TV on the Web

As you may know if you read this site regularly, in my day job I work on the websites for a couple of TV networks. I jokingly tell people "I work in television," but the truth of the matter is that the perks and associations you'd imagine coming with a job in television are mostly absent from my day-to-day routine. This is partly due to the fact that I work for basic cable (not broadcast) and in Atlanta, far from the glamour and glitz of Hollywood or even NYC. But it's also because I work for the one division within the television industry that gets no respect.

While there are a few networks putting real money, talent, and commitment into their digital portfolio, the majority of the industry doesn't yet know how to use the web effectively, either as a marketing tool or a revenue stream. And because they don't know how to use this tool, it often gets disregarded--the web group gets cut out of information chains, given the short shrift on budgets and resources, and constantly refocused, shuffled and shifted under rotating tiers of management.

Is this all frustrating? Sure. But this isn't meant to be a rant. Okay, to be totally honest, it started out that way. I actually wrote four more paragraphs on this topic, but deleted all of them once I realized I was just bitching and moaning about what's still a damn good job. And although I've decided to break one of my cardinal rules and start talking about work more on this site, I'm still not going to trash my company to the extent that it will get me in trouble.

Instead of going off on a long rant, I wanted to point out something I stumbled upon the other day that I thought was funny. See, working for one company--even one that owns dozens of networks--can often mean working in a bubble. I only get inside access to the projects and goals of my own group, with minimal views into other networks' processes. So I sometimes think that we're the only group that has this "red-headed stepchild" outlook. So I was overjoyed when I found the following on ESPN.com.

Click to see the site.

You'll have to click the link to see what it is, and you probably still won't notice what I think is funny. It's the opening animation for the ESPN Greatest Highlights website. The animation then becomes the background for the site, so if you don't pay attention as it's animating, you'll still be able to see what I mean. The animation is obviously the very animation they use on-air--you can confirm it by watching one of the clips. And those animations are made using very powerful computers and 3-D software, right? So they're digital, at least until they're put on tape. Then why does this site have such a crappy, pixellated version of this animation? The only reason is that they couldn't get the digital version from their on-air production team, so they had to capture the graphics off of a tape.

So to summarize: The on-air graphics team used their macs to create a beautiful digital image. For sake of approvals, they probably ran off a quicktime or other playable file of the animation. Then, they delivered that animation--still in a digital form--to the producers, who brought it into an editing session to put onto the tape. The producers would've worked in a digital format until the very last step, for ease in editing and moving files. Finally, the finished piece would be run off to tape. And THAT's all the ESPN.com web group was able to get for their use on the site. Even though the file lived most of its life as a digital creation, in a format that would've been so easy to insert into Flash or onto a site, their group was forced to work with the crappy digitization of a taped version. Even though they probably sit down the hall and share a cafeteria with the guys who made the animation, they couldn't get themselves inserted into the process so they could get the file they needed.

ESPN web guys, we feel your pain. And we're laughing with you, unfortunately, not at you. Many are the times where we've been criticized by management for not having on-air elements on our sites or not using the correct versions of things, when all the time, we had requests out and just weren't getting the access and inclusion that we needed.

Maybe someday, we'll all get the resources--and respect--we deserve. Of course, that kind of attention will bring its own problems.