WVEN-TV Says BT Technology Makes Satellite Newsgathering Competitive
New technology that makes satellite newsgathering (SNG) competitive with microwave-based electronic newsgathering (ENG) is working well at WVEN-TV (Ch. 26, Univision) Daytona-Orlando, according to executives there. The new British Telecom Satnet system is “very cost effective,” said Chief Engineer Chuck Seithle, and it allows the station’s crew to “push a button, sit back and wait 4 minutes, and you're ready to go.”
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Although the Satnet units have been in use in England a couple years, WVEN-TV is the first U.S. station to use it. BT officials aren’t commenting, but it’s reportedly being evaluated by others, including Fox and NBC. WVEN-TV was looking at SNG because the microwave environment “is a zoo” in the Orlando area, Seithle told us. The Spanish- language WVEN-TV is rapidly expanding its news operation but still has an engineering staff of one, Seithle said, and hiring “highly-trained” engineers to ride in newsgathering trucks isn’t in the budget.
BT Satnet avoids the need for trained staff because it uses GPS to allow it to deploy the satellite receiver automatically and lock onto the PanAmSat Horizon 1 bird, then automatically book satellite time through the BT operations center, which allocates bandwidth and sets power levels depending on weather conditions. “With BT, the satellite operator is the cameraman or the reporter,” Seithle said: “That makes it cost-effective.”
Satellite time is more expensive than microwave, but the costs are offset by the need for WVEN-TV to have 2-4 microwave receive sites at $3,000-$5,000 month rentals to cover its area, , plus fiber connections and other costs, Seithle said: “That eats up [the cost of] a lot of satellite time.” Satellite trucks cost slightly more, he said, but the main cost difference in the past has been an engineer’s salary.
WVEN-TV’s first big use of BT Satnet was covering the Nov. 2 elections. News Dir. Jorge Friguls said the result was “fabulous, incredible. They delivered what they advertised.” He told us the news crews found it very easy to use, making it possible to begin live shots within about 15 min. of arrival, depending mainly on how long it took to lay cables and set up cameras. The only drawback, Friguls said, is that BT Satnet works with just one satellite for now, though he expects capacity to become available on other satellites soon.