What Are the Components of a Video News Report Seen on Television?

Bringing news reports into your living room requires a lot of work.

As you sit at home in the evening watching your local television news program, you may not think too much about what goes into bringing this broadcast into your home. Producing a compelling video news report and getting it to your television set takes the work of many people and processes that result in an almost instant transfer of information from the news station or the field report to your home. Several components must be in place to make the report clear for the viewer.

Reporter

The news report on your television starts with the news reporter in the field or the anchor at the desk inside the television station. This "talent" portion of the production is performed by the on-air broadcast journalist who seeks out the story, writes copy and then reads it in front of the camera to tell the audience about what is going on. The talent also finds sources of information to plug into the story and conducts interviews to get as thorough of a report as possible. The reporter's job is to report on an event live in front of a camera and pitch the footage back to the studio; sometimes, the reporter goes to the scene of a news event but doesn't broadcast the footage immediately. Instead, the reporter and photojournalist cover the story and return to the studio to produce a video package.

Production Crew

Without the production crew, the reporter or anchor wouldn't be able to get the job done. Reporters in the field work with a camera operator and sometimes a producer to get the news report recorded or sent back to the station as a live feed. The camera operator may have to double as a broadcast engineer in getting the signal from a remote location to the studio for broadcast. Inside the studio, several people assist with production. Engineers receive the signal from live feeds and route it to the broadcast channel. The production crew rigs lighting and sound and gets on-air talent camera ready with hair and makeup artists' assistance. Technical directors work on equipment that calls up the correct camera angles in the studio or playback of recorded segments as well as goes to and from commercial breaks. Stage managers help direct the on-air personalities, letting them know what to do and when. Writers construct the scripts to be read by the anchors and editors assemble raw footage into neat packages ready for the viewing public.

B-Roll

B-roll is recorded video or audio that transitions news material from one scene to the next. If a reporter is in the field reporting from a crime scene and there were interviews recorded earlier in the day with the police chief, the b-roll may comprise footage from around the scene and that of the interview with the chief. After introducing the piece, the director will call for the b-roll to run in the middle of the story before pitching the live shot back to the reporter in the field.

Broadcasting

Perhaps the most impressive part concerning how fast the news report gets to your television is how far the broadcast signal must travel to get there. It only takes a few seconds, but in many cases, the signal has to go from the station to a satellite orbiting the earth, which relays the signal back to your cable or satellite provider. That signal then makes its way to your home through radio waves or wires that lead to your television. Advances in digital television signals have made this process faster and allowed for better quality picture and sound for viewers.

References

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Broadcasting
• B-Roll.net: What Does "B-Roll" Mean?
• Live Television Broadcasting: How Live Television Broadcasting Works