Client
United States House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol
Location
Washington, DC
Venue
Cannon House Building
Year
2022
BMG provided producing and directorial services to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol public hearings. This included all the technical services to produce the 10 live broadcasts, which aired on all the major United States networks. The BMG team included producer Driss Sekkat, broadcast director Todd Mason and two Producers/Assistant directors, Justin O’Neil and Bryan Sasser worked with the Select Committee under the direction of James Goldston, executive producer to produce and execute the live broadcast that would tell a complicated story in a way that would be understandable to the broadcast audience. The cumulative Nielsen ratings of the eight broadcasted hearings exceeded 130 million viewers.
BMG was contacted by former ABC News President, James Goldston, to join his team working with the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack to produce multiple public hearings to be broadcasted live on the major US networks. BMG provided senior producer/line producer Driss Sakat, Broadcast Director Todd Mason, and Assistant Directors Justin O’Neil and Brian Sasser as part of Goldston’s producing team. BMG provided all technical staff, including the Technical Director, Prompter, Playback, Xpression Graphics, A-1 and engineering staff, and all of the technical infrastructure, including backup systems. On-site at the Cannon House Office Building (hearings location), BMG had its Senior Producer/Line producer, Director and ADs for tape and graphics. Here are the locations for the other technical staff members:
– Chicago: Xpression Graphic Operator
– New York City: A-1
– Las Vegas Broadcast Operations Center: Technical Director, Playback, Prompting and Engineer in Charge
The network pool provided 7 broadcast cameras in the Washington, DC, hearing room that each pool member network received at their control rooms. These were, for the most part, located in New York. BMG provided the “Multimedia Feed”, which was all the supporting content which included video playback and graphics. BMG utilized 4 channels of its Tria playback system and 4 channels of Xpression. BMG’s Director had a key with all the network directors and producers on his RTS panel so they could hear him call all the elements supporting the hearings. Each network would cut its version of its broadcast. All the pool member networks could talk back with the BMG Director while the non-pool member media could listen only. BMG had a stage manager with the Committee members and in the witness room who the Director would queue when participants should enter the hearing room at the start of the broadcast and after the recess. BMG’s Director provided coordination with all pool member networks related to each broadcast.
