Our News department finally got their brand new iPhone app launched last week. We’re all really excited and happy with the product LSN Mobile, the company that powers 6 News On The Go (WAP and apps), provided.

So, I turned my attention to producing a promo for this great new product.

As part of the spot I thought it would be nice to include some viewer comments, and this one definitely topped the list:

[Congratulations] batman for making a useless app.
Lady gaga could make a better app!

I would just like to thank Challenger SRT8 and let them know that we had originally turned to Lady Gaga, but found that she was unfortunately booked for several performances.

Just because it’s snowing and we have stories to promote, doesn’t mean we don’t have a little time for fun.

Kevin decided he needed a “meteorological partner” in the Backyard for the early shows, so in between promo takes and a weather cut-in he built his own. This was three weeks ago, and the little buddy is still out there, just a little worse for wear.

Click to watch the video

The same day the City of Indianapolis announced a multi-million dollar plan to demolish abandoned homes, 6 News went out and did a story on “the city’s dirty secret.” Winona Memorial Hospital.

“What in the world is a POP?”

That’s the question I’ll bet you’re asking yourself. Well, it’s one of those fancy TV acronyms like NTSC (Never Twice the Same Color or National Television System Committee), JVC (Junk Video Corp or Victor Company of Japan) or NAMBLA.

POPs are “Proof of Performance” spots; basically, a spot to promote what we did. You’ll often see POPs after ratings periods, following elections, at the end of the year and any time there’s a really big story that particular station covered especially well.

Here are two POPs we threw together during May sweeps. The same person wrote both, then I picked SOTs and edited/graphic-ed the spots.

So for the Indianapolis 500 this past weekend, the good folks from Extra graced us with their presence. My department got to help out with production do production for the show.

We shot all of the standups and wraparounds with Mario Lopez, plus an interview with Danica Patrick in her garage.

If you haven’t seen Extra, they open the show with people tossing around a “monitor” playing video of something. For anyone not in television, it’s just a flat piece of wood painted green, with a checkerboard pattern for motion tracking so it can be added later in post-production. They usually have the person toss the board at the camera to finish out the opening. Danica was holding the board, and it was my job to sit right beneath the lens of the camera and catch it as she tossed it to me.

The first throw was a little low, it kind of looked like she tossed it on the ground. Our photographer told her to “throw it a little higher, it’s got to fall.” Boy did she come through. The board made a pretty nice parabolic arc, and came down gracefully, right on top of my head. I was assaulted by Danica Patrick with a piece of green wood.

We did a third take which ended up being a keeper. You can watch the raw video from ExtraTV.com after the jump, and see all the pics we snapped while working with Mario.

I started writing this post in January, before the originally DTV switch date. Then I got lazy and didn’t finish. Par for the course.

Now in May, I’ve decided to revisit, rewrite and expand this post.

Let’s begin with the theory I’ve presented in the title of this post, “DTV is not HDTV, seriously!”

Guess what? There was a small typo.

DTV is not HDTV, SERIOUSLY!

It wasn’t big enough. Maybe now it will sink in…

The law does not require broadcasters to switch to High-Definition Television, only to switch to Digital Television. It just so happens, you can have HDTV as a part of DTV.

The decision to broadcast HD lies with each station. For example, not all programming on WTHR, WISH, WRTV or WXIN is HD. Some shows are upconverted to HD, others are left 480i and only broadcast digitally. The requirement is just that analog broadcasts be terminated on June 12, 2009.

We’ve had tons of people tell us that it’s our (the broadcasters) fault they won’t be able to watch television. You need to take that up with your representative in Congress, they voted to let this force this to happen.

Viewers have even called in to tell us that the cable company is putting the “digital blame” on us, then telling them they have to get a digital cable box. Not true. Bastards. If you pay for cable of satellite television, you DO NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. The cable and satellite companies will downconvert and center-cut our digital broadcast signals and add them to the analog pipeline that’s already coming in to your home. Now, if you want to watch HD broadcasts you will need their digital box. But ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX aren’t going to disappear from a TV hooked up to your cable connection.

On a similar, but separate note. I was talking to an employee at an electronics retailer who proceeded to tell me that, “Channel 6 isn’t really HD. I mean c’mon, guys! Just flip the switch on your camera so you can be ‘real’ HD.”

Not “real HD?” Last time I checked, 720p is HD. It’s considered just as HD as 1080i or 1080p. Do you really need to watch Dancing With The Stars at the absolute highest quality? I doubt .5% of the audience could even tell the difference between 720p and 1080p without the TVs being side-by-side. But I digress. Apparently no one got the message through to him that ABC opted for all of their programming to be 720p. That’s why we’re 720p with all of our programming (news is considered programming). If “the Mouse” thinks it’s okay to be 720p, I wouldn’t argue.

Oh, and as for “just flip the switch on your camera,” I didn’t see any professional-grade equipment on the showroom floor. When is the last time he used or sold a $20,000 camera with a $20,000 lens? And how would he know the rest of our broadcast workflow? Maybe our servers only support 720p, maybe our switcher won’t support both 1080i and 720p simultaneously, maybe you work at an electronics store.

That felt good.

1011000110.

Just a taste of June 12 for you.

It’s been one of those weeks.

What exactly do I mean by that?

Well, let me put it this way: On more than one occassion this week I walked in to the men’s bathroom, put my hands under the faucet and waited more than the appropriate amount of time for water to begin flowing. Note: We don’t have automatic faucets at the station.

Despite that awkward moment occuring more than once, I did manage to get some work done this week.

One of the quickest turnarounds in a long time was our new Recession Survival Guide spot. I think I only spent 4 hours on this spot that’s going to run more than a dozen times over the weekend.

By the way, the answer to your question is “Yes.” And the others are all co-workers.

Things have been a little busy around The Big 6 over the past few weeks. With the end of February/March sweeps and the week of fun that was Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, there hasn’t really been time for anything else.

But I did have a chance to go out and visit the Extreme Makeover site; and I must say it was quite an impressive experience. We were out on Oxford, temporarily renamed McFarland Drive, for the big reveal when Bernard McFarland and his three sons saw their new home for the first time. Talk about an emotional experience.

It’s no wonder the show has found a way to capitalize on those “moments.”

After spending the week dealing with all of the extreme-ness, it was time to throw a Proof of Performance spot together for the 6 News coverage of the event. Enjoy (it’ll be running for the next few weeks).

And, here’s just a few of the photos I managed to snap on the ground at the site:

With the new year comes a whole new list of responsibilities for me at RTV6.

For the past three years I’ve worked at WRTV as Promotion Editor, producing and editing topical news promotion and special programming, while working to develop new online ventures.

As of January 1, 2009, I have been officially promoted to Manager of Digital Media. Not sure what that means? You’re not alone. I’m still figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing.

Here is what was sent out in the all-staff e-mail:

In addition to daily news and station marketing, he will work to develop and implement new e-business opportunities, particularly implementing new sales ventures on the web and in other media.

Basically my focus will shift away from cranking out topical promotion. I’ll handle some online promotion and viewer relations (to steal a title from a blog I’ll link to in a minute, “chief conversation officer”), research and development of new products for the Web, as well as managing those brands.

A big portion of the new job will be keeping up with blogs, Twitter and other social media, reading journals, and taking a lot of tutorials and courses. I won’t have anything to do with content on TheIndyChannel.com, but I will be working to market the site effectively.

As I’ve met more and more people on Twitter, I’ve started following more and more people who work at TV stations and those station’s websites. I stumbled upon a great article about how TV stations are “still in the dark ages” (oddly enough, that saying is used in both blogs to which I’m about to link).

I personally have a huge problem with a lack of engagement from companies on social media platforms. Some department head has seen a story ab0ut how Comcast is using Twitter and they think, “hey, we need to be doing that, too.” But they don’t follow through. They put up a Twitter account that only posts their RSS feed, or just publishes their sales every day. They don’t engage the audience. And that’s pointless and useless.

Here’s what Sheryl had to say about the issue on her blog:

All these news people, brands, etc pretending to engage with ‘us’ in social media like [T]witter, might as well not bother rather than throw up a site that isn’t engaging, or putting up a dummy account on twitter where no engagement happens at all.

Another issue TV stations need to deal with is new technology, especially the kinds spreading like wildfire within a certain niche. Too often, we start catching up too late in the game. This can be attributed to cost or lack of knowledge, but it is an issue. As iPhones and other smartphones become more commonplace, TV stations need to re-evaluate the presentation they provide.

On Random Gemini’s blog, she talks about iPhone compatibility with TV station websites:

[T]hen you get to watch your iPhone load the full bore web version of the news site, complete with video links that do not work and interactive screens that will not load because guess what folks? The iPhone doesn’t support [F]lash. In fact, these sites are so heavily encumbered with [F]lash that browsing them from an iPhone is not easily accomplished and I got so frustrated with one of the sites that I put my iPhone down and went to my laptop.

I completely agree with her frustration. For some stations, they’re stuck with what they have. This is thanks to big companies controlling styling for numerous sites; some don’t see the potential of having to develop different layouts for different devices.

Hopefully I can start addressing issues like these to improve the audience’s perception of 6 News and RTV6′s products.

Oh, and I hope to be able to improve our use of proper terminology. Since one time we had a story talking about “M3P players.” No joke.

The Inauguration is closing in quickly. In just a few short weeks, Barack Obama will officially take office as President of the United States of America. And 6 News will be covering it, live in Washington, D.C.

Of course, there’s promotion to go along with a story of this magnitude. I put about 10 bench hours into this spot, but that’s mainly because the After Effects render of the :15 took more than 30 minutes.

Here’s the :15 version of the promo that starts airing Saturday evening on RTV6.

With the end of 2008 closing in, we had to prepare our year-end promo. Basically a highlight reel of big stories for Central Indiana over the last twelve months.

This spot really came together in the edit bay. I was provided with a script that had the big words for the spot (“challenges,” “controversy,” “change” and “hope”) and the desired cut of music. I dug up the soundbites and did the graphic work. This spot debuts Christmas Day on RTV6. Enjoy.

Next spot: Obama Inaugration. Starts airing Friday.

Our “Happy holidays” promo that starts running this Friday evening. You’ll see it through New Year’s Day, so I doubt you’ll miss seeing it on television.

Tomorrow night is the 42nd Annual CMA Awards live from Nashville at 8:00 PM ET on ABC.

We’ll hit the air at 7:30 PM with the RTV6 CMA Countdown, our live pre-show special from the red carpet. As part of the pre-production for tomorrow’s special, I was asked to put together the open for the broadcast.

Here’s what you’ll see tomorrow at 7:30 PM following 6 News at 7:00:

The CMA Awards are closing in quickly.

Every November you can count on ABC to pull out the “country’s night to rock” line. The awards are Wednesday night in Nashville, and aside from the actual awards show, we send a crew down for our live CMA Countdown from the venue.

Here’s an early look at the promo we put together. It starts running tonight during primetime. My boss produced the spot, Steve shot Paul Poteet and the gang from WFMS, Kirk designed the 3D logo and I edited and added effects. Take a look:

Should be a good show this year, I don’t even like country music, but the awards broadcast is usually pretty fun to watch.