Case Study
NBC News

simultaneous interpreters and translators for live TV news broadcast

How iProbe's translation services help with live TV news broadcast.


For the past ten plus years, iProbe has supported Assignment Editors and News Gathering departments involved in news coverage aspects for several of NBC News' platforms such as TODAY SHOW, WEEKEND TODAY, NIGHTLY NEWS, WEEKEND NIGHTLY NEWS, MSNBC, NBCNews.com, NBC News Affiliate Relations, NBC News Channel, etc.

Italian

when NBC News needed Italian into English on-air interpreting during the Papal conclave of 2005 after the passing of Pope John Paul II in 2005, their assignment desk turned to iProbe to supply the interpreter for day shifts and nightshifts April 18-20, 2005.

Bengali

during the July 1-2, 2016 hostage crisis in Dhaka, Bangladesh, NBC News reached out to iProbe with an immediate need for a Bengali translator to dial into an IFB line, listen to Reuters feed and provide NBC News bullet points on the latest developments.

over the course of the evening into the morning hours, iProbe deployed two Bengali translators to work onsite at NBC's Manhattan headquarters. During the first shift, the translators listened to a remote feed and translated the gist of what was being by speaking into a headset microphone while a person in the control room listened to their translation. The events were being covered live by the Bengali ATN network in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This particular broadcast was a cycle of repetitive announcements by reporters that nothing was confirmed and they can only report the bits and pieces they gather from police talks, friends and relatives of the hostages gathered in the crowd and what reporters from other channels were saying. There were several interruptions in satellite connection, and at some point there was a long interruption of the remote feed. The hostage situation had ended, but the live coverage was still on, waiting for the news conference. The hostage situation had ended, but the live coverage was still on, waiting for the news conference.

the studio decided that one of the translators would come back at 5:30 AM to provide translation for the press conference. As there ended up being no live feed till 7:00 AM, the translator was instead tasked to transcribe/translate from Bengali into English a pre-recorded news conference which had taken place around 3:30 AM. The transcript was completed just after 8:30 AM.

view our work for MSNBC

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