Welcome to The Fitz Feed, or should I say Le Fitz Feed since it's Paris. Longtime KCRA 3 and Olympic watchers may remember that I ran an Olympic blog called “Deirdre's Diary” at various times during the Olympics. I started with the Sydney Olympics in 2000. In fact, I was blogging before blogging was a thing. Paris was Hearst Television's 11th Olympics. I felt it was time for a refresh. But TV people love alliteration, so I switched from D to F and settled on The Fitz Feed. Back in the day, the Olympic blog was the perfect place to put content that didn't air on TV. That was before social media. So this is where you get the story behind our stories. These are stories that usually require you to buy me a drink. These are stories about how we actually make TV. Spoiler alert: it's often not very pretty, but it's usually funny. The first day for the Olympic team is promotion day. Hearst TV owns about 30 TV stations. We have a crew of 10 people who do what we call “group coverage.” We take all the content from all the stations and broadcast it live on each station. You'll see me in Sacramento introducing California athletes. You'll see me on TV in Baltimore, Boston, Orlando, and Albuquerque. On promo days, we record lines that become commercials to promote the coverage of these stations. To have a successful promo day, you need three things: good weather (it rained today); an iconic location (it's Paris, after all); and a clear mind to get the lines right in a short amount of time (which isn't really possible when you're in the middle of jet lag and Olympic jitters). But we did it. What I said makes perfect sense, so you can cross “promo day” off your Olympic to-do list. Check out the video above to find out what we did.
Welcome to The Fitz Feed, or should I say Le Fitz Feed since we're in Paris?
Long-time KCRA 3 and Olympic viewers may remember that I ran an Olympic blog called “Deirdre's Diary” during every Olympic Games.
It started with the Sydney Olympics in 2000. In fact, I was blogging before blogging was a thing – Paris was Hearst Television's 11th Olympics – and it felt like it was time for a refresh.
But TV people love alliteration, so we moved from D to F and settled on The Fitz Feed.
Back in the day, Olympic blogs were a great place to post content that wasn't airing on TV. This was before social media.
So this will be the place to find out the story. behind These are some of our stories. These are stories that you usually only get to hear if you buy me a drink. These are stories about how we actually make a TV show. Spoiler alert: they're not very pretty stories, but they're usually funny.
The first day for the Olympic team is a promotional day. Hearst TV owns about 30 TV stations. We have 10 people who do what we call “group coverage.” We bring together the content from all the stations and broadcast it live on each station.
You'll see me in Sacramento introducing California athletes, and people in Baltimore, Boston, Orlando and Albuquerque will see me on TV.
On promotional days, you record lines that will become commercials to promote the station's broadcast.
A successful promotional day requires three elements:
Good weather (it was raining today), an iconic location (it is Paris after all), and the ability to think clearly enough to get your lines right in a short space of time (which just doesn't happen when you're jet-lagged and wrapped up in Olympic jitters).
But we did it, and what I said makes perfect sense, so I'm going to cross “promotion day” off my Olympic to-do list.
Check out the video above to see what we did.
