CBS News Washington Bureau
New Downtown Facility and Tech Upgrades Allow CBS News to Expand its Reach in the Nations Capital
The CBS News Washington Bureau, home to the long running “Face the Nation” sought to upgrade its footprint in the U.S. capital through a land swap that involved developer Tishman Speyer acquiring and combining the lot adjacent to the Bureau’s longstanding location in downtown Washington. As part of the multi-phased construction effort, CBS needed a technology partner to design and build a new facility and tech updgrades that would support its series of live and recorded national and international programs for the next 20 years.
Through an advanced design based on an efficient, hybrid IP core facility and highly networked audio and media file workflows, Diversified collaborated closely with CBS to deliver on time and on budget, helping them avoid potential real estate penalties they would have incurred for having to extend their existing lease.
Roughly a year later, CBS decided to move the origination of “CBS Evening News”to Washington, resulting in a requirement for a new studio set within the recently opened Bureau. The facility’s infrastructure had to be expanded and a new graphics processing platform needed to be implemented to support the large number of video walls included in the revised set design.
The new graphics system is based on a VizRT Multiplay Graphics Platform and supports a showpiece studio featuring more than 40 million LED pixels spread across 17 video walls that typically display topical videos and graphics as well as stylized Washington backdrops. The existing Evertz ATP solution was expanded to provide the additional video signal path connectivity between Washington and New York.
Using its institutional knowledge from the previous phase, paired with the engineering expertise the multiple vendor partners are known for, Diversified was able to complete the project within an aggressive timeline and meet all of the high-level facility and tech updgrades CBS had put forward.
