 Q:
Lets start with the basics, how about a little background on yourself
and your company?
In 1981 I purchased an Apple computer and began messing around
with it and programming it to write text and then convert it instantly
into very large fonts that I could make scroll up the screen. As
a Director of Operations for a Wisconsin TV station, I saw an immediate
application and went out and built a computerized prompting system.
Obviously, once we could write scripts, the next step was adding
a show stacking function then automation and so on and so on. We
had our first ENR Electronic NewsRoom system in place by August
of 1982 and began marketing at the NAB show in 1983.
Q: Who was your competition then?
When we first started I wasn’t aware of any competition, but
then soon, I met Pete Kolstad of Basys, Dave Cunningham (of what
was soon to become NewStar) and Marvin McInnis of McInnis-Skinner
and a few others who started just before I did. We all got to know
each other and made it a point for a number of years to get together
at shows to bend each others ears and elbows. I miss those days!
I believe that now I am the only founder still in control of his
own company.
In the last several years, a series of failures, buyouts and mergers
has taken around a dozen competitors down to about 5 viable systems.
From a marketing standpoint this dramatically changes the playing
field while, from a purchasers viewpoint, this severely limits their
options.
Q: Why hasn’t Comprompter been involved in a merger or buyout?
Oh, we’ve had opportunities … I guess that’s the
word … but we just haven’t wanted to be in the situation
where we are the tail to someone else’s dog. As an independent,
we are able to concentrate on our client’s needs rather than
having to fit into some corporate goal. However, good business sense
says that, if a good company came along, we would be foolish not
to take a look at a reasonable offer.
Q: What are your main products now.
We are now competing with conglomerate companies whose primary business
is not newsroom automation, but rather news dissemination, digital
video or some such. I presume their idea is that owning their own
newsroom company enhances their sales in these hardware or news
service areas. As a self-owned company whose only business is newsroom
automation, Comprompter must focus even harder on our market segment
so that we are answering newsroom needs in a practical and cost-effective
manner.
We are continuing to develop and support our current DOS 7 based
Windows compliant ENR software. While at the same time we are developing
our NewsKing for Windows on an NT platform to take advantage of
all the innovations and commonality of other digital developers
who are working on the same operating system.
Our ENR software runs on any Windows platform that allows our
users to realize the potential of coupling scripts with audio and
video files both locally or via the Internet. NewsKing is using
this potential to capture video feeds and log them into the SQL
database making them instantly available for reporters and producers
to preview and trim the “start” and “end” times
directly, without using specialized video editing software. Coupled
with NT compatible non-linear editors working out of the same database
or linking that software database to ours, NewsKing will always
track and know which clips are where, how long they run and who
touched them last.
Q: How do you assess the future of the newsroom/automation marketplace?
Newsroom computers will increasingly become a part of a larger network
of digital devices. Newsroom staff will interact through their computers
with an increasing number of other devices: character generators,
Captioners, switchers, non-linear audio and video servers. Newsrooms
will gather and transmit information through a wider array of input/output
sources: Internet sites, direct connect via Internet tunnels, Local
Area Networks (LANS) and Wide Area Networks (WANS), data casting
and web casting. In short, more work will be done by software designed
to keep in closer contact with the news, to quickly manipulate the
information and materials into a presentable form and distribute
it to sources of immediate or timed dissemination.
Comprompter is entering our 18th year of success based upon creating
software that does what our clients want to do, then supporting
them while they are doing it. I have every intention of continuing
this tradition another 18 years!
Q: Any Final thoughts?
Yes - each year I feel a little bit more like Davey fighting Goliath
as bigger companies keep gobbling up the smaller ones. Yet last
year was our most successful ever. The challenge we must meet is
helping the Stations and Group Owners see Comprompter as a partner
in their news production … and not just another vendor who
wants to sell them a newsroom system.
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