October 10, 2007End of an era: The final TimesCast
The TimesCast crew celebrates its one-year anniversary in December 2006. From left (back): Seth Gitner, Orr Shtuhl, Marques Harper, Tad Dickens, Patrick Beeson, Daine Vineyard. From left (front): Dwayne Yancey, Jenny Kincaid Boone, Lindsey Nair, Cindy Porter, Tamara Gaskin. It quickly became much more. It branched out from a brief, three-to-four minute production into a show that featured guest cameos, on-location remotes, interviews, music, movie clips, serials, Santa auditions and video teasers that played on the front of the Web site. It spawned spinoffs in the form of the Sports TimesCast, VarsityCast and MusicCast and led to the creation of special episodes geared to election-night results. It used MySpace, YouTube and Facebook to seek a wider audience. We learned a lot of lessons in the two years since the work on the TimesCast began. We've applied those lessons to other Webcasts and to broader video efforts. It's because of those Webcasts and our plans to do more with video produced in the field that we've decided to move beyond the TimesCast. This doesn't mean we're getting away from Webcasts entirely. The Sports TimesCast and VarsityCast will continue on their weekly schedules. This fall, we plan to start featuring local bands again on the MusicCast and we're already in the pilot production phase of the ExtraCast, our weekly look at the local entertainment scene. These will feature such familiar faces as Tad Dickens, Tamara Gaskin, Pete Dybdahl, Lindsey Nair and others. It's been an interesting two years. Stay tuned for more to come. |
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Comments
[October 10, 2007 9:57 PM]
Will Sullivan : →http://www.journerdism.comBummer.
Care to share what you guys learned from it?
[October 11, 2007 9:37 AM]
Patrick Beeson : →http://patrickbeeson.comSo the experiment finally comes to an end. This is indeed a bummer.
I have fond memories of holding a laptop/teleprompter above Seth's camera during the inital test phase of the TimesCast.
I think this effort did more than anything else to push the newsroom into the Web era -- the studio made it "real." It certainly prompted many good discussions.
Like Will, I'd like to read a lessons learned entry though I think I already have a good idea of what they might be.
[October 11, 2007 11:25 AM]
Jigsha Desai : →http://www.jigsha.comThat's a shame. But I'm looking forward to more cool innovations from you all!
[October 15, 2007 11:39 AM]
Melinda G : →http://www.newzmaven.comI, too, would love some elaboration. Is it that the "webcast" itself is an anachronism online? Too much like your father's news show? Will it be pushed out instead of resident at a given time and place? Will the staff be dispersed and become specialist, channel experts rather than an "ensemble" performance? What you've learned is indeed extremely relevant to us all. Please share, even if you have to visit somebody else's blog to do so ;-).