam SP tape. Geez!
I did deliver in the preferred format (and on time, thank you very much), but here’s how we did it. I finished the commercials and saved them in AVI format. One of the producers (who lives about 2.5 hours away) arranged for some space on a secure FTP server and I uploaded all 350MB over my DSL connection. A couple of hours later, he burned a CD-R with the two video files and drove them 45 minutes to a TV station in our state capitol. Over the phone, I walked the engineer through the process of loading the files into his Pinnacle Liquid system (complete with codec updates) and he dubbed the resulting video to Betacam a few minutes later. My producer friend then drove the tape to FedEx, just making their cutoff deadline.
Is it unreasonable for me to question this highly questionable process? The irony for me is that a handfulof non-network people – separated by hundreds of miles – were able to do what the network could not. All we needed was the Internet and some off-the-shelf technology. Since this little episode, I’ve delivered digital video directly to two cable companies and collaborated on several projects over the Internet.
So, why couldn’t Network “F” do this? I think the real answer is a combination of the theories outlined above. If they actually can accept digital video files for air, they need to let the sales people in on the secret. If they can’t, it’s time to step into the 21st century and retire those crusty old Betacam decks.
I told my tale of woe to a friend the other day; his comment was classic and sums things up nicely. He said, “The network couldn’t do that?! There’s a whole lot of 15-year-olds out there who know how to do that!”.
