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NEW YORK – November 5, 2013 – New York Festivals® International Television & Film Awards™ will honor David Mazza, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, NBC Sports Group, with its 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award.
David Mazza will be honored on April 8 at the New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards ceremony at the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas, NYF said in a press release.
Now in its 57th year of honoring the World’s Best TV Programs & Films™, NYF gives its Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize prominent industry leaders whose accomplishments and contributions have advanced their field and made a lasting impression on the industry.
Mazza commented, “I have been so lucky to have had the opportunity to work on NBC’s Olympic coverage over the years. I’m humbled by this honor, but the credit really is shared with the incredibly talented team that I am blessed with, and the leaders at NBC who trusted all of us to venture into some very new and exciting territories.”
A 35-year veteran of the media industry, David Mazza joined NBC in 1994 for the Atlanta Games in 1996. A two-year assignment turned into a 20-year Olympic career for Mazza, who was named Senior Vice President of Engineering for NBC’s Olympics division in 2002 and CTO in 2012.
Mazza oversees the engineering group, who were originally charged with designing and building NBC’s re-useable multi-games infrastructure. This framework would then be subject to the ever-changing and growing nature of NBC’s Olympic coverage for the next seven consecutive Olympic Games, beginning with the Sydney Olympics in 2000 through the London 2012 Games, NYF said. The upcoming 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia in February will mark Mazza’s 13th Olympics.
Starting in 2011, while juggling the preparations for what became the most-watched television event in U.S. history, Mazza was also tasked with building a new home for the NBC Sports Group in Stamford, Conn. He served as the Lead Designer and Project Manager for the very fast- track effort. The result is a new state-of the-art 300,000 sq. ft. International Broadcast Center that opened in December of 2012 and houses the NBC Sports Group top executives as well employees working for NBC-SN, NBC Olympics, NBC Sports Digital, and the NBC Sports Regional Networks management teams.
“There are few in any industry who combine such meticulous attention to detail with unrivaled subject matter mastery and uncompromising standards of excellence. Dave achieves all this with great leadership and mentorship, and a humanity that pervades every move he makes,” said Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics, and President, Operations and Strategy, NBC Sports Group. “His genius moves bits and bytes and touches hearts and minds.”
Previously, Mazza was a Technical Director for the first four Olympics he worked on from 1984-1992. When he joined NBC full-time in 1994 as Director of Engineering, Mazza led the technical design, building and operation of NBC’s International Broadcast Center for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He and his team developed extensive new technology and systems needed for the “Virtual IBC,” which allowed part of the broadcast center to be located in New York and part in Atlanta.
Other NBC Olympic engineering achievements have included designing for a three-fold increase in coverage hours from Athens Games in 2004; the conversion to HD coverage and 5.1 Surround Sound for the 2006 Torino Games; the development of the highly complex “at-home effort” (as it is now called) and the new File-Based Highlights Factory called for another three-fold increase in coverage plus all the new NBC Digital web content offered for the first time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Mazza has earned numerous awards including 22 Emmys for the Olympics (1984-2012), cable’s Monitor Award, ACE and BDA Awards for Graphics Compositing. In 2006, he was awarded the GE Edison Award for technical innovation.
The New York Festivals Awards ceremony will shine the spotlight on the 2014 World’s Best TV & Films, as well as present the Lifetime Achievement Award, Broadcaster of the Year, Production Company of the Year, and United Nations Department of Public Information Awards. Award winners and ceremony attendees will have access to the 2014 NAB Show.
