The CEO of VCI Solutions says if TV stations are to survive the new economic realities, they need to focus on putting their investment into their content — producing more of it that's more local — and get away from spending large sums on how the content gets to the consumer. To do that, she says, stations should move to sharing master control functions, not just within groups, but with competitors as well.

Bonten Media's vice president of engineering (or vice president of headaches) has a full plate, overseeing the operations of the group's stations in seven markets. What's occupying his time theses days is increasing efficiency, implementing HD news, finalizing the DTV transition and gearing up for mobile DTV — all while keeping an eye on costs.

The top exec at the new media tech company explains how TV stations and other local media can implement and make money from his new iPhone content platform that will let pump out news, sports, weather and whatever else they can think of to the growing legion of iPhone users.

Sinclair's vice president of new technology says the future of TV stations is in making sure their signals can be received on the ever-growing list of mobile devices. And if stations are not making sure their new digital transmission systems have full redundancy, they could be making a "fatal mistake."

The station group interconnected its small market stations in Louisiana and Texas with fiber and high-speed Internet links so that it could offer news at many of the stations for the first time. But it soon discovered that the home-grown network can provide other efficiencies, including centralized station promo production and long-form program distribution.

The CTO of the Public Broadcasting Service says he is wrestling with the same DTV-transition problems as his commercial counterparts but, at the same time, is pushing ahead into file-based program distribution, mobile broadcasting (real and non-real time) and multiplatform services.

The chief engineer of two of the four commercial stations (WECT and WSFX) involved in the early digital television trial in the North Carolina market is learning that procrastination and the age-old troubles with broadcast reception may conspire against a smooth national transition next February.

Wayne Ruting claims to have business intelligence software that allows station group execs to look over the shoulder of every GM — every sales person, for that matter — in their groups at any time to make sure they're making their numbers. It works by gathering all station data into one easily accessible "warehouse."

Sony has the lion's share of the broadcast camera market and intends to keep it with a two-prong strategy, simultaneously developing XDCAM camcorders using optical disks and memory cards, says the SVP of sales and marketing. Both will "continue to evolve."

The group that used to be the Clear Channel stations has one old hand in charge of its technology and he likes his new management's "laserlike" focus on TV station operation as he heads up the group's digital conversions and addition of subnets.

Telecorps’ Wexler Video division thinks it has the answer to getting the most out of TV stations’ field reporters. Its new BackPack lets journalists shoot material and then use cellular technology and the Internet to send it directly back to the station without a live truck or a microwave truck, and without hitting a WiFi hot spot.

The equipment supplier's president says that after adding to its offerings by purchasing companies, it is now focusing on making sure all of its various product lines work perfectly together to help stations run as efficiently as possible.

Panasonic’s marketing chief offers arguments as to why the P2 HD field acquisition format is best choice for broadcasters as they move to file-based workflows and HD.

A TV station is a TV station, right? Wrong, according to the chief tech at the ABC O&O in Philadelphia. At the new plant he's building, file-based workflow is a top priority and the digital broadcast transmitter will be just one of many outputs.

The head of video products says that the company is pushing its solutions for local HD news and file-based workflow (Infinity, Aurora and Ignite) as TV stations will feel increasing pressure to make the move to HD sooner rather than later.

Mall shoppers can literally see what's going on inside Pappas's TV stations in Reno, but they can't appreciate the state-of-the-art automation that's a model for other stations in the growing group.

Yes, says the head of Avid's video business. The troubled company will be spending as much on marketing next year as it ever did, but it will avoid the "hellish din" of the NAB convention to focus of a variety of other ways of getting closer to broadcasters and other customers.

As things now stand, says the president of the Community Broadcasters Association, many of the 2,800 LPTV stations are faced with losing all of their over-the-air viewers in February 2009 when full-power stations make the switch to digital and they are still stuck in analog.

As the chief tech at the Ackerley group in the 1990s, Kelly Alford pioneered centralcasting and was an early adopter of automated news production. He's now putting those technologies to work for his new employer.

A one-time news photographer, Braatz is now the top tech for the NBC O&Os, responsible for keeping all 10 on the air and making sure they have the gear they need to produce not just for broadcast, but for the Web, mobile and whatever other new media comes along.