Tech Focus: Training, Part 1 - The Search Continues for Solutions to the Dearth of Next-Gen Broadcast-Audio Techs Educating prospects on the industry, standardizing job needs are part of wide-ranging approach By Dan Daley, Audio Editor Wednesday, March 6, 2024 - 7:00 am
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The aging-out of the current cohort of A1s remains a core - if not existential - crisis for the broadcast-sports industry. Although AI and other automation solutions may eventually help offset the natural attrition shrinking the ranks of mixers, the cultural immediacy and financial criticality of live sports television argues for keeping human hands on the console faders. The question remains, however: where will they come from?
Two years ago, though expanding training, crew provider Program Productions Inc. (PPI) noted a 30% decrease in its post-pandemic workforce. More recently, it has seen about the same reduction year over year in crew travel.
PPI's Kelly Hammonds: We have some clients who are willing to take a chance on someone who is less experienced. They understand it's going to mean more work for them that day.
That trend could indicate that more crewmembers are available locally, reducing the need for travel, according to Kelly Hammonds, manager, strategic partnerships and crew development, PPI. Whether it's due to additional training, to additional people learning about the industry and pursuing it, or to people who are that next generation now coming out of the schools, it's hard to tell for sure, but 30% is a pretty significant number. She adds, however, that it could also reflect an increase in the use of REMI workflows in recent years.
One-on-One Training PPI is continuing the one-on-one training model it established several years ago: local prospects are paired with traveling senior A1s, usually for games broadcast on regional sports networks, with the training free to the trainees. However, the RSN landscape has seen considerable turmoil in the past year, with much of the disruption stemming from the bankruptcy filing by Diamond Sports, the Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary that operates several RSNs under the rubric of Bally Sports.
PPI Manager, Field Operations, Dave Brickson, himself a veteran A1 and a lead trainer, believes that RSNs are critical to the development of the next generation of sports-audio mixers. You have to start at the small shows, at the RSN level. There is no direct path from school to a national A1 seat; there's years and years of development to get to that point. RSNs are where, I think, you're still going to see them come from.
Hammonds has lately seen more broadcaster willingness to give those on the entry-level rungs of the broadcast-audio ladder a chance to step up and mix a game.
We have some clients who are willing to take a chance on someone who is less experienced, she says. They understand it's going to mean more work for them that day: giving tighter cues, spending more time during preproduction rehearsing elements. But we have producers and directors who are willing to do that. Those opportunities are the ones where we see the less experienced A1s getting a chance at seat time and [practice].
Both Hammonds and Brickson see media-arts schools as a starting point for some prospective sports-audio technicians, although the depth and intensity that broadcast gets at the academic level varies widely from school to school. Some schools, such as CRAS in the Phoenix area, have their own remote units and can do actual broadcasts from campus, whereas others simply include broadcast basics as part of their broader curriculum, which is usually focused on music production.
I learned signal path at school, notes Brickson, himself a graduate of Full Sail University in Florida. The rest comes from going out and doing it and being there, any way you can.
Connecting With Students Broadcasters and production companies that need the next generation of audio personnel and the institutions that want to train them agree on the need to fill the pipeline. The problem is how to connect them. Colleges and universities that offer a focus on media arts and crafts have tried to raise broadcast's profile with students, but sitting in the rear compartment of a remote truck can be a tough sell to twentysomethings with sights set on careers in music production. Some broadcasters and organizations have tried limited propositions, such as apprenticeships, although the efforts have been chronically underfunded and often hyperlocal.
One problem is that there's no common vocabulary between the networks and the schools at this point, says Chris Fichera, VP, Group One Ltd., U.S. distributor of broadcast-audio brands Calrec and SSL. They're not hiring the graduates of the broadcast-audio programs because they're not sure of their qualifications, so they continue to rely on a dwindling pool of existing A1s. That's not sustainable.
Industry vet Tom Sahara aims to standardize job nomenclatures and quantify prospective hires' knowledge and experience.
Tom Sahara, former VP, operations and technology, Turner Sports (now TNT Sports), is targeting that issue, working toward creation of a taxonomy to bridge the gap between broadcaster expectations and what a new generation of media-tech graduates can offer. Via a series of seasonal seminars, he has been offering students at Full Sail University a picture of the broadcast-technology landscape and the occupational opportunities it presents, with an emphasis on audio.
When students seeking a job in the industry are asked about their experience, they can say they've worked various jobs in school, he explains, noting in particular WWE's NXT series, which is produced at Full Sail's production facility largely by students. But
