The staff of the Engineering department keeps the television station on the air and the station’s physical property
in good shape. Rapidly evolving technology has compressed the workforce in this area, making multi-tasking
more essential and some jobs obsolete.
Head of this department is the director of broadcast operations and engineering (BO&E), who could also be
called chief engineer. This is a hybrid position that’s half technical, half personnel management, overseeing — in
the words of one BO&E director – “everything from the toilet paper to the tower.”
BO&E heads figure out what new equipment the station needs to keep competitive and work the angles to get the
best deals. While a number of news departments are still video-tape based, most are converting to non-linear,
server-based technologies. Digital technology is replacing analog, but stations still need to deal with video’s
legacy: all the information still physically stored in this format versus compressed computer files.