Local insertion
Encyclopedia
In broadcasting
, local insertion is the act or capability of a broadcast television station
, radio station
, or cable TV system to insert or replace part of a broadcast network
feed
with content
unique to the local station or system. Most often this is a station identification
(required by the Federal Communications Commission
), but is also commonly a television commercial or sometimes a radio ad, or a weather or traffic report. A digital on-screen graphic
("dog" or "bug"), commonly a semi-transparent watermark
, may also be keyed (superimposed) with a TV station identification
over the network
feed using a character generator
usinng genlock
. In the case where several programs are carried separately from the main broadcast network
, this is known as regional variation (UK) or a television network
(US).
Automated local insertion used to be triggered with in-band signaling
, such as DTMF tones or sub-audible sounds
(such as 25Hz), but is now done with out-of-band signaling, such as analog signal
subcarrier
s via communications satellite
, or now more commonly via digital signal
s. Broadcast automation
equipment can then handle these automatically. In an emergency, such as severe weather, local insertion may also occur instantly through command from another network or other source, such as the Emergency Alert System
. In this case, the most urgent warnings messages may interrupt without delay, while others may be worked into a normal break in programming within 15 minutes of their initial issuance.
, insertion can easily be heard every evening on Delilah
, a nationally-syndicated radio show, where the host does a pre-recorded station-specific voiceover
played over a music bed from the network. When she says "this is Delilah", her voice (often in a slightly different tone or mood than what she has just been speaking) then says "on B98.5 FM" when heard on WSB-FM
in metro Atlanta
, for example. Listeners to other stations hear their own station's moniker or ID instead. Because of this slight difference in vocal quality, many syndicated radio networks suggest using only one voice for local station ID 24/7; in this way, the difference in vocal intonation is lessened.
The other more prominent example is during live sports programming
carried over radio and television networks, where close to the top of the hour, the play-by-play announcer will say "we pause ten seconds for station identification; this is the (team name) (radio network branding)", or a close equivalent. On most stations it is a basic FCC station identification
with calls and city of license
relayed, while on others a quickly-read five second advertisement or program promotion is read before the identification, or a breaking news
or weather warning event occurring during the event is relayed, followed by the station ID. Due to many sports rights deals for televised sports moving to regional sports network
s which are not required to identify themselves under FCC guidelines, or network sports coverage where the station identification is made with an on-screen display by the local station rather than speech, this is more prominent on radio rather than television.
Local commercial (and some non-commercial) over-the-air television stations also locally insert local promo breaks during each half-hour of network television program
ming. Television networks give their affiliate
s either 60, 90 or 120 seconds each half-hour (typically totaling about four minutes each hour) to run local station breaks, including station promos (and on a few stations, local news updates, current time and temperature information or a brief local weather forecast), over network programming. Typically, these networks air a blank feed showing the network's logo (such as with Fox
and NBC
) or a series of public service announcements (as with ABC
and CBS) while stations air local promos. PBS
member stations also insert promos for PBS network series and locally-produced programming during promo breaks, as PBS is non-commercial the network typically does not feature breaks during the programs themselves, instead promos are insterted in-between programs, even if the member station is carrying PBS' national network feed.
Various TV morning shows, such as Good Morning America
and The Today Show, also have a local news
break for five minutes (sometimes as little as three minutes) prior to each "top" or "bottom" half-hour (:25 to :30 and :55 to :00), though the national feed continues for stations that do not wish to "break away", either because they have no news operation or because they may not air a morning newscast (e.g., NBC affiliate KTEN
in Ada, Oklahoma
does not air news cut-ins during the weekend edition of Today as the only weekend newscast on that station airs at 10 p.m., but cut-ins are shown during the weekday telecasts where Today follows a morning newscast). This also occurs with news on National Public Radio's Morning Edition
and All Things Considered
, which are on during the morning and evening rush hours, respectively.
Starting in the early 1990s, some cable TV systems began carrying a local insert called "Local Edition
", a segment featuring local news inserts (which are produced by area television stations or local cable operators) that air at :24 and :54 minutes past the hour during HLN's rolling daytime news block, usually during the network's non-essential features news block. This has been discontinued as that network has switched to a general news/talk format.
providers, in which cable and telco headends insert advertisements for the cable system, promos for programs on other cable channels carried by the cable provider and commercials for local area businesses (e.g., car dealerships, furniture stores, etc.) at least twice each hour; unlike most commercial broadcast stations, however, cable channels often run only 60 seconds of local commercial inserts each half-hour near the end of the first or second commercial break and are aired in place of national ads or network promos that air during that given time. Direct-broadcast satellite services cannot locally insert content during commercial breaks, so viewers are either able to see ads or promos that are covered up by the local content on cable or see a DBS company's own promos.
Local insertion on cable television is used especially on The Weather Channel
in the U.S. and The Weather Network
/MétéoMédia
in Canada, where systems like the WeatherSTAR
and IntelliSTAR
have been used to show local weather forecasts (known as "Local on the 8s
" on The Weather Channel in the U.S.) every ten minutes, and well as the lower display line (LDL) or lower-third graphic that is shown at other times. The Weather Channel, in particular also airs barker ads during national breaks at the end of some commercials allowing its WeatherSTAR or IntelliSTAR systems to insert certain area locations for certain businesses, such as restaurants or auto rental dealers; though The Weather Channel has not done this as much in recent years as they have in the past. This only applies to the cable systems, although in the U.S. direct-broadcast satellite services have shown an LDL of the current conditions and 12-hour forecast for select major cities. This is not seen on older TVRO or "big ugly dish" systems, as this is intended as a backhaul and has very few end-user
s, and is used as a clean feed
.
(and possibly other DBS services), whereby the first half of the local forecast is generated by the set-top box
. A "cutout" at the upper right corner of the picture allows the sponsor's advertising logo to be shown live from the main video, while a datacast on the satellite (like that which provides the electronic program guide
) sends simple forecast and conditions data for the entire country every couple of minutes. Graphics are stored on the receiver, and displayed according to the forecast, which is selected by ZIP code
or city according to user settings.
Additionally, starting in 2011, DirecTV users with digital video recorder
s will have commercials downloaded to their boxes, which will play according to their demographic information, likely commanding higher revenue
from advertisers. This may eventually lead to or merge with interactive television
, which may find more success on cable and telco TV because of the lack of a return channel
on satellite and broadcast. Internet-connected TVs may erode this barrier as well, however, with only their embedded flash memory
chip necessary to hold short video clips.
station's callsign and community of license separate from its parent station. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) also allows up to 30 seconds per hour for fundraising to keep the translator service on the air.
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
, local insertion is the act or capability of a broadcast television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
, radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
, or cable TV system to insert or replace part of a broadcast network
Broadcast network
A broadcast network is an organization, such as a corporation or other voluntary association, that provides live television or recorded content, such as movies, newscasts, sports, Public affairs programming, and other television programs for broadcast over a group of radio stations or television...
feed
Feed
Feed may refer to:In animal foodstuffs:* Compound feed, feedstuffs that are blended from various raw materials and additives* Fodder , any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed domesticated livestockIn computing:...
with content
Content (media and publishing)
In media production and publishing, content is information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. Content may be delivered via any medium such as the internet, television, and audio CDs, as well as live events such as conferences and stage performances...
unique to the local station or system. Most often this is a station identification
Station identification
Station identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name...
(required by the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
), but is also commonly a television commercial or sometimes a radio ad, or a weather or traffic report. A digital on-screen graphic
Digital on-screen graphic
A digital on-screen graphic is a watermark-like station logo that many television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen-area of their programs to identify the channel...
("dog" or "bug"), commonly a semi-transparent watermark
Watermark
A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...
, may also be keyed (superimposed) with a TV station identification
Station identification
Station identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name...
over the network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
feed using a character generator
Character generator
A character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and can generate graphics as well as text...
usinng genlock
Genlock
Genlock is a common technique where the video output of one source, or a specific reference signal from a signal generator, is used to synchronize other television picture sources together. The aim in video and digital audio applications is to ensure the coincidence of signals in time at a...
. In the case where several programs are carried separately from the main broadcast network
Broadcast network
A broadcast network is an organization, such as a corporation or other voluntary association, that provides live television or recorded content, such as movies, newscasts, sports, Public affairs programming, and other television programs for broadcast over a group of radio stations or television...
, this is known as regional variation (UK) or a television network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
(US).
Automated local insertion used to be triggered with in-band signaling
In-band signaling
In telecommunications, in-band signaling is the sending of metadata and control information in the same band or channel used for data.-Telephone:...
, such as DTMF tones or sub-audible sounds
Infrasound
Infrasound is sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz or cycles per second, the "normal" limit of human hearing. Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high...
(such as 25Hz), but is now done with out-of-band signaling, such as analog signal
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
subcarrier
Subcarrier
A subcarrier is a separate analog or digital signal carried on a main radio transmission, which carries extra information such as voice or data. More technically, it is an already-modulated signal, which is then modulated into another signal of higher frequency and bandwidth...
s via communications satellite
Communications satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunications...
, or now more commonly via digital signal
Digital signal
A digital signal is a physical signal that is a representation of a sequence of discrete values , for example of an arbitrary bit stream, or of a digitized analog signal...
s. Broadcast automation
Broadcast automation
Broadcast automation incorporates the use of broadcast programming technology to automate broadcasting operations. Used either at a broadcast network, radio station or a television station, it can run a facility in the absence of a human operator...
equipment can then handle these automatically. In an emergency, such as severe weather, local insertion may also occur instantly through command from another network or other source, such as the Emergency Alert System
Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System is a national warning system in the United States put into place on January 1, 1997, when it superseded the Emergency Broadcast System , which itself had superseded the CONELRAD System...
. In this case, the most urgent warnings messages may interrupt without delay, while others may be worked into a normal break in programming within 15 minutes of their initial issuance.
Within individual programs
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, insertion can easily be heard every evening on Delilah
Delilah Rene
Delilah Rene Luke , almost always known mononymously as Delilah, is an American radio personality, author, and songwriter, best known as the host of a nationally syndicated nightly U.S...
, a nationally-syndicated radio show, where the host does a pre-recorded station-specific voiceover
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a screen reader built into Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, iOS and iPod operating systems. By using VoiceOver, the user can access their Macintosh or iOS device based on spoken descriptions and, in the case of the Mac, the keyboard. The feature is designed to increase accessibility for blind...
played over a music bed from the network. When she says "this is Delilah", her voice (often in a slightly different tone or mood than what she has just been speaking) then says "on B98.5 FM" when heard on WSB-FM
WSB-FM
WSB-FM is an Atlanta radio station. Along with several other Atlanta radio stations, WSB-FM is owned by Cox Enterprises' Cox Media Group subsidiary, and is the group's flagship FM station...
in metro Atlanta
Metro Atlanta
The Atlanta metropolitan area or metro Atlanta, officially designated by the US Census Bureau as the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the ninth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States...
, for example. Listeners to other stations hear their own station's moniker or ID instead. Because of this slight difference in vocal quality, many syndicated radio networks suggest using only one voice for local station ID 24/7; in this way, the difference in vocal intonation is lessened.
The other more prominent example is during live sports programming
Broadcasting of sports events
The broadcasting of sports events is the coverage of sports as a television program, on radio and other broadcasting media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing the events as they happen.-United States:...
carried over radio and television networks, where close to the top of the hour, the play-by-play announcer will say "we pause ten seconds for station identification; this is the (team name) (radio network branding)", or a close equivalent. On most stations it is a basic FCC station identification
Station identification
Station identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name...
with calls and city of license
City of license
A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....
relayed, while on others a quickly-read five second advertisement or program promotion is read before the identification, or a breaking news
Breaking news
Breaking news, also known as a special report or news bulletin, is a current event that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming and/or current news in order to report its details. Many times, breaking news is used after the news network has already reported on this story...
or weather warning event occurring during the event is relayed, followed by the station ID. Due to many sports rights deals for televised sports moving to regional sports network
Regional sports network
In the United States of America and Canada, a regional sports network, or RSN, is a cable television station that presents sports programming to a local market. The most important programming on an RSN consists of live broadcasts of professional and college sporting events, as those games generate...
s which are not required to identify themselves under FCC guidelines, or network sports coverage where the station identification is made with an on-screen display by the local station rather than speech, this is more prominent on radio rather than television.
Local commercial (and some non-commercial) over-the-air television stations also locally insert local promo breaks during each half-hour of network television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
ming. Television networks give their affiliate
Affiliate
An affiliate is a commercial entity with a relationship with a peer or a larger entity.- Corporate structure :A corporation may be referred to as an affiliate of another when it is related to it but not strictly controlled by it, as with a subsidiary relationship, or when it is desired to avoid...
s either 60, 90 or 120 seconds each half-hour (typically totaling about four minutes each hour) to run local station breaks, including station promos (and on a few stations, local news updates, current time and temperature information or a brief local weather forecast), over network programming. Typically, these networks air a blank feed showing the network's logo (such as with Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
) or a series of public service announcements (as with ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and CBS) while stations air local promos. PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
member stations also insert promos for PBS network series and locally-produced programming during promo breaks, as PBS is non-commercial the network typically does not feature breaks during the programs themselves, instead promos are insterted in-between programs, even if the member station is carrying PBS' national network feed.
Various TV morning shows, such as Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
and The Today Show, also have a local news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
break for five minutes (sometimes as little as three minutes) prior to each "top" or "bottom" half-hour (:25 to :30 and :55 to :00), though the national feed continues for stations that do not wish to "break away", either because they have no news operation or because they may not air a morning newscast (e.g., NBC affiliate KTEN
KTEN
KTEN is the NBC-affiliated television station for Southeastern Oklahoma and North Texas that is licensed to Ada, Oklahoma. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 26 from a transmitter north of Milburn, Oklahoma along OK 7. Owned by the Lockwood Broadcasting Group, the station...
in Ada, Oklahoma
Ada, Oklahoma
Ada is a city in and the county seat of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 16,008 at the 2000 census. As of 2009, the city population was estimated at 17,019....
does not air news cut-ins during the weekend edition of Today as the only weekend newscast on that station airs at 10 p.m., but cut-ins are shown during the weekday telecasts where Today follows a morning newscast). This also occurs with news on National Public Radio's Morning Edition
Morning Edition
Morning Edition is an American radio news program produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It airs weekday mornings and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 05:00 to 09:00 ET, with feeds and updates as required until noon...
and All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
, which are on during the morning and evening rush hours, respectively.
Starting in the early 1990s, some cable TV systems began carrying a local insert called "Local Edition
Local Edition
Local Edition was a five-minute newscast covering community interest stories from the Cadillac, Manistee, Ludington, and Traverse City, Michigan areas. The newscast aired throughout the day at 24 minutes past the hour as an insert on HLN via Charter Communications cable channel 63, and was...
", a segment featuring local news inserts (which are produced by area television stations or local cable operators) that air at :24 and :54 minutes past the hour during HLN's rolling daytime news block, usually during the network's non-essential features news block. This has been discontinued as that network has switched to a general news/talk format.
Pay television
Local insertion is also used by pay television and telephone companyTelephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
providers, in which cable and telco headends insert advertisements for the cable system, promos for programs on other cable channels carried by the cable provider and commercials for local area businesses (e.g., car dealerships, furniture stores, etc.) at least twice each hour; unlike most commercial broadcast stations, however, cable channels often run only 60 seconds of local commercial inserts each half-hour near the end of the first or second commercial break and are aired in place of national ads or network promos that air during that given time. Direct-broadcast satellite services cannot locally insert content during commercial breaks, so viewers are either able to see ads or promos that are covered up by the local content on cable or see a DBS company's own promos.
Local insertion on cable television is used especially on The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel is a US cable and satellite television network since May 2, 1982, that broadcasts weather forecasts and weather-related news, along with entertainment programming related to weather 24 hours a day...
in the U.S. and The Weather Network
The Weather Network
The Weather Network is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel that broadcasts weather-related news and information 24 hours a day....
/MétéoMédia
MétéoMédia
MétéoMédia is a 24-hour Canadian French language Category A specialty channel and web site, which provides weather information 24 hours a day. It primarily serves viewers in Quebec, although some cable TV systems in Ontario and New Brunswick carry the channel as well. It is available nation-wide...
in Canada, where systems like the WeatherSTAR
WeatherStar
WeatherStar refers to the technology used by The Weather Channel to generate their Local Forecast segments on cable TV systems nationwide...
and IntelliSTAR
IntelliStar
IntelliStar is the fifth generation successor to the WeatherStar systems used by the American cable TV and satellite TV channel The Weather Channel , for inserting local forecasts and current weather information into TWC's programming...
have been used to show local weather forecasts (known as "Local on the 8s
Local on the 8s
The Local on the 8s or Local Forecast is the portion of programming where viewers see current weather conditions and local weather forecasts for their respective area on The Weather Channel in the United States...
" on The Weather Channel in the U.S.) every ten minutes, and well as the lower display line (LDL) or lower-third graphic that is shown at other times. The Weather Channel, in particular also airs barker ads during national breaks at the end of some commercials allowing its WeatherSTAR or IntelliSTAR systems to insert certain area locations for certain businesses, such as restaurants or auto rental dealers; though The Weather Channel has not done this as much in recent years as they have in the past. This only applies to the cable systems, although in the U.S. direct-broadcast satellite services have shown an LDL of the current conditions and 12-hour forecast for select major cities. This is not seen on older TVRO or "big ugly dish" systems, as this is intended as a backhaul and has very few end-user
End-user
Economics and commerce define an end user as the person who uses a product. The end user or consumer may differ from the person who purchases the product...
s, and is used as a clean feed
Clean feed (TV)
In television technology, clean feed is a term that describes a signal which has not come from the main output of the Video switcher, such as the output of a vision mixer before the downstream keyer stage - the clean feed is identical to the main program output but without any captions keyed into...
.
Set-top boxes
In place of the IntelliSTAR, a hyper-local form of insertion is now done on DirecTVDirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
(and possibly other DBS services), whereby the first half of the local forecast is generated by the set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
. A "cutout" at the upper right corner of the picture allows the sponsor's advertising logo to be shown live from the main video, while a datacast on the satellite (like that which provides the electronic program guide
Electronic program guide
Electronic program guides and interactive program guides provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus displaying broadcast programming or scheduling information for current and upcoming programming...
) sends simple forecast and conditions data for the entire country every couple of minutes. Graphics are stored on the receiver, and displayed according to the forecast, which is selected by ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
or city according to user settings.
Additionally, starting in 2011, DirecTV users with digital video recorder
Digital video recorder
A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
s will have commercials downloaded to their boxes, which will play according to their demographic information, likely commanding higher revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
from advertisers. This may eventually lead to or merge with interactive television
Interactive television
Interactive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they view it.- Definitions :...
, which may find more success on cable and telco TV because of the lack of a return channel
Return channel
In communications systems that use star topologies, the return channel is the transmission link from a user terminal to the central hub....
on satellite and broadcast. Internet-connected TVs may erode this barrier as well, however, with only their embedded flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
chip necessary to hold short video clips.
Transmitter identification
Broadcast translators may also have local insertion, though this is very limited to identifying the repeatingRepeater
A repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...
station's callsign and community of license separate from its parent station. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) also allows up to 30 seconds per hour for fundraising to keep the translator service on the air.
See also
- Broadcast automationBroadcast automationBroadcast automation incorporates the use of broadcast programming technology to automate broadcasting operations. Used either at a broadcast network, radio station or a television station, it can run a facility in the absence of a human operator...
and centralcastingCentralcastingIn terrestrial radio and television broadcasting, centralcasting refers to the use of systems automation by which customised signals for broadcast by multiple individual stations may be created at one central facility.- :... - Emergency Alert SystemEmergency Alert SystemThe Emergency Alert System is a national warning system in the United States put into place on January 1, 1997, when it superseded the Emergency Broadcast System , which itself had superseded the CONELRAD System...
- Station identificationStation identificationStation identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name...