Making the Media

Making the Media is on season break! While we're gearing up for season three, enjoy this favorite episode from earlier this year. We'll be back with brand new episodes in September.

S2E09: Capital Ideas

How do you cover the seat of the United States government, the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, cooperate with competitors, discover exclusives, keep staff safe, and deliver to multiple platforms?

In this episode of Making the Media, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with Andrea Owen, Director of the Washington D.C. Bureau for ABC News.

Our Guest This Episode

Andrea Owen

Andrea Owen has been director, D.C. Bureau operations at ABC News since April, 2015. In that role, she oversees all newsgathering operations from Washington for both in the field and the bureau’s studios and control room operations. Owen leads a large team of managers, crews, engineers, studio crews, and editors covering the White House, Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, and all aspects of Washington D.C. coverage for ABC News, as well as large-scale live productions.

As a 30-year veteran of ABC News, Owen has always kept a hand in the editorial side and another in the operational side. She began her career as an intern in the ABC News London Bureau. Since then she worked as an assignment editor, both an editorial and graphics producer for World News Tonight, operations producer for This Week and World News Tonight, anchor producer, special events producer, and managed training, digital operations, and new workflows.

Owen has transformed every aspect of the Washington operations team, while also serving as the backbone of many D.C. special events, such as the inauguration of President Biden, the January 6th riot on Capitol Hill, Senate Impeachment hearings of President Trump, Overall US Network Pool Producer for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Black Lives Matter protests in D.C., the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including US Network Pool coverage of the ceremony and lying in state at the Capitol, four State of the Union Addresses with a full, new set builds each year, 130+ special reports in one year for mostly President Trump’s first year in office, the state funeral for President George H.W. Bush, the National Service for Sen. John McCain, the Inauguration of President Trump, Pope Francis's visit to Washington, and a Town Hall with President Barack Obama, pulled together in 78 hours with live studio audience.

Owen is a graduate of York University in Toronto and the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Broadcast Journalism program.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Making the Media Podcast – Moving the Media – Discover how one news channel is moving its entire operation thousands of miles, while staying on air.

What Can Newsrooms Gain From the Cloud– Find out more in a new e-book about the news business

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

Making the Media is on season break! While we're gearing up for season three, enjoy this favorite episode from earlier this year. We'll be back with brand new episodes in September.

S2E04: Moving the Media

News never stops. And that is never more evident than when a major technology upgrade or station move is to take place. Going off-air is not an option, so how do you maintain your quality of service while delivering the infrastructure and new workflows you need for the future, and do that while moving your newsroom more than three-thousand miles?

In this episode we focus on the key areas to consider for the newsroom of today and tomorrow.

Our Guest This Episode

Ali Husseini

Ali is a seasoned TV executive with over 18 years of experience in broadcast business transformation and technology. He brings a wealth of expertise with particular strengths in areas such as transformation, mergers, centralization, business processes and both technical strategy and operational oversight. With an abundance of international experience, Ali has a strong understanding of various content generation, distribution models throughout America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Currently, Ali operates as Director of Broadcast Operations & Creative services at Fadaat Media, Al Araby Network, which he joined late 2019; his responsibilities include IT, broadcast engineering, broadcast IT, operations, information security & creative services.

Prior to joining Fadaat Media Group, Ali oversaw numerous large-scale transformation activities during his 12 years with Al Jazeera Media Network where he served as the Chief Transformation Architect for the network, and where he held responsibility of broadcast operations expansions for multiple channels averaging $100M per project. With his contribution, Al Jazeera technical operations transformed from a mid-size broadcaster to a leader in the industry where they managed to deliver with his team of SME’s the network locations in NY, DC, London, Beirut, and the channels at the HQ in Doha.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

What’s Next – How Europe’s major broadcasters are facing the future.

MediaCentral | Collaborate – Avid’s solution for story-centric news workflows.

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E14: Pick and Mix

The relationship between program makers and their technology providers has changed forever, and the cloud has the capability to enhance it further, according to one of Britain’s biggest broadcasters.

In the next episode of the Making the Media Podcast, host Craig Wilson discusses these topics in-depth with ITV Studios’ Director of Technology, Peter Russell.

Our Guest This Episode

Peter Russell

Peter Russell has been the director of ITV Studios’ technology since 2016. His role acts as a key technology partner for the ITV Production Labels (both in the UK and globally), news, sport, and group marketing.

Peter's previous roles have included director of studios & post-production and director of production technology at The London Studios, and director of technology for GMTV.

Much of Peter's time has recently been spent on the ITV site move to White City, but his passion has always been designing systems and fixing problems to make great content.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Avid’s Cloud Solutions – Discover how Avid is enabling cloud workflows

The Future of Integrated Media Production in a Distributed World– Get insights into new ways of working

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim Van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E13: Getting Creative

News broadcasters need to continually evolve the way they tell stories and interact with their audiences in order to remain relevant and not risk becoming “legacy businesses.”

In this episode John Mason, head of program output (technical) at STV in Scotland, outlines how they are addressing the need to retain their traditional TV audience while moving heavily into the digital world.

Our Guest This Episode

John Mason

John works in the news division at STV in Glasgow, Scotland, and is responsible for a number of programs covering news and current affairs, as well as some lifestyle and entertainment shows for the channel.

His role is to connect editorial, technical teams and resources to ensure the highest standards are met and that products remain relevant. As a former senior news director, his passion has been live news programming, but his latest challenge is working with location (ESC) teams to deliver high-quality and entertaining productions. He is still heavily involved in news and current affairs and aims to innovate and diversify their output, to reflect the outward-looking confident country in which he lives.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Italy’s Biggest Public Broadcaster Upgrades with Avid – Find out why RAI is investing in the future with Avid’s newsroom solutions

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes– Discover how BBC News handles change in this podcast episode

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim Van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E12: Getting Games Ready

How do you prepare for the biggest sporting event in the world, ensure innovative ways of covering events, and deliver thousands of hours of content tailored to the needs of global audiences?

In this episode of the Making the Media podcast, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with Trevor Piling from Olympic Broadcasting Services about the work of Olympic Channel News.

Our Guest This Episode

Trevor Piling is a seasoned sports broadcasting executive based in Madrid, Spain, working as host broadcast producer for Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

Trevor joined OBS in 2019 after a successful career in Canada where he was involved in the production of some of the biggest and most watched sporting events of the past twenty years, mostly working with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Trevor has worked at twelve Olympic Games and with OBS was the director of Olympic Channel News for the past three years, leading coverage at the Tokyo and Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

What Can Newsrooms Gain from the Cloud – Discover the work of Project Origin and its bid to authenticate media

MediaCentral | Publisher – Beat the competition and distribute stories quickly and easily to all your social and online platforms

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim Van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E11: Take It on Trust

What do media and tech companies need to do to fight disinformation and what are the dangers to journalism and journalists if they do not?

In this episode of Making the Media, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with disinformation expert and former BBC executive Jessica Cecil.

Our Guest This Episode

Jessica Cecil

Jessica is a leading media industry figure and an expert in the field of disinformation, currently working as a consultant to media and tech companies. She founded the Trusted News Initiative(TNI), the world’s only alliance of major international tech companies and news organizations to counter the most harmful disinformation in real-time. The TNI’s membership includes Meta, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft, alongside the BBC, AFP, AP, Reuters, and other leading global news providers, and its members have a fast-alert system to counter the most harmful disinformation.

Jessica’s media industry leadership experience was honed over a 30-year career at the BBC, which serves an audience of 450 million people around the world. As chief of staff to four Directors-General, she had a track record of creating and leading global alliances responding to the changes tech is having on audiences’ lives

Jessica’s background is as a news journalist and documentary maker. She was an international news producer and assistant editor of BBC Newsnight. She is an Emmy nominee for the prime time TV science documentary, Human Instinct. Jessica is also a trustee of the University of Bristol, where she chairs the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Oversight Committee. She sits on the Council of Advisors for RAND Europe and is an adjunct fellow of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs at Chatham House.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Making the Media, S1E15: Do You Trust Me?  – Discover the work of Project Origin and its bid to authenticate media.

The Rise and Future of Social Storytelling – What are some of the new ways news is being source and told?

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim Van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E10: The Sky’s the limit

What do broadcasters need to do to capitalize on the streaming revolution? And what skills do their staff need in order to deliver continuous innovation?

In this episode of the Making the Media podcast, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with former Sky executive Darren Long to get his take on the hot topics.

Our Guest This Episode

Darren Long

After graduating from Brunel University, Darren spent seven years working at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) teaching students in television production and helping to run the NFTS TV department. Darren worked with many talented students including Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit), David Tattersall (Die Another Day, Star Wars (Episodes I, II and III) and Michael Caton-Jones (Memphis Belle, This Boy’s Life).

After leaving NFTS, Darren spent a year working in the TV industry as a vision engineer before joining Sky at the birth of the company back in 1989. He was one of the pioneers changing the way the world watches sport, overseeing the technical, operational developments and innovations across Sky Sports—from simple ultra-motion replay, HD and 3D, through to today’s interactive and digital developments that now appear in most sports broadcasts.

Darren was the stakeholder in the conception and development of the UK’s first sustainable broadcast facility, Sky Studios, which has fourteen production studios, over 77 post-production suites, and one of the biggest integrated tapeless systems in the world which runs all of Sky’s linear, online, and OTT playout.

In November 2012, Darren took over the leadership role for Sky Production Services (SPS). Darren was responsible for 760 full-time employees split across four groups that deliver key production services to all of Sky’s content creation teams—production studios, post-production, content services, and business planning & programming. The department encompasses a vast range of skills including cameras, sound, lighting, media management, graphics, and video and audio post-production.

Darren was also responsible for setting the vision for Sky’s group content operations workflow in its strategic IP program for content distribution. This program is moving all Sky’s group content operations and processing systems into the cloud and integrating into the wider Comcast businesses, ensuring everything Sky does is done in the most efficient and timely way.

Darren’s last role at Sky was as group operations transformation design in CT&I, looking at how we transform the operations as we move into these new workflows and align our business models.

Darren is also a board trustee for the British Forces Broadcasting Services (BFBS) and is on the board of the Avid Community Association.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Secure collaborative cloud editing and storage through SaaS and subscription – Discover the flexibility of Avid | Edit on Demand

All Things AI – Is AI a threat or opportunity for the newsrooms of the future?

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim Van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E09: Capital Ideas

How do you cover the seat of the United States government, the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, cooperate with competitors, discover exclusives, keep staff safe, and deliver to multiple platforms?

In this episode of Making the Media, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with Andrea Owen, Director of the Washington D.C. Bureau for ABC News.

Our Guest This Episode

Andrea Owen

Andrea Owen has been director, D.C. Bureau operations at ABC News since April, 2015. In that role, she oversees all newsgathering operations from Washington for both in the field and the bureau’s studios and control room operations. Owen leads a large team of managers, crews, engineers, studio crews, and editors covering the White House, Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, and all aspects of Washington D.C. coverage for ABC News, as well as large-scale live productions.

As a 30-year veteran of ABC News, Owen has always kept a hand in the editorial side and another in the operational side. She began her career as an intern in the ABC News London Bureau. Since then she worked as an assignment editor, both an editorial and graphics producer for World News Tonight, operations producer for This Week and World News Tonight, anchor producer, special events producer, and managed training, digital operations, and new workflows.

Owen has transformed every aspect of the Washington operations team, while also serving as the backbone of many D.C. special events, such as the inauguration of President Biden, the January 6th riot on Capitol Hill, Senate Impeachment hearings of President Trump, Overall US Network Pool Producer for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Black Lives Matter protests in D.C., the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including US Network Pool coverage of the ceremony and lying in state at the Capitol, four State of the Union Addresses with a full, new set builds each year, 130+ special reports in one year for mostly President Trump’s first year in office, the state funeral for President George H.W. Bush, the National Service for Sen. John McCain, the Inauguration of President Trump, Pope Francis's visit to Washington, and a Town Hall with President Barack Obama, pulled together in 78 hours with live studio audience.

Owen is a graduate of York University in Toronto and the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Broadcast Journalism program.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Making the Media Podcast – Moving the Media – Discover how one news channel is moving its entire operation thousands of miles, while staying on air.

What Can Newsrooms Gain From the Cloud– Find out more in a new e-book about the news business

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin

S2E08: Here is the News

Story versioning, remote collaboration, using web-based tools in the cloud, sustainability, story-centric ways of working, delivering for diverse audiences, developing new services with innovative technologies—these are just some of the challenges facing the UK’s largest news provider.

In this episode of Making the Media, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth on all of these subjects with Morwen Williams, Head of UK Operations for BBC News.

Our Guest This Episode

Morwen Williams

Morwen Williams is director of UK operations for BBC News, leading the technical and studio teams of BBC News. She is responsible for creative technical news gathering, as well as all news studios in London and Salford at MediaCityUK and editing in London—a team of more than 750 people. She is the bridge between the BBC’s journalism and technology, using technology to its fullest to tell stories better for audiences.

Previously she was BBC News’ deputy UK editor and led on major special (particularly royal) events in the UK, and has worked as a program output editor and producer in the BBC Regions.

She is chair of the WBU (World Broadcasting Union) International Media Connectivity Group, working with other broadcasters to find common solutions in this area. She recently completed the Media Transformation Challenge at Harvard University’s Kennedy School as well as visited Stanford University to share learning there.

Morwen is a keen supporter of the BBC’s apprentice schemes to deliver new and more diverse technical talent in the BBC, as well as working with BBC News’ Women in Technology program. She’s been a mentor for RISE Women in Broadcasting and the John Schofield Trust for young journalists.  She is proud to have been named RISE Women in Broadcasting Woman of the Year 2019 at IBC.

Morwen is married, with two sons. A keen road cyclist and loves swimming and skiing, she comes from a family of award-winning cheesemakers in Cheshire.

More Resources

For more on this topic, check out:

Making the Media Podcast – Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes – Discover how BBC News deals with change management

Making the Media Podcast – Rise Up – Find out more about an innovative scheme to support diversity within the media industry

Contact Us

Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: [email protected] or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.

Credits

Host: Craig Wilson

Producer: Matt Diggs

Social: Wim van den Broeck

Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin