Working Two-gether

Televising sports requires a total team effort. The are two main parts to every telecast. There is the tele and there is the vision. The tele part is supplied by the announcers in the booth and the vision aspect is supplied by the TV truck. The vision part of the TV truck also consists of two parts - the camera operators and the tape room. The camera operators must listen to two different sources - the announcers and the director. The director listens to two different sources - the announcers and the producer. The tape room listens to both the producer and the director. In turn, the announcers deal with two aspects as far as the tele is concerned - the live camera shots and the video replays and packages. The quality of every telecast depends totally on the meshing of the two sources that every member of the telecast must deal with. Today's Cardinals/Cubs telecast was a perfect example of what happens when the whole TV team works with both sides of the telecast. The tele and the vision become television when the sources are equally intertwined. Just like today's telecast.