Tech Focus: Training, Part 1 - As Broadcast Sports' A1 Cohort Ages Out, Audio Looks for Solutions Few intermediate steps are available, but mid-career changers might offer a fix By Dan Daley, Audio Editor Wednesday, September 11, 2024 - 7:00 am
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September may be back-to-school time, but higher education may not offer the panacea to offset the looming shortage of A1s for broadcast sports. The current cadre of veteran mixers are retiring, and the flow of new technical talent to replace them is only a trickle.
Vince Lepore, director, global training, Audinate, which created Dante AoIP, and former course director at technical academy Full Sail University for 18 years, says the A1 crunch has been in the making for as long as he has been an educator. It's not that people didn't see it coming years ago; rather, no one took action swiftly enough.
Audinate Vince Lepore: The solution is going to be multipart. Automation will certainly be a part of it, as likely will AI, but we're not going to see the Olympics being mixed by AI in our lifetimes.
He worked with other educators and with product manufacturers and broadcasters to encourage broadcast-audio mixing as a career path for students at the school, scheduling visits by working A1s to provide a realistic picture of the profession. But it's not enough, he says, to snare the attention of most college-age youth.
It helps, he explains, but the solution is going to be multipart, including more effort by broadcasters themselves to make the position less arduous, in terms of travel and technical responsibilities. Automation will certainly be a part of it, as likely will AI, and workflows like [REMI] also help. But we're not going to see the Olympics being mixed by AI in our lifetimes. We need to solve the personnel problem in the meantime.
A Gap Year, or Three Tom Sahara, SVP, Quintar, which creates interactive spatial-XR experiences for verticals, including sports, and former VP, operations and technology, Turner Sports, has become a kind of evangelist for replenishing the ranks of broadcast A1s. The Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer has conducted seminars on how schools can help meet the challenge. For instance, his presentations at Full Sail University focus on explaining the various technical roles - audio and such functions as replay editing and graphics - involved in sports productions.
Quintar's Tom Sahara: It's that next three years [after formal education], when they're learning it in the real world, that's missing. [Broadcasters] don't necessarily want to or can't provide apprenticeship opportunities. That gap is the big problem.
He has found that college curricula have improved at teaching at least the rudiments of broadcast audio. Schools have done a really good job of modernizing those courses, he says, and of leveraging new cost-effective technology. That lets those same schools do more of their own broadcast production for their own sports teams and leagues, which creates more opportunities for students to do hands-on learning.
The speed bump in getting those better-prepared students into A1 seats, however, remains the same, he says: a reluctance on the part of broadcasters to hire them out of school, regardless of how much football they may have mixed there. There are very few accessible intermediary roles in which they can showcase their capabilities to national and regional broadcasters, who are understandably cautious about who gets to do the live mix of a game watched by potentially millions of viewers.
They can learn a lot in the two to four years they spend at [higher education], Sahara says, but it's that next three years, when they're learning it in the real world, that's missing. The schools can't teach that, and the [broadcasters] don't necessarily want to or can't provide apprenticeship opportunities. That gap is the big problem.
Middle Age, Big Opportunity? There may be another gap worth exploring. A familiar narrative is that broadcast A1s begin their career in music engineering and production in their 20s and extend it for a decade or so; however, a relentless focus on youth affects the music business's technical side, and music-engineering career arcs often falter as middle age approaches. It's a point at which some current A1s successfully moved to broadcast in search of more financial security and career longevity.
Recently retired A1 Phil Adler, who mixed NFL and other sports for CBS for more than 30 years, says he transitioned from music to broadcasting in his mid thirties. It was tough making a full-time living as [a music] engineer in Boston unless you owned a studio. A TV station with a truck offered me a job because they needed an audio guy' and taught me television sports. He adds that his wife's reluctance to move to the Los Angeles music scene sealed the decision to trade music for broadcast.
Chris Davie, managing partner, Sonority Group, an education-marketing and consulting firm in Franklin, TN, and a former VP, operations, at the School of Audio Engineering's North America locations, points out that that's an optimal point for schools and broadcasters to reach out to the cohort. They are the career changers and the career advancers, he says. Moving [from music production] to broadcast audio could be the career change they need right then.
It would make more sense, he agrees, than trying to persuade a 21-year-old college student seeking to start a career in music to look at broadcasting instead.
However, finding the music-production folks would be a challenge. That environment has largely moved from commercial facilities to private spaces, which limits the communal osmosis that has comprised a lot of professional audio'
