Posted by chicagomedia.org on November 13, 2008 at 18:49:49:
WBBM's New Studio Puts People First
By Arthur Greenwald
Across Daley Plaza from the famed Picasso statue, Chicago's newest tourist attraction glows brightly. Composed of state-of-the-art plasma screens, it's a massive video wall, 32 feet wide and 19 feet high. The 24/7 display of news and entertainment clips proclaims the presence of the anchor tenant of 22 Washington Place: CBS O&O WBBM.
Yet, although this high-def marvel dazzles some 30,000 commuters per day, they ain't seen nothing. The really impressive technology lies inside the brand new 17-story multi-tenant building, where WBBM occupies the first five floors.
Following the September move-in, that technology has allowed WBBM to begin producing news in HD, fully integrate online operations and operate more efficiently by putting the creative tools within easy reach of all and encouraging communication and cooperation.
"One thing we knew we wanted to eliminate from the old station was compartmentalization � separate locations for control rooms, graphics or editing," says Tom Schenke, the station's VP of broadcast operations and engineering, who was recruited to oversee the technical design and construction. "This design is very open."
Indeed, it is. The interior of the 3,000-square-foot newsroom-studio is one continuous space, created by Chicago-based Goettsch Partners and lead architect Jim Prendergast. It's the very definition of the form-follows-function philosophy of design.
The studio is also the very definition of flexibility. Because all production functions are accessible by nearly every computer, Schenke says, "everything lives on everybody's desktop. You can call up video, edit a story, create a graphic from practically anywhere in the building."
Because the technology is so flexible, the chief focus in the physical design was on facilitating human interaction and therefore workflow. The result was a hub-and-spoke layout with all departments orbiting around the assignment desk.
"We still have dedicated edit rooms, but those are only for more intensive post-production that requires more bells and whistles," Schenke says. "Probably 70 percent of our content is now being cut outside the 'edit room.' "
To discourage territoriality, VP of News Carol Fowler also established a Switzerland of sorts - a 12-seat workstation near the assignment desk. "That big table design puts the director, the producer, the TD - everyone who's working on that show - within 10 feet of each other," she says.
Alongside the 12 position workstation is its eight-seat twin, which serves as the nerve center of the station's Web site, cbs2chicago.com. "We gave them their own mini subswitcher with access to anything on the station's routing system," Schenke says. "They can run any two live video streams, such as a press conference, without asking master control for help."
The flexibility and floor plan are pushing the newsroom culture towards constant and creative collaboration, which is becoming evident on air, says WBBM's new President and General Manager Bruno Cohen, who started out in local news.
"People look at technology in terms of efficiency, a way to reduce headcount. But it's really a productivity tool, " Cohen says. "When you eliminate drudgery, you have more time for reporting. We can push deadlines closer to airtime and stay on the phone longer with sources and gather more up-to-date information."
The productivity starts as soon as the video hits the station's Grass Valley NewsBrowse system, Schenke says. "It doesn't matter where you sit, everyone has access to the same live video stream in real time - live breaking news, syndicated programming, any video source."
This allows both a reporter and a promo producer to work with the same video at the same time. And because everyone's work is networked, there's much less duplication. "Now when a sports producer selects a game highlight, the actual clip is available to the entire station without further searching," Schenke says.
Likewise, when a reporter types information for a lower-third super or a full-screen graphic, that text becomes the basis for the actual artwork. The artist can focus on visual design without having to re-type any text. WBBM's art department uses Apple's Final Cut Pro HD and Final Cut Server software, which was pioneered at CBS's Los Angeles flagship KCBS.
Both the promotion and sales departments rely on Telestream's Flip Factory to transcode and deliver spots directly to the station's proprietary CBS TrafficMaster automated server, where they go right into the log for playback on air.
Flip Factory also vastly simplified the nightmarish challenge of preparing the station's entire inventory of promos and commercials for HD. Schenke reports that what formerly took weeks of dubbing was achieved digitally in little more than a day.
One reason WBBM could proceed with confidence was that many technical decisions were made jointly with CBS sister stations that were also building brand-new facilities.
Schenke praises his counterparts, Craig Harrison at KCBS Los Angeles and Rich Paleski at KYW Philadelphia, who collaborated on equipment choices.
All three stations are using the same Sony MS 8000 production switcher, Sony studio cameras with Canon lenses; Grass Valley Aurora ingest, edit and asset management systems; Vizrt and Traffic.com graphics; and WSI HD weather systems. "This makes it so much easier to share content and resources," Schenke says.
The flexibility extends to the production of newscast. "There was always that point in the control room where you wanted to move segment 8 to segment 2 but the director resisted," muses Cohen. "You just couldn't notify everyone fast enough,"
But those days will soon be a quaint memory, Schenke says. "Our Avid iNews Command system allows the producer to select and drag any part of the newscast and it automatically re-orders the video clips, graphics and prompter page. Someday we'll even be able to change robotic camera shots and audio cues that way."
To insure against interruptions, WBBM has two of most systems. "We have very sophisticated redundancy in the rack room," Schenke says. "Most equipment has double power plugs connected to completely separate power feeds from Con Ed in case one goes down, plus complete backup Grass Valley systems and video servers."
Naturally, just six weeks into this new facility, staffers are still working their way along the learning curve and finding bugs as they go. This comes as no surprise to GM Cohen, who went through a similar transition at his previous posting - CBS's Sacramento, Calif., stations, KOVR and KMAX.
"We're prioritizing a very aggressive 'punch list' of things that need to be fixed, like machines that need to communicate better during live playback," Cohen says. "So the staff is simultaneously discovering how you do the work and how to create work-arounds. But in four to six months everyone will be up to speed and you'll see the difference on the air."
But these glitches are minor for both Cohen and Schenke, who began their careers when Teleprompters displayed multi-sheet carbon paper and over-the shoulder graphics required hand-stacked 35 millimeter slides.
In addition to the news studio, WBBM contains a 5,000-square-foot soundstage that's ready for large productions, or to be customized for a long-term tenant, should CBS Television Distribution discover the next hot talk show host in Chicago.
And that outdoor video wall transforms Daley Plaza into an outdoor studio by providing background graphics as it did recently for both a Chicago Cubs rally and for a John Mellencamp concert for The Early Show.
Because the entire system is built around human workflow, Schenke believes they've built a facility that will last for decades. "We really feel the open architecture of the desktop is a bullet-proof concept, because whatever improvements we add along the way, it all comes down to the journalist touching the product sooner."
(TVNewsday)