Dejero has provided San Diego TV station KFMB-TV, also known as CBS 8, with over 60 Dejero LivePlus mobile apps to support the broadcaster’s emergency news coverage strategy. The LivePlus app, which is downloadable to smartphones and tablets, has allowed KFMB-TV to deliver incredible live footage from the recent Black Lives Matter rallies, inside of San Diego’s recent wildfires, and to respond with agility to the broadcasting challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“We deliver seven hours of live news every day, and before our team members started using the Dejero mobile app, we were relying on 11 of Dejero’s sturdy EnGo mobile transmitters to get high quality live shots from our remote crews in the field,” explained Kenny McGregor, chief photojournalist at KFMB-TV CBS 8.
“San Diego is a large city and our field crews (and EnGo units) can’t be everywhere at once, so we issued Dejero’s LivePlus mobile app to all of our news and weather reporters, photojournalists, as well as producers, so that they could go live with a high quality broadcast from virtually anywhere within seconds, without having to rely on the arrival of a full ENG crew. The app has revolutionized our news coverage.”
Both the Dejero EnGo and LivePlus app use Dejero’s Smart Blending Technology to reliably deliver exceptional picture quality with low latency by simultaneously aggregating wired (broadband, fiber) and wireless (3G/4G/5G, Wi-Fi, satellite) IP connections together from multiple providers to form a virtual ‘network of networks’. The Dejero network delivers enhanced reliability, expanded coverage, and greater bandwidth.
The Dejero LivePlus mobile app, available for both iOS and Android devices, also helps mobile journalists to be less intrusive when capturing an unfolding news scene and enables them to move more easily with the story, as well as adding multiple viewpoints to live events. Earlier this month, McGregor used the mobile app to capture unfolding events, up close, during the Black Lives Matter rallies in San Diego.
“The app has saved us resources, budget and most importantly, has meant our news people can capture broadcast quality live shots on the go, get closer to the action and be first to deliver unfolding news to TV and online audiences,” said McGregor. “Plus, when the COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ was enforced, our reporters and video contributors were already equipped to be able to broadcast live from home using the app.”
In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dejero mobile app was also used by KFMB-TV to report the movement of cruise ship passengers quarantining at local military bases. Using a simple mobile phone as a camera, mounted magnetically onto a car dashboard, reporters could follow buses from military bases back to the airport, and transmit video live using the Dejero LivePlus mobile app, which would have previously been impossible using just microwave signals.
Similarly, during the San Diego wildfires in October 2019, McGregor himself was able to report from inside the fire zone using just his cell phone and the Dejero app, beating all other news channel crews to the scene and delivering unique insights and live updates to its viewers.
The LivePlus app also gives KFMB-TV an advantage in terms of how the broadcaster engages with its audience, by enabling the team to produce more high quality content for its extensive online presence, as well as for streaming on its website and to video platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. Using the app, reporters can provide invested viewers with live coverage on the way to a news scene and create anticipation on the go over a mobile phone, without any equipment limitations.
“The Dejero LivePlus mobile app has transformed the way we capture live news and we commend them as a company on their second-to-none customer service and genuine desire to provide us with reliable connectivity and the tools we need to go live from anywhere,” concluded McGregor.
