Mechanics of a Football Broadcast

Guest: Caitlin King, Line Producer at BYU Broadcasting  Games dominate weekend TV schedules in the fall. And it almost seems that watching a game on TV is better than seeing it live in the stadium. TV broadcasts bring you high definition replays and slo-mo and more angles than you can shake a stick at.  Over the weekend, we got a peek inside the intensive process of doing a live football broadcast. It was the BYU game against University of Connecticut. The BYU Broadcasting team had already been working for weeks before. Dozens and dozens of people are involved in the effort. On game day, about thirty of them are crammed into tight rows of desks in a semi-trailer parked just outside the stadium. Giant coils of cables snake into the trailer. Small TV monitors line the walls. Flashing lights and buttons checker the desks. It’s a broadcast control room on wheels that could double as a space ship in a sci-fi movie.