The Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance hosted their first weekly webinar discussing how Low Power and Translator stations are going to adapt to the issues that have arose as a result of the ongoing Pandemic on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, at 3pm CT.
Each guest discussed how the Pandemic is affecting their stations and how they plan to work through it. “We’re taking every precaution, both in terms of social distancing and the regular wiping down of surfaces and door handles,” said Mark Aitken, SVP of Sinclair Broadcasting Group. “We’ve worked with all of our internet service providers to get designation of critical circuits under the cyber security rules that have been enacted as a result of this emergency.”
Joining Aitken on the panel were host, Lee Miller, ATBA Executive Director, Eric Wotila, President of NewsNet, and Chris White of KKDJ TV.
White and his radio and television station, KKDJ TV, is taking a public service approach. “We are doing a lot of public service stuff, last Friday we went on and did a live broadcast that we aired on a lot of our radio and television stations at the same time. We asked people to call in and talk about what’s going on and what their issues are, if they’re having trouble finding products. It’s kind of a forum for people to be able to talk to us and for us to talk to people all over the valley.”
In a world where we’ve all been asked to stay away from each other in order to “flatten the curve”, it’s good that we are able to use the media to come together and to stay informed, especially in this difficult time.
“A lot of low power tv stations, of course, have limited or no news department,” said Wotila. “We’re offering short terms agreements to stations that are looking to get some news on their stations, so that’s something we’ve been doing is trying to help LPTV stations get news out there.”
These 30-60 minute webinars, regarding the issues related to LPTV and Translator stations during this time of a global pandemic, will take place every Wednesday at 3pm CT. You can access this meeting through a link that will be included in the ATBA Newsletter, which is released every Tuesday.
