In the five months since KLRT-TV FOX 16 in Little Rock, AR, has commenced its news operations, news director Michael Fabac and his 40-person newsroom have been running hard to establish themselves as a leader in the market.
To do so, Fabac is leveraging the station’s heavy investment in news technology to create a nightly hour-long newscast at 9 p.m. that’s packed with as many as 40 stories, most of which are local.
From its initial design, productivity was a significant goal for the KLRT newsroom. The station installed a VideoTechnics NewsFlow news server, which integrates with Adobe Premiere nonlinear editing bays and the newsroom’s AP ENPS newsroom computer system. Reporters and producers can create their own supers, thanks to MOS integration.
In the control room, the station relies on a Ross Video Synergy 4 production switcher, which is MOS-enabled. However, in designing the news workflow, KLRT director of engineering Allen Finne intentionally planned for a technical director to switch the newscast. For titles, the station uses a Chyron Duet character generator.
Every day, KLRT sends five news crews, equipped with Panasonic DV200 camcorders, into the field. For live shots, it uses an ENG vehicle and an SNG truck designed and integrated by Television Engineering in St. Louis. Both have remote NewsFlow workstations that allow reporters to ingest footage and edit in the field.
Currently, the station is not producing news in HD, but the new newsroom was designed for an easy upgrade. All patch panels and cabling infrastructure can pass 1.5Gb/s signals and every DA and router can be upgraded to accommodate HD.
