Jessica Rye says one of the best parts of being a broadcast technician
is learning about new systems all the time.
"I have been here for five years and I am still learning new things and
I am still working on equipment that I have to study first," says Rye. She
is a broadcast engineer in Wichita, Kansas. "There's also the satisfaction
of knowing how much you have learned and maintained in the last five years.
I am not the type of person who likes repetitiveness."
After high school, Rye attended the Wichita Technical Institute. She completed
a 17-month electronics technician program.
"I think that many people overlook the broadcast career thinking that you
have to have four to six years of schooling when this is not always true,"
says Rye. "People want experience, but at the same time if you go into an
interview with the ability to learn and adapt well to different conditions,
you may be what they are looking for."
Even though broadcast technicians work with equipment every day, Rye says
you also need to work well with others.
"You may need to fix a computer/network problem and you have to be able
to ask that person what symptoms they are having, and maintain business level
relationships with them," says Rye.
"I would never suggest letting someone run all over you, but if your attitude
is generally good to begin with, then you won't give them an excuse to act
out against you or defy you."
Joe Conlon is the engineering manager for Town Square Television in Minnesota.
The high school he attended offered four years of electronics. He took all
four years. He then earned a bachelor's of communications with a telecommunications
emphasis.
"I was also involved on a volunteer basis in quite a few different television
facilities," says Conlon. "One was a low-power television station here in
the St. Paul, Minneapolis area. Also, [I volunteered at] our community television
station for cable in our area, which now I work for, 25 years later."
In his role as engineering manager, Conlon supervises several broadcast
technicians and makes sure they have the equipment they need. He also repairs
the equipment.
"This week I started the week with doing a live production that [will
be] nationally televised on Thursday night... I was repairing microphones
and stuff this morning. So it varies."
Richard Morris is a broadcast technician and independent film producer
who has been in the industry for more than three decades. He has a degree
in communications studies.
"While I was finishing college, I did internships at public TV. I got hired
at a TV station while I was still in school, so it was just an automatic step
-- when I graduated from college, I was already working and on staff at a
TV station," says Morris.
Morris has seen major industry changes over the past three decades. In
that time, he has filled pretty much every role possible in broadcasting,
including that of cameraman, editor, director and broadcast supervisor.
"The way the industry has consolidated, it's become a 'you do it all' type
of situation," says Morris. "I produce, I shoot, I edit, I write the scripts,
I produce the music, I do the research. So I'm doing everything."
Morris says most TV stations have replaced a lot of staff with technology.
"If you watch any of the TV news programs or most of the shows now, if you
see a wide shot you're going to see cameras that are sitting there empty because
they're robotically operated. They've eliminated far more than half of the
staff and crews," he says.
"One of the TV stations I worked at, at one point I was supervising 250
television technician engineers, and now that same TV station has only 75."
Broadcasting has always involved technology, of course. But computers now
play a dominant role in the industry.
"TV stations are run by computer now," says Morris. "The technicians sit
and they sort of babysit the computer. And if something goes wrong with the
computer program, then they manually step in.
"But now it has become so computerized that I've worked at television stations
where the control room was a desktop computer and there weren't even pieces
of equipment like an audio console or a TV switcher," Morris says.
"Those pieces of equipment were eliminated. They didn't even have them
in the control room. They literally just had desktop computers and everything
was run off of a computer."
These changes mean that an interest in, and aptitude for, technology is
essential. But broadcast technicians also need to work well with people.
"Insight is part of it, desire to learn is part of it, and obviously working
in a team environment and getting along with people," says Morris.
"Being able to communicate, being able to express what you're thinking
in a concise and understandable way, because you're taking concepts that aren't
necessarily tangible and you have to be put them into words."