A NewsNet recording error in October 1997 developed into a first-time opportunity for April’s LDS general conference audience and may have set the precedent for future live audio broadcastings of conference in multiple languages.
The April 1998 LDS general conference was broadcast on the NewsNet Web site using live audio feed in seven languages–Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese–enabling anyone with Internet access anywhere in the world to hear a live broadcast of conference.
The response was literally overwhelming. “The Spanish server crashed almost immediately because so many people tried to access it,” said Michael Buhrley, NewsNet’s systems technology specialist and a senior majoring in communications studies. The NewsNet Web site received 172,039 hits on April 4, the first day of conference.
“We were very, very happy with how it turned out,” Buhrley said.
During the October 1997 general conference, Buhrley noticed that a VCR was mistakenly recording in Spanish. Buhrley switched the channel to English, but not before thinking about the possibilities of incorporating that technology into NewsNet’s Web site for April’s conference.
NewsNet hopes to offer live audio broadcast of the upcoming October conference, but copyright permission has yet to be obtained, Buhrley says. He doesn’t expect to hear officially until about a month before conference.
“Listeners will have to check out the NewsNet Web site (https://newsnet.byu.edu) closer to conference time to find out the details,” Buhrley said.