NBC News will begin broadcasting Oct. 22 from two newly renovated studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza as part of the integration of NBC News and MSNBC into a combined operation under one roof, the network announced last week.
The new NBC News world headquarters (slide show) will be home to the operation’s newsroom and house the editorial and production staffs of nearly all NBC News and MSNBC programs, the news desks of NBC News, NBC News Specials unit and the East Coast MSNBC.com editorial operation.
More than 200mi of cable pulled and the installation of 280 HD monitors and six HD projectors. When completed in 2008, the new headquarters will also be home to “Dateline NBC,” Peacock Productions, NBC News educational initiatives, NBC News Radio and NBC News2Go.
NBC News also announced plans to build an HD news content center and TV production facility in Los Angeles to house the NBC News Los Angeles bureau. It will be modeled after the new world headquarters.
NBC (GE), in its joint venture with News Corp., agreed that Hulu would be the exclusive online video provider of both companies’ content. Hulu will then syndicate the material to other sites, including AOL, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo — but not (at least not yet) YouTube. News Corporation and NBC Universal launched their giant Internet video distribution network this spring.
In January 2007, there were 123 million unique video streamers and downloaders (comScore Video Metrix). In 2005, video streams totaled nearly 18 billion, and that amount is expected to triple by 2010 (AccuStream iMedia Research, 2006). And research firm eMarketer estimates $410 million was spent on online video advertising in 2006, an amount that is expected to almost double this year.
