08/30/01 - SAN ANTONIO -- Three Army and Air Force Hometown News Service broadcast teams will, once again, hit the Holiday Greetings trail in September.

Holiday greetings are recorded video messages, from Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine service members and their families stationed overseas, that will air on more than 1,100 hometown television and cable outlets.

The first team of military broadcasters leave Sept. 12 for Europe with the second and third team departing Sept. 14 and 15 for the Pacific and Southwest Asia theaters, respectively.

"This year the teams will cover people in more than 75 locations in 42 days," said Tom Taylor, Army and Air Force Hometown News Service broadcast division chief. "The videotaped greetings then will be sent to the individual's hometown television stations for broadcast during the 2001 holiday season.

The primary goal is to help boost the morale for those away from home during the holidays.

"Our priority is to hit the remote areas like Kosovo, Bosnia, and Kuwait," Taylor said. "The response to these type of messages over the years have been phenomenal with television programmers enthusiastic about providing this community service to the families of those in the armed forces."

The three teams collected 8,300 greetings during the 2000 Holiday Greeting effort, which ultimately reached an audience estimated in the tens of millions, Taylor said.

"We cannot give the TV stations enough when it comes to the Holiday Greetings," Taylor said. "The response from families each year is very positive and their expressions of appreciation makes the grueling travel and production schedules well worth the effort."

In conjunction with the video taping by the Hometown News teams, at least two additional locations will have the greetings shot by local military broadcasters and production facilities. This allows coverage in areas the teams can not fit in their already packed shooting schedule.

Along with airing on hometown TV stations, some 600-holiday greetings can be viewed on the Hometown News Web site. Because of the size of the files, and the shear numbers, not all greetings are put on the Web site, Taylor said.

To add to the success of the TV greetings, the audio from these messages are extracted and sent to hometown radio stations as well.

"We use the audio from the video greetings as well as tapes sent to us from bases throughout the armed forces," said Larry Gilliam, Army and Air Force Hometown News deputy director.

The greetings are also edited into radio spots that are sent to stations interested in receiving the free Hometown News information. All the greetings are sent to radio and TV stations based on the submitter's hometown ZIP code. Stations from their area that subscribe to Hometown News products receive the video and audio spots to air as a public service throughout the holidays.

Brady A. McCarron, SSgt, USAF
Hometown News Radio Chief
AFNEWS/HNBR
203 Norton St. San Antonio, TX 78226-1848
COM 210-925-4448  FAX 210-925-5948
DSN 945-4448
E-mail: brady.mccarron@afnews.af.mil
Check us out at http://hn.afnews.af.mil/