New York: For the biggest one-day project in the history of News
Broadcast Network, the company produced a ten-city video conference two
weeks ago for the United Nations with Walter Cronkite and UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The electronic town-hall meeting, hosted by Annan and moderated by
Cronkite, aired live exactly one month after the terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The meetings focused on the UN's actions on terrorism and the
organization's support for anti-terrorist initiatives and the people of
the US.
Each city provided an additional moderator, as well as a panel of local
business, political, and academic leaders.
With 17 employees plus freelancers working full time, NBN set up the UN
and local sites including camera crews, directors, and uplink control
trucks in the 10 cities visited: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver,
Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Louis, and Tampa,
FL.
The event was carried live on the Times Square jumbo-tron and by CNN.
NBN also distributed b-roll and a tape of the live feed, which drew an
estimated audience of 5,750,000 viewers.
Mike Hill, president of NBN, said the project was a first for NBN, which
had never before shot video from the UN. It was also a first for the UN,
according to Hill, who said the international organization had never
before spoken directly to the people of the US.
The project also furthered NBN's business goal of entering the corporate
video production and event market.
