5 September 2012 (svgeurope.org and presspool.it copyrights)
Born 32 years ago, in 1980 and completely planted in the roots of Tuscany province of Massa Carrara, world renowned for marbles, Antenna 3 has finally joined the digital terrestrial Italian landscape. Actually, and after a “long and winding road” of digital channels allowed to more than one tv station -a not too rare situation here- they are finally experimenting broadcasts on a brand new channel, Banda III, Channel 7.
Carlo Andrea Lazzoni, is the founder and director of such provincial-subregional channel which is completely devoted to local news and sports. Despite the difficult situation due to the Italian switch over to digital broadcasts which created an incredible earthquake in the Italian tv world he is approaching the launch of an interesting all-sports channel especially devoted to young people and kids.
Antenna 3 is a many-provincial tv, overspilling on LaSpezia and Lucca provinces, covering also well known holiday resorts like Lunigiana and Zeri, almost entirely dedicated to local news and current affairs. They've have always made extensive use of live coverage, external troupes and small ob-vans, producing some 8 hours of fresh programs per day repeated on 3 slots of 8 hours.
The areas covered, 92% of the mentioned provinces, involve some 203 thousand regular spectators and around 70% of them are attracted especially for local news.
In the main building are located all editorial and technical offices, plus a couple of shooting theaters
one of 500 mq divided in four sets and another smaller one, all covered with ten Ikegami remote controlled cameras.
A second external editorial office is placed in Carrara, linked via microwaves, with proper editing suites, a small studio for shooting and live airing equipments.
18 professionals plus freelancers work here and a new editorial office is being created in Lunigiana, since it is 50 minutes by car away from Massa.
All editing and video managing is on file and video servers by Movejay equipments, and control room is based on Newtek video mixers. Several cameras of different manufacturers are used on eng on field and Adobe premiere is the editing software chosen on six editing stations.
All files are AVI and broadcast is now in SD even if all 14 high frequency sites by Screen Service are ready for T2 and HD.
From the present headquarter in via Degli Oliveti 36 Massa (Massa-Carrara) the station is now broadcasting a 4 channel mux with “Antenna 3” on Channel 99, “Tua” on 641, “3Rewind” on 288 and forthcoming “3Kids&Sports” bound to begin broadcasts in October 2012.
3Kids & Sports is the real novelty, since it is completely devoted to local sports with a new formula:
through CONI, Italian National Olympic Committee, Antenna 3 is involving all sports communities and clubs in the area “giving them space and tv visibility in exchange to materials”.
Carlo Andrea Lazzoni explains us: “We are giving each club a JVC 5200 camera, a microphone, a tripod and even some audiovisual training. So their young personnel -which is already on site on Sundays to follow the sports events- happily become reporters and commentators. They shoot full HD sports images from every venue, make a spoken comment on the mike and send us all files for final refinement and broadcast on the new sports channel. So we are all happy with fresh news, comments, in deep analysis, and we are also saving on sending proper tv troupes on sports fields, covering practically everything, from soccer to … table tennis”.
