Much attention has been paid to the consumer technologies and digital media now disrupting the TV industry. Behind the scenes, though, there's been an equally important revolution in the technology infrastructures that media and entertainment companies use to create and distribute content.
This year's B C Technology Leadership Award winners have been at the forefront of that revolution, developing and deploying new technologies that promise to radically change the way TV companies operate, giving them new facilities and tools for a host of new services and business strategies.
This year's award winners will be honored at the Technology Leadership Award dinner in Atlanta on Thursday, March 5. Here are their stories.
Fred Baumgartner
Director, Next Gen TV Implementation, ONE Media 3.0 /Sinclair Broadcast Group
Fred Baumgartner, Ddrector, next gen TV implementation, ONE Media 3.0 /Sinclair Broadcast Group
Fred Baumgartner is more than a prime example of the innovative tech work that has long come out of the broadcast industry. His long and varied career in broadcasting, emergency alerting, cable, mobile and tech training also shows how tech leaders use their experience to implement technologies like ATSC 3.0, which promises to revolutionize the over-the-air television.
I've been lucky enough to have had a front-row seat to many, if not most, of the advances that make up next-gen broadcasting, said Baumgartner, working at Sinclair Broadcast Group's ONE Media 3.0 to develop some of the first applications of ATSC 3.0.
Baumgartner has held a lifelong fascination with broadcasting. At 12, he and a friend set up a radio station, which the Detroit police soon shut down. By 16, he was working at an AM radio station.
After getting a bachelor's degree in electronics education at the University of Wisconsin, he taught school for two years before moving to full-time broadcast engineering, first in radio and then in TV. He was chief engineer at a number of TV stations, including KDVR/KFCT Denver and WTTV/WTTK Indianapolis.
In the early 1990s, he played a key role in the development of emergency alerting systems and published hundreds of articles and several books on radio and TV engineering. He's also been extremely active in training at industry organizations like the Society of Broadcast Engineers, work that won him the SBE Educator of the Year Award.
Rounding out that already wide ranging resume, Baumgartner was also director of engineering at the Comcast Media Center in Denver; he directed the Leitch/Harris Systems Engineering Group; and he was director of broadcast engineering for Qualcomm's MediaFLO, a groundbreaking effort to deliver content to mobile devices.
Baumgartner's long history of innovation and wide-ranging resume have guided his work developing new applications for ATSC 3.0. The major value to the industry is the merging of OTT and OTA and using our advantage to wirelessly deliver content, he said. That will create a world of opportunity, boosting audiences with the addition of mobile viewing and creating business opportunities with new ad revenues from dynamic ad insertions and hyperlocalized programming, he said.
Chris Blandy
Executive VP, Technology Solutions, Walt Disney Television
Chris Blandy, executive VP, technology solutions, Walt Disney Television
One obvious example of Chris Blandy's technology leadership in the TV industry occurred earlier this year, when his old tech teams at Fox Networks Engineering & Operations (now part of Walt Disney Television) won a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award, along with Discovery, Amazon Web Services, Evertz and SDVI, for their pioneering work in developing public cloud-based linear media supply chains.
Work on issues like linear media supply chains may sound obscure, but it's part of an industry-wide effort to deploy new, much more flexible technologies that will allow media companies to thrive in a digital world. It has really been a game-changer for our operations,
Blandy said. Blandy's fascination with new technologies began as young boy when my dad brought home a Commodore [home computer] in the early 1980s. At the University of Texas, Blandy studied economics but worked in technology throughout his school tenure. He learned valuable skills in digital video and multimedia while working at the school's computer lab from 1995 to 2000.
Such skills were increasingly in demand at TV operations and in 2000 he joined Fox Sports to help them build out their digital presence, which included the first webcast of a major college football game.
More innovation followed as he assumed increasingly senior roles. In 2007, he led Fox's initial tech efforts for the launch of the Hulu joint venture with NBCUniversal, and as SVP of digital media at Fox, he supervised the development of their pioneering TV everywhere initiatives.
Then, as executive VP of technical solutions at Fox Networks Engineering and Operations from October 2013 until 2019, he assumed direct responsibility for TV engineering teams, merging the digital teams into the broadcast engineering group. That enabled us to take another look at the entire supply chain and figure out how we could leverage some of the expertise we had in software, IP and cloud technologies, to radically rethink their operations, he said.
These efforts, which recently earned a technical Emmy, allowed us to take the best of both world, broadcast and digital, to build new cloud and IP-based infrastructures, Blandy said.
After the Disney acquisition of the 21st Century Fox properties, Blandy is continuing those efforts as executive VP of technology solutions. We're keeping an eye on the future while continuing to integrate all those platforms for the combined Disney and Fox operations, he said.
Terri Gunnell
Executiv
North America Stories
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
04/12/2025
Lightware, a global specialist in AV connectivity, is looking back on a year defined by new advancements, strong collaboration and continued growth. Across the ...
04/12/2025
Riedel Communications today announced a new partnership with Haivision, a leading global provider of mission-critical, real-time video networking and visual col...
04/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) and Normann Engineering today announced a major milestone in their strategic collaboration, celebrating 20 successful broadband deployme...
04/12/2025
Creative software developer Foundry today announced Mari 7.5, the latest iteration of its artist-friendly paint toolset that can handle large, detailed assets w...
04/12/2025
Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), a leading provider of wireless audio solutions and RF management, was on site at Dreamforce 2025 in San Francisco providing...
04/12/2025
LTN's purpose-built IP video network brings all-movie diginet to over 100 stations and streaming platforms in just three months while eliminating satellite ...
04/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with ThinkAnalytics, the global leader in AI-powered data a...
04/12/2025
The HELM, a global expert in cinematic live broadcast and high-end production workflows, has signed a partnership agreement with Keslow Camera, one of North Ame...
04/12/2025
At ISE 2026, LiveU will showcase its expanded IP-video EcoSystem, enabling broadcasters, sports, production companies and pro-AV professionals to share their st...
04/12/2025
Since the beginning of commercial television, advertising has been a key part of broadcasting. Over the years, the technology for inserting ads into programs ha...
04/12/2025
MUNICH and MILAN Warner Bros. Discovery said HBO Max is expanding into Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein on Jan. 13, 2026, and ...
04/12/2025
SAN FRANCISCO AudioShake has launched its first streaming-capable software development kits (SDKs) designed specifically for real-time music detection and copyr...
04/12/2025
NASHVILLE The mobile and REMI production company TNDV has announced that it headed south into Mexico to live-produce the three-day 2025 Zane Grey Championship P...
Much attention has been paid to the consumer technologies and digital media now disrupting the TV industry. Behind the scenes, though, there's been an equally important revolution in the technology infrastructures that media and entertainment companies use to create and distribute content.
