SEC on CBS Embraces New Workflows; F&F GTX-19 Is at Center of Production Efforts Golf, NFL coverage gives the team a leg up on the college football season By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, September 24, 2020 - 1:43 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
SEC on CBS has become a tradition for college-football fans, and it returns this week, with LSU hosting Mississippi State. CBS production, operations, and technical teams have overcome numerous challenges to get the network to this place.
CBS Sports' Steve Karasik says the work put in regarding COVID-19 earlier this summer will make a difference for the team working on SEC coverage.
The past few months have been challenging and a huge grind, says Steve Karasik, VP, remote production, CBS Sports, but it has been helpful as it gives us a sense about how to approach these productions. We got a jump-start in June with our golf coverage, and the first two weeks of the NFL and three weeks of college football have gone well.
The number-one priority since June has been the health and safety of the crew. To that end, CBS Sports has had some production and technical personnel working offsite. For SEC on CBS, that will mean one of the tape associate directors will be located at Freedom Studios in Clifton, NJ, and will be tied into the F&F Productions GTX19 production truck that will be onsite at the games. The truck features a Grass Valley Kayenne Elite K-Frame X switcher, Sony HDC-4300L cameras, Fujinon lenses, Evertz router, and Calrec Apollo audio console. The F&F Productions unit also has some safeguards: positions are distanced 6 ft. apart with plexiglass dividers.
One of our broadcast associates for graphics will be remote, Karasik adds, and the operator who keeps track of all the stats is also remote. We will have two Hawk-Eye replay operators working remotely from their homes. Comms and monitoring will be managed remotely.
One challenge with covering football on a weekly basis is that, every week, the broadcast booth is a different size. The good news this week: there is plenty of room in the LSU booth for announcers Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson to have many of the support staff onsite.
People will be more distanced than they are used to, and the stage manager will be virtually connected, cueing up cards for Nessler to read, says Karasik. That worked well all summer for [announcer] Jim Nantz with golf and has worked for the first two weeks of NFL and the three weeks of college football. The operations team, led by Coordinating Producer Craig Silver and Lead Director Steve Milton, is getting a sense of each booth; some of them are smaller and can't fit the entire support team.
Fingerworks has built a touchscreen spotting system tied into the stats program, allowing the spotter to be socially distanced and control a monitor that the announce team can use to see which player made the tackle, block, or catch.
We won't need that this week, says Karasik, but, in the future, it will definitely be in play.
F&F's GTX-19 production unit has been configured to allow social distancing, and plexiglass has also been added.
The SkyCam and Pylon Cams will be deployed for the game production, which overall will be robust.
One of the questions facing everyone with respect to new remote-production workflows was, Would the viewer at home notice the difference?
One of the people working at the studio asked me last week which game was being done with the crew remoted, Karasik notes. The fact that they couldn't tell which was being remoted and which had a producer and director onsite is a good sign that we've done our job well. The top priority is to keep the viewing experience the same at home and to cover football the way we have always done at CBS.
One notable aspect of this season is that the SEC requested that TV partners make game selections prior to the start of the season, when possible, to assist the conference and schools with planning and logistics. For any games not chosen before the start of the season, the normal 12- or six-day selection process will be followed. On Oct. 3, fans will see Texas A&M at Alabama. Also selected in advance of the season: Georgia at Alabama on Oct. 17, LSU at Auburn on Oct. 31, Florida vs. Georgia in Jacksonville on Nov. 7, and Alabama at LSU on Nov. 14. CBS will also televise the SEC Football Championship Game on Dec. 19.
I can't express my appreciation enough for what our technical team has done to pull off not just college football but sports in general, Karasik says. The group - led by [EVP, Operations and Engineering,] Patty Power, [VP, Remote Technical Operations,] Jason Cohen, and [VP, Remote Engineering and Planning,] Mike Francis - has literally worked every day and night to figure out not just the technology part of this but the health and safety part, which is our biggest priority.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
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
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
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
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
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
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
SEC on CBS Embraces New Workflows; F&F GTX-19 Is at Center of Production Efforts Golf, NFL coverage gives the team a leg up on the college football season By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
