Regionals on TV?

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by FRANK(WGH)

FIRST regionals are too long and not interesting enough to devote full coverage. I say that because this is 6 about hours of programming each day of competition. A producer would have to come up with content for between matches, and the station would have to devote a whole production crew for these two days to get the job done. That is why most stations wouldn't show the entire competition..

Sorry for the profanity but how about mentioning the "C" word? Commercials? With a FORD or GM commercial between the matches and livelier emcees maybe we could swing some votes over?

[ZakuAce]

The Wisconsin Regional was covered locally by Channels 6 and 12 that I know of. Apparently, I was in both of the short stories they did (One was the Friday morning driver meeting and one was our robot in action!). It certainly is a start, and I bet it was 1714's letter to the mayor that helped get us up there.

[jacob07]

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

Sorry for the profanity but how about mentioning the "C" word? Commercials? With a FORD or GM commercial between the matches and livelier emcees maybe we could swing some votes over?

Don't know if you have been to any Michigan regionals but Dave is a pretty "lively" EMCee

[George A.]

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

Sorry for the profanity but how about mentioning the "C" word? Commercials? With a FORD or GM commercial between the matches and livelier emcees maybe we could swing some votes over?

Yeah I don't know how much more lively you can get than Dave standing on his head, Mark Leon flipping through the air, or Blair riding around on Rollerblades.

But some sponsors might take on to getting air time. GM and Ford probably would like to get their name out there more (though they don't need it.)

[Steve W]

I have been talking with Discovery Channel for the GTR. I believe that they may try and do a high def feed. I have gotten them a second DSL so we shall see.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Here is my solution

don't just do one regional, FIRST im pretty sure RECORDS these regionals and has private channels to veiw these stations through a secure network. It just doesn't seem like FIRST would just do the same video setup/layout for every regional and championship divisions.

so here is what i suggest. do something like NASA TV does for Championships. Switch from Division to Division (or Regional to Regional) to broadcast all the action. for the most intriging matches/important

last year at championships, i was up friday night looking at the scedule for all 4 divisions, i had the media badge for my team and i went through each divisions saturday scedule and i picked matches taht were going to be worth wathing. then i picked which alliance selection would be the most intresting, same witht he playoffs once i knew all the alliances, and i stayed there... it was the best idea i had come up with that whole week regaurding matches... my team was no where near getting picked...

i think this would be the BEST idea for Friday and Saturday.... but a better idea would be by putting on limited airtime and broadcasting the local regionals across a national spectrum from 1pm-4:30pm on saturday showing important highlights for each team in the elimination matches. regional sponcers a buy ad spaces across teh regional covrage....

just my $0.02

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

Don't just do one regional, FIRST im pretty sure RECORDS these regionals and has private channels to veiw these stations through a secure network. It just doesn't seem like FIRST would just do the same video setup/layout for every regional and championship divisions.

I am afraid you are giving FIRST credit for possessing more resources than they actually have. They do not have a secure television network with private channels at their disposal. They do indeed move the video/audio equipment that you see from event to event, and use it just for the video production at the events. In those cases where a third party has agreed to provide broadcast of the competition video (such as when then events are covered on NASA TV), then they are able to just tap into the line that goes to the "big screen" and use that for their source feed. But the big screen video gets produced the same way, whether the event is being broadcast or not.

-dave

[Ellery]

The Only way the FLR had Time Warner braodcast it the last year for the first time was due to the efforts of a few mentors from 1450 and RIT to match funding of the broadcast so $$$ is still a factor. I'm not sure what the deal was this year but it's broadcast ont he educational Channel 4 and not necessarily a main broadcast channel. Either way it's still better than nothing and gets alot of people to see it if they could not make it, especially this year through the snow.

[DonRotolo]

As for opinions: NASA does enough as far as TV coverage.

For getting new folks interested, the Championship brodacast is sufficient. Once that's being done, I think additional resources being used for x additional teams gets FIRST and NASA more bang for the buck

Having the Kickoff sent via NASA TV is actually far more valuable, since the alteratives aren't as good or easy, and it's a critical need to have "all" teams view the Kickoff live.

Should NASA devote even more resources to FIRST? Perhaps, but we all need to remember that NASA depends on the whims of Congress and has a hard time with some long-term planning because of the vagaries of funding. If everyone involved in FIRST in the USA was to write to their congressperson and express their desire to see greater funding for NASA, believe me FIRST would also benefit.

Originally Posted by George A.

Yeah I don't know how much more lively you can get than Dave standing on his head, Mark Leon flipping through the air, or Blair riding around on Rollerblades.

Well, seeing Dave fly would be more lively, but I know he doesn't like to show off in public

Don

up here in Ontario we have Rogers cable 10 community cable.....and I am not sure what you have down there but I wonder why community cable isn't covering FIRST live all the time here, it sure would be alot more entertaining and interesting than what they normally have on TV.

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

Sorry for the profanity but how about mentioning the "C" word? Commercials? With a FORD or GM commercial between the matches and livelier emcees maybe we could swing some votes over?

[FRANK(WGH)]

I think everyone needs to realize that NASA isn't a television production company. They are around to explore the outer reaches of space. We as the FIRST community need to come up with some creative way to get the television media involved. We've already had some great successes in this realm. Tech TV, Discovery, many national news sources. We just need to keep up with what FIRST has already done and get local sources involved now. Do something with your teams that will catch their attention. FIRST can only do so much. That's why Dean gave us this assignment.

Originally Posted by STORMCENTRE

Start by promoting FIRST to all of you're local and regional media, assignment editors, news directors, newspapers and radio stations and in press releases and information make it very clear what they will see and hear, I am just a camera guy in the news media in Toronto and I can tell you that it is one hell of a selling job to get them interested in "anything" these days.

so what? when? why? visuals and sound? and story angles!!! you all know why FIRST is important and all about it now put that to you're local and regional media in context with a local issue, perhaps cuts to education or school funding are in the news? crime involving young people are in the news? this is a great counter balance to those stories, hit them with press releases ahead of time and a day before the regionals/events and hit them the day of the events and don't get you're hopes up....I go home dissapointed 9 out of 10 days because no matter what story idea I come up with...it usually gets shot down and all you can do is keep trying.

Storm is absolutely correct. I tried very hard to get local media to the Buckeye regional and all I got was one of the local newspapers. Given, I could have tried harder and done some things differently, but there is no guarantees when it comes to the media. That is, unless you kill someone or win a championship. Even then it's hard.

Persistence is key. Be the squeaky door, but don't ruin your changes by becoming a pain. It's a fine line.

Create value for your story. Show the media why they should cover your story. Tell them your FIRST stories. These are compelling and people need to know what FIRST is doing to changes the lives of many students. They also need to know how these kids are going to change the future. IN our town, they need to know how we can turn our economies around.

Let's come up with some constructive answers to the question of how to get the media involved. No more blaming FIRST or NASA.

[PizzmasterP27]

I agree frank.

Something we did different at team rush is that each student on the team, 33 students, wrote an individual personalized letter to 3 of our metro-detroit broadcasting stations. In this letter they explained what FIRST meant to them and how it would mean soooooooo much for them to come and make a news story about the great lakes regional.

Hopefully what we are trying to do is the foundation for getting each regional broadcasted on ALL the news and sports channels.

[FRANK(WGH)]

Originally Posted by PizzmasterP27

Something we did different at team rush is that each student on the team, 33 students, wrote an individual personalized letter to 3 of our metro-detroit broadcasting stations. In this letter they explained what FIRST meant to them and how it would mean soooooooo much for them to come and make a news story about the great lakes regional.

This is what I was talking about. That's actually a really cool idea. the more information we send these stations, the less work they have to do and the better the chances that they will cover FIRST. The reason the the NEWS is so dull is because some stations have gotten lazy. So lets try and spice things up.

[Bongle]

You could maybe get news coverage with interestingly-worded press releases or pre-written articles.

TORONTO - A group of cult-like high school students gathered in the Hershey Centre today to compete in what they call a 'Game' with objects that they refer to as 'Robots'. Thousands of students will eventually pass through the doors of the Hershey Centre, each getting indoctrinated with the radical message of the group's leaders, who they refer to as "Dean" and "Woodie". Once released back into the community at large, many participants attempt to recruit more schoolchildren into the group, some as young as 10.

Tight security abounds at the Hershey Centre, with bag searches at the door for contraband. Once inside, this reporter noticed an intense religious-like fervor among the participants. Students (again, some very young) are packed to the rafters, all intently watching a field in the centre of the hockey rink that they have taken over for a weekend. I asked one group, who were intently scribbling obscure statistics on clipboards, what they were looking for. "Hurdles", replied one. "Herds and hybrid", said another. Another simply replied with a number: "1114". These code words are prevalent among the stands, with participants mumbling in low voices the same words and statistics all around the stands. Every now and then, spontaneous dancing erupts in the stands.

This group, calling themselves FIRST, has meetings just like this in 40 places across the planet, and intends to change western culture. Participants decry what they call western culture's "celebration" of people such as Paris Hilton, and sports stars, while they claim it is engineers who actually make people's lives better. They say they will not stop until people begin celebrating others as "science and technology heroes".

So you've got the cult thing going on, the sleeper cell kinda thing, people recruiting schoolchildren, there are many hooks for outrage that might get an editor to take a second look.

Note: I'm joking, don't actually submit this to anybody ever. We don't need uninformed people raging against FIRST.

[FRANK(WGH)]

I so wish that creative writing would get the attention of the press without them thinking too much into it. That's a great release. lol