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 In 1974, roughly three years after Morizono and his team had moved to the Atsugi plant, they received a visit that would change the fate of U-matic. The visitor was Joseph Flaherty, then vice president at CBS Inc., one of the three major U.S. television networks. He had come to ask if Sony could develop a U-matic model specifically for commercial broadcasting.
Flaherty wanted a product that could produce the same image quality as 16mm film, but that was lighter and easier to use than existing models. CBS was eager to participate in the development of the product and hoped that Sony would collaborate in achieving the goal.
At the time, shooting news reports with a film camera offered far greater mobility than with a video system, which required a huge van equipped with a studio camera and VTR. However, real-time broadcasting is what makes news, and 16mm cameras are no match for video in this respect. Eliminating the need to develop film or to convert the image into television signals drastically reduces time and costs.  The ideal system would incorporate the advantages of both 16mm cameras and video. In reality, CBS had years earlier combined the industrial-use U-matic system with an industrial-use hand-held video camera to achieve both the mobility of 16mm cameras and the real-time image processing capabilities of video. Thanks to the revolutionary U-matic video system, CBS was able to deliver images from President Nixon's visit to Moscow in 1974 faster than its competitors. However, as the U-matic had originally been developed as a home-use system, many specifications still needed to be improved to make it suitable for broadcast-use, hence, the visit by Flaherty.
Morizono, then director of the Video Division, had no intention of entering the broadcast market. Impressed by Flaherty's persistence, however, Morizono agreed to take on the project. He called Masayuki Takano and other engineers into his office and, in the presence of Flaherty, said, I have decided to cooperate with Flaherty of CBS to make a broadcast-use U-matic system. I want you to develop a product in one year. Takano and his colleagues were stunned by this announcement.
The usual time allotted for product development at Sony was two years. Compounding this was that the U-matic was not even designed as a broadcast-use system. A decision had been made, and the engineers set to work, mumbling to themselves about the seemingly erratic decision. Despite the tight schedule, the team members were motivated because there was a clear target to work toward and the customer's demands were precise. The task was laid out for them: to develop a system that offered greater cost and convenience advantages than conventional film systems. Thinking about the competition was unnecessary. The main problems were meeting the deadline and the target price. The project literally became a nonstop operation. Over the next 12 months, CBS engineers visited the Atsugi plant frequently. CBS engineers were uncompromising in their drive to build the ideal product.
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 | | The BV series led to the development of "ENG." The portable component on the left side is connected to the video camera when in use. |
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In 1976, after more than a year of tireless work, a broadcast-use U-matic system, the Broadcasting Video (BV) series, became a reality. The system incorporated shooting, recording, and editing functions in its compact, high-quality body and heralded a new method of news reporting dubbed ENG (Electronic News Gathering) by Morizono and Flaherty. Evident from its excellent functionality was that the end user had actively participated in the development of the BV system. By introducing ENG, broadcast stations were able to drastically cut costs, and in a short time broadcast stations worldwide began converting to the Sony system. The system's potential did not end with news gathering. Subsequently, the system was adopted for application in the area of EFP (Electronic Field Programming) as well.
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