“Last week, news anchors and producers at Barrington Broadcasting Group’s WFXL Albany, Ga., replaced their paper scripts with electronic versions displayed on the iPad,” Greenwald reports. “‘By using the iPad, we’re saving hundreds of thousands of sheets of paper annually,’ says News Director Terry Graham, who also anchors the news at 6:30 and 10 p.m. at the Fox affiliate. ‘Our projected savings per month are $800, or about $9,600 per year.’ That easily covers the cost of the initial six entry-level iPads, which retail for $499.”
“Newscast scripts are composed as usual. But rather than printing to paper, the final version is formatted as a PDF file and transmitted to each iPad via e-mail,” Greenwald reports. “The PDF translation is handled by iAnnotate by Aji.LLC, a $7 program sold and downloaded via Apple’s App Store.”
Greenwald reports, “Based upon savings in paper alone, Graham says he’ll probably be purchasing more iPads. And he says he expects that once it confirms the savings, Barrington will encourage other stations in its portfolio to put them to work on their anchor desks.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s iPad could end up causing more CO2 offsetting than all of the environmental groups, summits, speeches, and legislative schemes combined.
[Via. 9 to 5 Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
lurker – Wow. It will pay for itself in paper savings alone in about 4 months. One question though: Was the iPad designed to withstand constant exposure to hot air?
Since it’s the local news dept. of an upstate NY affiliate, I don’t think hot air will be much of a problem.
Whoops, Albany, GA.
@lurker,
%Breeze
I just skip over R2’s posts. He is generally just a big PITA. We need an ignore jerks at MDN like they have at MacRumors. Sure nice there without the political crap you get here.
“It’s funny because when that happens, air travel is grounded.”
That was a fluke this time.
I doubt they will do it again unless the cloud is much closer/denser.
I’m not saying they were wrong or over-reacted, just that the consequences were staggering.
Now if Final Draft could put together a version for iPad, they could easily eliminate the conversion to PDF. Even if it is only a .FDR document, it would help.
Pages is really not the tool for writing scripts (nor is MS Word, or any other ordinary word processor). They (likely) use Final Draft, MovieMagic Screenwriter or similar.
@ occams razor
Apple are doing their part to help you. They told one guy who had purchased 44 iPad’s (two at a time) that he had “purchased his lifetime supply” of iPads. Cut him off. Appeared on a Windoze fanboyz site and the comments went on and on about the evils of Apple. The fact that someone would want 44 iPads went entirely over their heads.
CO2 offsetting? What from? News Anchor reads from iPad = News Anchor reads from printout = News Anchor reads from tele-prompter.
Same CO2 output from the News Anchor no matter what he reads from.
@lurker
Depends upon how much this administration will be making news!
And sadly, they will….
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@Big Als MBP
There will be an offset… less paper means more trees to take all that CO2 being spout by the blowhards of the press and the increase in trees will convert all that CO2 and produce more oxygen which is needed, so that this Administration will have to breathe, as those blowhards continue to…
Well Big Al, maybe you are right!
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@ TowerTone
“That was a fluke this time. I doubt they will do it again unless the cloud is much closer/denser.”
Uh… okay. So does that mean the volcano is somehow more damaging? The air traffic in one region can out-carbon a measly volcano almost 3 times over per day. Air traffic happens ever single day.
When was the last big eruption? (Keep in mind a Washingtonian’s standards for
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Don’t blame the volcano for our dirtiness.
“Don’t blame the volcano for our dirtiness.”
I didn’t. Actually, it was a joke.
But if the added benefit of a volcano is less air traffic, I think they will not be so restrictive next time, and it will just be added CO2, not a net loss.
Then, for whatever reason, a plane will crash, and the ones who were too overprotective this time will be blamed as uncaring.
@ TowerTone
“I didn’t. Actually, it was a joke.”
Ditto.
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“Then, for whatever reason, a plane will crash, and the ones who were too overprotective this time will be blamed as uncaring.”
…and on this we completely agree.
Apple is still flying assembled stuff from China and the parts are sourced from all over. The manufacturing and distribution carbon footprint is huge.
As to the Faux station, if it bleeds it leads is just a little more enviro-friendly. It’s still NewzCrap affiliated.
Posted from my iPad 64GB
I hope they’re not using this with reporters in the field because they will have a hard time reading the scripts in the sun.
I guess I’m saying Fox News belongs where the sun don’t shine… so they can read their iPads!
I would tell Gates & Ballmer to go back to Whore Island. Smelly Pirate Hookers.
@Derek in Milan
Paper can’t be recycled endlessly, einstein.
First reason not to get one …
Apple, saving trees and landfills everywhere.
Basically, any time you have a clipboard or a stack of paper sheets in your business work flow, it can be replaced with an iPad. For example, no need to print and maintain rows of bookcases with paper manuals and references, just have the manual users use an iPad instead; the manuals will be searchable and updatable without reprinting, yet still convenient to carry around and use like a paper manual (but probably weigh less than some huge three-ring binder). And two users can check out the “same manual from the bookcase” at the same time.
Bureaucracies around the world will thank Apple for making work a bit more fun.
MadMarc
This is not FoxNews, the cable news channel.
It is a local Fox affiliate’s local news.
Way to be informed….
This would be very cool with ENPS, unfortunately the ENPS client is ActiveX based.
Damn you M$.
So the Fourth Reich is interested in advanced technology too?
I am already using my iPads (sic) to save paper. Reading PDF is great. Even Word files, graphics, etc.
Lets SAVE THE EARTH! Stop wasting paper!