Tonight on Fox31: Georgia TV station buys iPads for news anchors

Our news anchors have been using laptops for the past few years to reduce paper use. It doesn't have to be an iPad. Just use an existing laptop.

As a news anchor and former producer, I can tell you we go through almost two reams of paper just for the morning newscast, not to mention the noon, 5, 6, and 10 pm broadcasts as well.

Of course, the morning show is two hours long, but you're looking at 8 rundowns (sortof a table of contents of the show, each 2-hour show's rundown is 6 pages) and show scripts. Show scripts typically run about 225 sheets of paper for the whole morning newscast, and that's to three different people (two anchors, director).

So...that's 723 sheets of paper for ONE newscast.

I'd say we go through about 5 reams of paper a day...and that's JUST by printing out show-related things.

Paper scripts are mostly safety nets in case the promptr goes whack. This is a back-handed greening. TV just wants to look modern. It's not like paper couldn't have been replaced with built-in monitors scrolling the promptr feed before now.

To me this sounds more like a combination of trying to increase viewership by appearing trendy and buying themselves some fun new toys to play with. The paper saving angle is a PR spin to appear more economical and "green".

Nothing new... here in Mexico the guy from Hechos (News Program) in TVAzteca had one since the very first days of the iPad.

Hooray for Georgia!
Sorry, just felt like saying that. Anywho, I swung by a Best Buy in Marietta and tried an iPad out. Let's just say that I'll be getting one very soon.

OK, I love the iPad as much as anyone but let's try the math another way. For the $499 cost of an iPad you can buy 13 cases of paper at Staples. I'm taking retail her, not the contract prices that an office could buy it for. That's 65,000 sheets of paper. If each iPad is fully used for two years, 365 days a year, then each anchor has to avoid using 90 sheets per day. Now I know that much of the saving comes from drafts rather than the few words read on the air but ... 90 sheets?? This is just to break even, to save the sort of money being claimed, the consumption would have to be at least four times as much -- about 350 sheets per day per anchor.

Oh hang on a minute, did you say Fox News? Sorry, forget it.

Okay, I misspoke. The math seems fine. It's the first assumption that seems way off.

They're going through $500 in paper (x6) in four months? Math seems off here...

It's a good thing that they were not talking about illicit viewer input!