MILWAUKEE, Wisc.—With the 2024 Presidential Election shaping up to be one of the most expensive and hotly contested races in history, Fox News (FNC) is pulling out all stops for its coverage of the first Republican President Debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Wednesday August 23, with plans to have 310 people on site and to deploy of a host of new technologies.
Technology for the coverage included building an innovative new set, plans to use drones in its pre- and post-coverage, setting up 500 screens on site for the production, and the deployment of several miles of fiber to produce and distribute content from over a dozen live shows before and after its live coverage of the debate. NEP’s Supershooter 6 IP-based mobile unit and ST6 support unit will serve as an engineering hub.
FNC’s tech efforts will also be aided by the fact that it is using most of the Milwaukee Buck’s relatively new Fiserv Arena and campus, which offers advanced connectivity for the production. The area will provide space not only for the debate, but also for spin room and a newsroom for journalists work.
“I don’t want to compare this to the Super Bowl, but you can compare it to the scale of the effort we put into large scale sporting events,” said senior vice president of field and production operations, Scott Wilder in a lengthy interview with TV Tech. “This is the first debate. It is an event that is really important to the entire country. People are talking about it and will be talking about it. We want to highlight the discussion in general with our coverage of the debate and use the worlds of technology and creativity to tell that story and show people what’s happening in the arena and around Milwaukee.”
To capture the scale of the event, FNC is using drones in its pre-debate coverage. The drones will not fly during the debate.
Wilder noted that FNC and the Fox-owned stations have long had an extensive and award-winning drone program. But for the debate they wanted to provide a first person view flying perspective from the drones, which is something their own unit doesn’t do.
So FNC will also be teaming up with Beverly Hills Aerial, an FPV drone company, that will fly both outdoors in the Deer District surrounding Fiserv Forum and inside the debate hall in their pre-debate coverage.
“The Beverly Hills aerial vendor that we're partnering with builds their own drones and proprietary technology for this,” he said, which will allow them to swoop in and around the arena to provide a sense of scale and to give a wider view of Milwaukee.
“As you know, with anything drone related, it's a lot of choreography, a lot of planning, there are a lot of rules and we're really really careful and make sure we follow all of them, as we are doing live TV and have drones flying across the plaza and out of one building into another,” Wilder explained.
An early video of the pre-debate coverage using drones is available here. An example of the work Beverly Hills Aerial has done with Fox Sports can be found here.
Another notable part of their production effort was the creation and design of a new 60 foot-long set that is designed to be used for this debate and at upcoming events.
The set was designed by Jack Morton and constructed by Mystic Scenic Studios, Wilder said.
“Concept of our set in general was to have it used in multiple locations, for multiple debates and to be used for town halls and other events,” Wilder said, which created a number of challenges.
“It has to be not only visual and pretty, it has to be television ready and capable of being easily taken apart and moved to a different space or even put outdoors,” he said, adding that the final results were both very visual and practical in terms of its mobility.
In terms of the debate, Wilder noted that the NEP unit “has nine cameras associated with it. There will be several cameras focused on the candidates. We have two cameras focused on our moderators. And then of course some some jibs, a high wide and we also have a steady cam.”
One of the most notable features for viewers and candidates will be an LED screen that will display a clock to countdown the time each candidate has to answer questions. That screen will switch from green to yellow to red based on remaining time.
“The candidate has a certain amount of time to answer and they need the warning both when they need to start wrapping up their answer,” Wilder said. “So it goes from countdown clocks to color-coding monitors that are in all of their view, to eventually an audible alert, a chime of some sort to notify them it is time for them to stop speaking.”
That screen will also be used as a video screen for candidates to see questions being asked by the Young Americans Foundation (YAF) students and will serve as a visual set element when not being used for the other purposes.
For the coverage before, during and after the debate, FCN is using NEP trucks as an engineering hub.
NEP’s Supershooter 6, an IP-based mobile unit capable of 1080p, HDR or 4K, and its support unit, ST6. will both be at the arena.
The Supershooter 6 equipment includes Grass Valley Kayenne X-Frame switcher, Adam Intercom System, Sony cameras (HDC3500, HDC5500 and HDC1500R models), Canon lenses, NEP TFC IP Router, Calrec Apollo 64 Faders, Bluefin 2 High Density Signal Processing Module, a variety of EVS products for record and playback and other equipment.
Overall, this tech setup will handle four days of programming originating from Milwaukee:
Monday, August 21st
3 PM/ET – The Story
6 PM/ET – Special Report
Tuesday, August 22nd
3 PM/ET – The Story
6 PM/ET – Special Report
Wednesday, August 23rd
6-9 AM/ET – Fox & Friends
9-11 AM/ET – America’s Newsroom
3 PM/ET – The Story
5 PM/ET – The Five
6 PM/ET – Special Report
8:30-9 PM/ET – Countdown to the Debate
9-11 PM/ET – First Republican Presidential Primary Debate
11 PM-12 AM/ET – Hannity
Thursday, August 24th
6-9 AM/ET – Fox & Friends
9-11 AM/ET – America’s Newsroom
Fox Business Network will simulcast FNC’s special live coverage while Fox News Digital will offer nonstop coverage on the FOXNews.com homepage with a continuously updated live blog. Fox News Audio will provide multi-platform coverage featuring hourly updates and breaking news coverage of the debate.
