New face of newsroom automation

According to Borrell Associates’ 2008 Outlook, an estimated US$12.6 billion will be spent on online advertising in 2008 in the USA, much of it from presidential candidates who increasingly find the web an effective medium for delivering their message to a savvy demographic.

Internet ‘pure plays’ like Google grabbed 43.7 per cent of the revenue. Newspapers tallied 33.4 per cent, while broadcast TV took just 9.3 per cent. This is compounded by the fact that 21 per cent of media consumption occurs online, while only seven per cent of media dollars are spent there.

Growing the digital side of the business is not simply a matter of repurposing news content online. It is more like changing the culture. As viewers increasingly get their news from sources that don’t include TV, station managers are looking to grow their web business. The mandate is tricky. Besides making do with fewer bodies, the station web business is what one consultant calls ‘an unproven model’ - risky and lacking in many successful precedents to copy.

But as many see broadcasting as a mature business, stations have little choice but to drastically rethink and revamp their operations to focus on the web. Stations’ increased focus on the web has given rise to new job titles and descriptions throughout the industry. So many eyeballs are moving from the TV screen to the computer screen, the media model has to change and adapt.

To find ample resources for the web, some managers are converting broadcast positions to web ones. Managers are pushing employees to add digital duties. Never before has the time been better for stations to grab web revenue.

But achieving such growth is not as simple as slapping ‘web’ on staffers’ business cards. It involves retooling the entire organization for digital media - and getting everyone involved.

Broadcast news operations today are facing disparate challenges. They need to figure out how to evolve their standard-definition newscasts to high-definition, while also expanding their websites with more low-resolution video and original content. And they are doing so under extreme competitive pressure and, in most cases, tight budgets.

One way to make multi-platform production easier is to work in the file-based domain, which helps speed production and makes it easier to repurpose content.

The big drivers for file-based workflows are the continually decreasing cost of server storage, as the price of hard disk falls; the creation of nonlinear editing software that can run on a laptop and thus allow more editing to be performed in the field; and the adoption of tapeless camcorders like Panasonic’s P2 and Sony’s XDCAM.

Improvements in newsroom computer systems like Avid’s iNews and AP’s ENPS, which journalists use to coordinate the newscast and produce scripts, are also letting producers and reporters perform video editing on their own and quickly repurpose content for the web.

Similar efficiencies are found in template-based graphics systems from vendors like Vizrt and Miranda, which allow producers and reporters to create simple graphics, such as lower-thirds and over-the-shoulders, through their desktop PCs. And device automation systems like Thomson Grass Valley’s Ignite and Ross Video’s OverDrive allow software to replace people for certain newscast functions, so managers can cut staffs or reassign personnel.

“Create once, distribute many times” is the biggest trend among Avid Technology’s television customers, says Johnathon Howard, Avid director of broadcast media and publishing. While Avid continues to pursue new efficiencies in traditional broadcast production, Howard says, “It’s now a fact of life that we have to create in these new mediums at the same time they’re creating traditional content. This need is happening now, and five years from now, it will be the complete norm.”

So Avid is trying to take each step in the news production workflow and make it more efficient by bringing it “upstream,” Howard says. For example, if a producer writes a story for the TV newscast in Avid’s iNews newsroom computer system and tries to translate that text directly to a web page, chances are it’s not going to work properly, because broadcasters work in capital letters in iNews. So it needs to be reformatted for the web.

Avid’s Active ContentManager software aggregates assets from different elements of the newscast, including video, audio, graphics and text, and tries to automate the process of repurposing that content for the Web or mobile platforms. One example, according to Howard, is the ability to preview how video might look on a mobile phone before sending it out.

At NAB this year, Harris Broadcast showcased NewsForce, a server-based system that features tight integration with Apple’s popular Final Cut Pro editing system. NewsForce, which stores content on Harris’ Nexio shared architecture, also includes a family of Harris-built editors including NewsForce ES, NewsForce Desktop, NewsForce XNG, and Harris’ existing Velocity NX promotions/craft-style editor.

Harris and video processing specialist Snell & Wilcox illustrated the new interoperability between their products with a demonstration of Snell’s Kahuna multi-format production switcher working seamlessly with Harris’ server-based NewsForce newsroom system.

Kahuna ran automated newsroom applications by using a rundown from an AP ENPS newsroom computer system to deliver instructions to the Harris ADC automation system. The ADC software drove Kahuna to cue, play and switch between different media elements to simulate a short on-air newscast.

Thomson Grass Valley showed the latest version of its Edius Broadcast nonlinear editor, which has gained popularity as both part of Grass Valley’s Aurora server-based digital newsroom system and as an editing front-end to BitCentral’s cost-effective Precis content servers. Edius is being rolled out across the NBC Station Group, primarily also on laptops.

Thomson Grass Valley Ignite HD line of production automation solutions is now at Australian television network WIN-TV, which is leveraging the power and flexibility of the Ignite platform with an Ignite HDC robotic camera system and camera controller. The Ignite HD system will also be deployed in the Melbourne and Sydney studios of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Edius Version 4.6 has new functionality based on the JPEG 2000 compression codec used in Thomson’s Infinity tapeless camcorder, allowing multi-layer editing of HD content, and an improved workflow for Sony’s XDCAM format, which supports the XDCAM EX line of flash-memory-based camcorders. Thomson says it’s the first nonlinear editor to utilize Sony’s Simple Access Mode (SAM), which allows low-resolution video to be used in conjunction with high-resolution audio.

Thomson Grass Valley has launched 10 large news projects. “From an editing perspective, the adoption of file-based workflows in the newsroom, and high-definition, is definitely on the upswing,” says senior VP Jeff Rosica.

Thomson is seeing continued growth for Ignite, an automated news-production system that uses software to remotely control studio cameras, switchers, character generators and other devices integral to a live newscast.

Ignite can reduce the staff required for an average large-market newscast from 10 people to just a few. Thomson has pitched it as a way to launch HD newscasts by taking the money saved on labour costs and investing it in new HD production gear.