Video Sharing Hits Orlando

I know it is good business sense to consolidate in tough economic times. But still, I am surprised that three TV stations in Orlando are sharing video. Not being an insider at this moment, I am not exactly sure how this works...but here is what I have deduced. The station assignment desks take part in a conference call each morning. The station with the pool camera that day sends the photographer out on the stories the desks agree on. They post up the raw video on an shared FTP site and bam! No work and at least two or three stories to show for it. Here is more information about who is doing this in Orlando. Part of the justification is that it is happening in L.A., D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago and others. If the bigger markets are doing it, why not Orlando?
I had my first encounter with this today. Just about a week into the agreement. We put out a release about an event happening today and it made the list of thing the "pool" camera was supposed to pick up today. We happened to be shooting the event so the station who was assigned the pool asked me if they could have a tape of what we shot. Being the good PR person...I said, of course, are you going to put it on the FTP site. They were. So we worked with them to figure out how we could upload directly to their site so all three stations could have quick and easy access, plus we didn't have to make dubs and drive tapes all over town. I was not able to watch evening news tonight, but the magic of the DVR will tell me tomorrow if this worked (meaning resulted in coverage on three stations with minimal work). WooHoo!
How quickly my years of journalistic ethics get thrown out the window for convenience. But seriously, I worry that might be what is having to TV stations too. I think local TV news should be careful with this. It won't be long before folks are jumping to the conclusion that if the stations can not shoot the news on their own, then maybe there are too many TV stations. Yikes!