MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Across the United States, TV stations have moved or are moving vital news anchor roles from within the traditional four walls of the studio to makeshift home studios to comply with government shelter-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pictures posted on social media demonstrate the basic and often creative reporting setups in the cozy confines of a living room, balcony or other common area.
Within an environment that wasn’t designed for studio broadcast, the challenge of professional anchoring or reporting requires the right tools for remote broadcast, and stations have been turning to TVU Networks for assistance. TVU’s solution for remote newscasting is simple to set up, easy to use and requires very little space.
Reporters from many Tegna stations are using TVU solutions for at-home news production and transmission. Christie Ethridge Diez, for example, is a reporter for the “Morning Rush” morning show, creator of the weekly series “Behind the Headline” and anchor for the “11 Alive Weekend Mornings” for WXIA in Atlanta. She recently posted images of her new off-site setup on Twitter.
Emmy award-winning meteorologist, reporter and MMJ Krystle Henderson from KPNX (a Tegna station) in Phoenix is producing forecasts from her wine room at home.
“The unprecedented challenges posed by social distancing are requiring newsrooms to innovate each day in order to continue serving our communities and deliver critical information. This will probably change the way we do local news forever,” said Ellen Crooke, vice president of news, Tegna. “TVU has helped to provide many of our anchors and reporters a reliable solution for broadcasting from their homes.”
The complete at-home anchor solution combines high-quality, low-latency transmission, bi-directional IFB and a prompter. If a professional camera is not available, a smart mobile device or Apple computer with the TVU Anywhere app can serve as a suitable alternative.
“During this very critical time, we at TVU believe it’s our responsibility to do whatever we can to assist and support the broadcast community,” said Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “We have already launched a series of initiatives designed to help broadcasters maintain the vitality of their businesses by providing the tools they require to mitigate the disruption caused by COVID-19. We will continue to serve broadcasters in this capacity, providing assistance wherever needed.”
PLUS: So, You're Anchoring the News from Home...
TVU Anywhere can deliver a full HD transmission with a latency as low as a half-second. In addition to bi-directional IFB, TVU Anywhere features dual camera technology for simultaneous broadcast from mobile devices front and rear cameras in a picture-in-picture or split-screen option. It also offers a unique video return feed feature for confidence monitoring.
