ABC's Monday Night the Super Bowl. The Football goes HD truck will include both full -size studio BC -TV, in a joint statement with and handheld por- anasonic Broadcast, recently an- table cameras in the nounced it plans to produce and broad- 720p format for cast the traditional Monday Night Foot- the HD football ball games in high- definition. broadcasts. "Live sporting events provide the best No sporting event platform to demonstrate the viewing would be complete benefits of high -definition television," without its share of ABC -TV President Patricia Fili- Krushel tape machines. ABC said. "'Monday Night Football' - as the plans to use Pana- only live, primetime sporting event - sonic's AJ- HD2700 offers the greatest opportunity to show- tape machines (D -5 format), which are ABC, CBS or NBC. In exchange for the case HDTV to the American public. selectable between the 720p and 1080i 720p HD equipment and production This is an exciting way to celebrate the recording formats. Despite all this ca- subsidies, Panasonic will receive a bill- 30th anniversary of 'Monday Night pability in the HD mobile unit, the HD board announcement in the pre -game Football. - telecasts will be produced and transmit- show on ABC's analog and HD telecast. Panasonic is building and outfitting a ted separately from ABC's regular Panasonic will also receive commercial 720p HD mobile production truck, "Monday Night Football" on the tradi- time during the HD broadcasts. which will travel to all 17 of the 1999- tional analog network. ABC's "Monday Night Football" will 2000 season Monday night gridiron Nobody to date has talked dollars begin its season on Sept. 13 with Miami battles, one wild card playoff game and about any of the network deals, he they at Denver. USA Broadcasting will provide substantial savings in staff- three years. USA would not say which ing and equipment costs and provide markets it plans on hitting first. The launches master more resources for programming and first phase of this construction pro- control center station promotion. gram will service five stations, and Seeing a measure of success with new the second phase will serve five or re Barry Diller -owned USA Broad- programming at test station WAMI- more additional stations when com- casting is in the process of complet- TV in Miami, USA Broadcasting exec- pleted. Plans are to implement this ing its new state -of- the -art broadcast utives are getting ready to make the new programming model in three to facility in the Los Angeles area that format, a mixture of local program- four new markets, such as New York, in the next six will serve as a master control room for ming and nationally syndicated fare, a Los Angeles or Dallas, each of its stations. The control center mold for all of their stations. Having to seven months. the rights to local NBA The master control facility, which USA and Major League Base- refers to as the "USA Broadcasting Sta- ball games has helped tion Works," will be up and running by to fill the schedule in this fall and will initially supply pro- Miami. If the network gramming for up to five USA broadcast secures broadcast rights stations. to sport franchises in The new master control facility will other markets, the lo- provide each station with local pro- gistics of running 12 gramming, while reducing operating channels or more of this costs for individual stations. Howard kind of live sports pro- Bolter, vice president of production gramming through their and engineering at USA Broadcasting, new Ontario, CA, mas- estimates the centralized master con- ter control could pose trol will save $8- to IO million per problems. market in equipment and staffing costs. The timetable to im- Those savings could he applied toward plement this project promotion and programming. USA through its master con- Broadcasting is planning to build a trol as a single point of second similar facility next year to control for its multi- handle five more of its owned stations' ple station operation programming needs. Broadcasting plans to provide programming for its USA will be over the next stations from its new master control facility. 18 Broadcast Engineering June 1999 www.americanradiohistory.com.