T356 Fall 2007 - Week 10

Readings:

• Cybercollege.com units 66 & 67.
• Zettl chapter 19.2 and 20.

Agenda

• Legal matters
• Shares and Ratings
• Look at examples of Final Projects

Announcements / Reality Check

• Final Project proposals and pitches due in lab next week.
• Next week you'll be carrying out the dramatic scenes.
• Lab this week: Produce PSAs. BE SURE TO INPUT YOUR GRAPHICS BEFORE YOUR LAB TIME! Dramatic scenes the following two weeks.
• Next week: Budget, Planning, EFP and ENG

Legal Issues (cont.)

In terms of the law, news & entertainment programming are viewed differently and afforded different restrictions.

For instance in shooting news, if a popular song happens to be playing on someone's radio while giving a soundbite, or if a copyrighted piece of artwork is visible in the background of a shot, chances are very slim that legal action will be taken.

However if one were producing a piece of entertainment and didn't clear the rights to use the music or image, they'd be open to a couple of lawsuits.

As producers, videographers, or editors, it's important to understand the basics of law as it pertains to TV.

Anyone seriously interested in production should consider taking Steve Krahnke's Production Management class. He covers legal issues along with other information all producers should know.

Privacy - everyone is entitled to this. However those in the public spotlight are given less protection.

Intrusion - Varying limits on the level you can intrude into a person's privacy.

Access - Generally shooting  on public property is OK. Private property for news is another matter.

Commercial appropriation - It is NOT OK to use someone else's likeness to further your own cause.

Staging - Can't "stage" or reennact events unrealistically for news or documentary purposes. Be careful with using comparable footage as well.

Fair Use - Allows existing intellectual property to be used in teaching, news and other applciations. (Not well defined)

Shield Laws - Protecting sources. States offer differing protection than the Feds.

Defamation (libel & slander) - Presenting content that lowers the public's estimation of a person. Negligence (not bothering to check facts).

Public Domain - Copyright has expired.

Legal contracts:

There are three types of legal contracts you should be familiar with:

• Model Releases
• Location Releases
• License Agreements (Performance, mechanical & synchronization rights)

Model/Talent Releases: These agreements outline the conditions of which the talent will appear in a program.

Location Releases: These agreements outline the conditions of which a certain locations is used in a program.

License Agreements provide for the limited use of someone else's copyrighted material (known as intellectual property). Anything that has been created, written, composed etc is covered and protected by Federal copyright law. Music is usually the easiest thing to procure a clearance for (most TV & radio stations have blanket licenses). Prints, photos, paintings & other visual items are much trickier.

You must be very careful with what you have as a backdrop behind an interview or on a set. Avoid any identifiable artwork or commercial logos.

• Performance rights are necessary to broadcast or perform the work publicly. Broadcasters also need to obtain Performance Rights, since they are publicly transmitting the material. pay BMI & ASCAP in order to broadcast existing music.
• Mechanical rights define the terms a work may be used in an audio-only product, such as CDs.
• Synchronization (Synch)rights are used to define how a work can be used in a soundtrack to a video or film. These are licensed to the producer of the film or program.

E & O Insurance - Errors and Ommissions insurance is a sort of "catch-all" type of insurance that protects you against many unforeseeable issues. All producers responsible for end-use content and programming should have this.

Audience Ratings: KNOW HOW TO CALCULATE Ratings and Shares!

Companies like Nielsen and Arbitron calculate TV and radio ratings for a fee. For TV ratings, you need to know the total number of TV Households, the number of Households using TV (HUT), and the number of TVs tuned in to your station. (This is what Nielsen tracks for a fee.) Two important measures are ratings and shares.  Ratings are calculated out of the total number of TV households. Shares are calculated out of the number of households using TVs. Since the number of households actually using TV will always be smaller than the total number of TV households, a program's share will always be higher than its rating.

Rating: The percentage of TV households tuned in to your station divided by the total number of TV households

Displayed in points with no decimal point.

So given:

75 households tuned in
__________________ = .15 or 15 rating points
500 total TV households

(In other words 75 / 500 = .15)

Share: The percentage of TV households tuned in to your station divided by the total number of households using TV (HUT)

Displayed in points with no decimal point.

So given:

75 households tuned in
____________________________ = .375 or 38 rating points
200 all households using TV (HUT)

(75 / 200 = .375)

Remember that for the same show, a share will always be bigger than a rating. This is because the share is taken out of HUT not the total TV households.

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Review Audience Ratings: Calculating Ratings and Shares:

Rating: The percentage of TV households tuned in to your station divided by the total number of TV households

Displayed in points with no decimal point.

So given:

100 households tuned in
__________________ = .20 or 20 rating points
500 total TV households

(In other words 100 / 500 = .20)

Share: The percentage of TV households tuned in to your station divided by the total number of households using TV (HUT)

Displayed in points with no decimal point.

So given:

100 households tuned in
____________________________ = .50 or 50 rating points
200 all households using TV (HUT)

(100 / 200 = .50)

 

 

 

 

 

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