Chyron Chat

Chyron’s Creative Services Group has been in existence for only three years, but the group of four design professionals is earning a reputation as the go-to place for television graphics design when deadlines are closing in. “Sometimes we are driven by crisis,” said Selena Cohen, head of the Chyron Group. “We come into our own then.”

Chyron is a veteran creator of broadcast graphics systems and software, as well as a relatively new networked system called AXIS, which is a cloud-based graphics offering. But for some of Chyron’s customers, buying new gear doesn’t mean they have the trained talent on staff to build complex graphic designs.

Some television stations these days might not even have an art department at all. That’s where Creative Services comes in. It helps Chyron customers facing a fast-approaching deadline to produce a graphics package for news, sports, elections or entertainment shows.

“We have about 15 graphics packages that are turnkey,” Cohen said. “Stations can pick what they like. We can then have it ready in a week for them to go on air.  And it’s incredibly cheap.

“What a lot of television stations don’t realize is if they go to a design company and say come up with a new look, that design company gives them photo files,” she continued. “They don’t give them the graphics in a form that can go to air. The station has to hire someone else to create the templates for air. We have that pre-packaged. We are a one-stop shop. Stations can save anywhere from 20% to 60% using us. A lot of people just don’t budget for it.”

Just a couple of weeks ago, Cohen and another designer trained four employees of Raycom Media at Chyron’s headquarters in Melville, N.Y. One of the nation’s largest broadcast groups, Raycom purchased Chyron BlueNet graphics workflow products for all 31 of its news-producing stations. Each station is getting a two dual-channel LEX3.1 graphics system with Lyric Pro 8 software, a CAMIO server and iSQ remote monitoring and playout applications.

However, Raycom’s four employees had no experience with Chyron equipment and needed to produce some graphics quickly for the station group. Rather than traditional training, which is provided by another Chyron department, Raycom hired Creative Services to both train and create the graphics simultaneously.

The Raycom team knew what they wanted. But their designs were on several different formats from legacy graphics gear used at Raycom stations. None of Raycom’s staff were familiar with Chyron gear. In only four days, the Chyron team not only trained the four employees but produced 28 ready-to-air templates for Raycom.

“This number of graphics in only four days is an absolute record for us,” said Cohen. “They were an amazing group and it’s a credit to them.”

David Folsom, Raycom’s chief technology officer, convinced management to standardize all the group’s graphics systems to Chyron from a diverse group of other brands. He said rather than just trying to reuse the earlier graphics with the new systems, the company decided to try to create some new graphics during the training.

One of the attributes of Chyron’s Lyric 8 software, he said, is the ability to import certain elements of templates from other graphics systems. That capability saved a lot of time, he said.

“Everybody was thrilled with the results,” Folsom said. “We were hoping they would learn to operate the software in the week they were there. They did a good job of that, though there’s much more to learn.

“But they actually ended up with an end product we are going to be able to use. That was the big surprise — to have an end product that was useful as opposed to an end product that would be used as a learning tool.”

Another project Cohen remembers vividly was for the YES Network, the broadcast arm of the New York Yankees. YES already had Chyron gear, but needed quick help implementing a new graphics package designed by others.

“They had a brilliant design but at the last moment — two weeks before air — their person pulled out,” Cohen said. “They came to us and said we need help. For two weeks, there were two of us pretty much working full time on it.”

On a job that normally would take months, the Creative Services team made the 2010 season broadcast deadline for YES in those two weeks. “The turn-around time was remarkable, and there was absolutely no compromise in quality,” said Ed Delaney, vice president of the YES Network.

Creative Services did election graphics packages in 2008 and 2010 for Waterman Broadcasting in Fort Myers, Fla. (DMA 65), where the group owns WBBH, the NBC affiliate, and operates WZVN, the ABC affiliate. Between the two stations, Waterman produces 11 ½  hours of news programming each day.

Bob Hannon, Waterman’s director of production, had nothing but praise for Chyron’s Creative Services staff, who he said were incredibly efficient and very cost effective.

“It all went very smoothly,” Hannon said. “As usual with Chyron, one phone call got me the right person. The software enhancements between elections were done quickly. The thing about Chyron is they stand behind their product. It’s not like some companies where you pay a fee and are told they will get back to you in 24 hours. When I call I get a human being the first time.”

Creative Services is now a diverse international operation. Its election package was used two weeks ago in South Africa, where it sent a team of workers to assist. In April, it did graphics for NRK, the public broadcaster in Norway. Earlier, it did the graphics display work for the new Cowboys Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

Hannon said he became a true believer in Chyron on Christmas Eve 2009. “I had an equipment failure during the 11 p.m. news on Christmas Eve. I called Chyron after midnight,” he recalled. “Even though it was early Christmas morning, I got a call back in 15 minutes.  I had the solution the day after Christmas. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”