April 2017 - Agile News Infrastructure

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April 2017

Agile field-to-audience news infrastructure How to retain (or even re-acquire) news audiences of today‌ and tomorrow In association with

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The search for the lost audience

Why unified content platforms are providing a helping hand

I

f you work in TV news, you will be aware

operandi, refreshing newsroom systems and

allow its regional teams to tailor it for their

of an indisputable trend, one that threatens

investing in dedicated online and social media

audience, across all platforms, evolving the

your very livelihood: your audience is

teams and tools in order to get news out quicker

story whilst it develops. And this includes mobile

and onto more platforms.

journalists, out in the field, who can collaborate

declining. Regardless of the great work you do, times have changed. The way we consume news has evolved.

While this has plugged the gap it has also resulted in an inefficient news operation that

with the rest of the team using the same resources and tools.

Where the nightly television bulletin or the

works in silos. Different teams using different

hourly radio report would traditionally provide

systems and different resources, producing

Hive is a network production system that is

the most complete – and often the only –

variations of the same content for different

built on a future-ready UCP. Customisable,

source of current affairs, information is now

outlets. This results in work and technology

cloud-native and scalable, it can be

available almost every second of the day

being unnecessarily duplicated. It is not just

deployed on-premise, in the cloud or in a

from thousands of sources across a myriad

inefficient. It is also very expensive.

combination of the two.

of platforms and devices.

From live streamed video reports and tweets to

Faced with all these hurdles, broadcasters

At Sony, that UCP is Media Backbone Hive.

Featuring a host of built-in tools and

usually have two options: continue to lose

compatible with third-party ones, it allows

constantly updated live text reports, it is possible

their audience or spend more money trying

journalists, producers and editors to collaborate

to find out what is happening from Aberdeen

to keep them.

from wherever they are in the world, ensuring

to Zambia at the touch of a mobile, tablet

Fortunately, there is another way. It is

that they are first with the story across online, TV

or smart TV. And more often than not, it is the

possible to entice back that lost audience

and radio. No more silos. No more duplication.

online world that gets the story first with television

and have a lower cost base and fewer silos. It

And a lot more flexibility. In today’s fast

broadcasters then providing context, detail and,

requires a unified content platform (UCP) that

turnaround world, this agile, efficient and

it must be pointed out, accuracy.

links everything and everyone within a news

adaptable approach to news production could

organisation together.

be the difference between locating that lost

The millennial generation, in particular, look to the Internet and apps first. According to Ofcom,

Imagine this. A TV station needs to cover a

audience and losing it forever. n

the UK’s communications regulator, more than 60

fast-breaking story throughout Europe. Without a

per cent of 16-24 year-olds get their main daily

UCP, with news teams and journalists working in

Your Journalists can grow your brand and

news fix that way.

isolation, it would be complex, time-consuming

increase audience share by simply having

But this is not a big lift and shift away from TV and radio to online. Nearly 90 per cent of British

and costly. With a UCP, however, the TV

access to the right tools.

station can share content and stories and

Find out more: pro.sony.eu/news

people aged 55 and over still get their news from the TV, for example. Instead, it is a general dispersion of the audience across the different platforms. Ofcom suggests that the average consumer now uses 3.5 different sources for their news. This democratisation of news provision might be great for those of us keen to know what is happening in the world – and for those viewers looking for alternative points-of-view – but for broadcasters it has become a real headache.

Not only are they competing with each other they are also competing with these new and often quicker sources of news. It has led to a general reduction in viewership. Those viewers that have moved away are now considered ‘the lost audience.’ In an attempt to entice them back, broadcasters have changed their modus

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Building successful collaborations to tell your story first Mobile Journalism (Mojo) empowers news journalists; giving them the tools and technology to record, edit, transfer or broadcast live from wherever they are and under any conditions. But even with improved network connectivity, collaboration between Mojos and the newsroom has always been limited. Until now. Using the remote toolsets within Sony’s Media Backbone Hive, and embracing cloud computing, journalists can collaborate with each other, and the newsroom, sharing and using centralised footage, graphics and more, from wherever the story breaks.

Media Backbone Hive

Contact us today to find out more pro.sony.eu/news

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Agile, flexible and cost-effective: why Hive is ideal for modern day news production In the ongoing search for TV news’ lost audience, a unified content platform could be the answer. Here are five reasons why you should choose Sony’s Media Backbone Hive.

1. Hive will make you more productive

Making use of hyper converged node technology

broadcast production system for news and sport.

Built on the latest data centre class technologies,

Adopting Media Backbone Hive will improve

via customisable dashboards at the front, Hive

and capable of embracing the benefits of cloud

business operations in a myriad of ways. It will

streamlines, and provides control of, the news

computing, it includes a rich toolset, open APIs

make it possible to deliver more content, in the

production operation. It integrates with third-party

and various customisation capabilities.

correct format, to more destinations with fewer

tools, provides flexible file management capabilities

resources. It will make it possible to attract new

and offers built-in applications of its own.

Sony’s Media Backbone Hive is a highly scalable

When injected into the heart of a production

in the back-end, and providing operations analysis

ecosystem, it offers flexible and powerful workflow

audiences and retain current ones while enticing

and content management capabilities and the

back those lost viewers. It will even allow breaking

newsroom computer system (NRCS), across import,

ability to streamline a news operation, removing

stories to be published when the content supplier is

production, publishing, planning, archive and

silos and eradicating duplication.

a member of the public.

playout. By combining NRCS control with networked

Importantly, it makes it quicker and easier for

Hive oversees all the elements that connect to a

Crucially, because it is entirely software-based,

news production capabilities, it simplifies the task

journalists, editors and producers to collaborate,

it also allows users to respond rapidly to changes in

of getting news out quickly to multiple people, on

regardless of where they are in the world, allowing

business demand and to optimise costs and avoid

multiple devices, from anywhere in the world.

them to be the first to tell their stories using social

inflexible capex investments.

media as well as TV and radio.

Journalists can read the wires, pull video, edit it, collaborate with remote correspondents and other

Hyper converged nodes provide extreme

2. Hive will remove your silos and streamline your workflows

resiliency and make it possible to dynamically

In an era when the public can get their news

scale storage and processing, whether on-premise

from many different sources, the fact that Hive’s

work that’s increasingly the norm such as creating

or in the cloud. And, because it is all software-

publishing capabilities serves both traditional TV

different versions for different media. And they can

based, Hive provides the chance to reduce

playout as well as social media, web and mobile,

do it without the need to waste time jumping from

upfront costs and adopt an opex model instead.

is absolutely vital.

one system to another.

Hive is also reliable, flexible and cost-effective.

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journalists – just like a traditional NRCS operation – but now they can take it much further.

They can also do all the additional production

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April 2017 www.tvbeurope.com

Supplement 3. Hive will help you to make the most of the cloud (and you can do it your way)

it isthen simultaneously available to all

Hive is a scalable journalist-centric software

and reporters in the field, both locally and

layer that can be deployed on-premise or

around the world.

on stories. Users ingest footage once and relevant journalists including mobile journalists

in the cloud: or straddle a hybrid of both. architecture, different elements can be

5. Hive will allow you to adopt an ‘expand or kill’ strategy

deployed in different locations, as appropriate.

Because Hive makes use of the inherent

Because it is built around a distributed services

In some cases, it may be that a broadcaster

scalability and flexible economics of cloud

is willing to jump straight to the public or private

computing, once the platform is in place,

cloud, but that may not be practical or cost-

users can add temporary applications for

effective. In that case, a hybrid approach, with

specific events such as a sports tournament

some elements on premise, some in the cloud,

or a political event.

might be more appropriate.

A type of agile prototyping, this allows

This allows users to benefit from the same

a news organisation to try something new,

technology that the cloud uses, giving them

measure its success and then either expand it

the same levels of flexibility and platform

or kill it, depending on how well it is received.

functionality, but have it hosted on premise or

All without spending huge sums of money.

in the hybrid configuration of their choosing.

Traditional newsroom systems cannot do this.

The important thing is that the broadcaster

Agile, flexible and cost-effective, Hive is

can pick an approach is best for them, taking

much more than just an enhancement to the

into account the key cost: bandwidth.

newsroom. It’s a fundamental change in news

This flexibility is absolutely ideal for modern

production architecture.

Hive will improve your business by

news production.

streamlining your workflows, bringing your news

4. Hive will make it easier for you to collaborate

teams and journalists closer together and

By adopting a unified content platform, online,

kill strategies. With a hybrid cloud approach,

TV and radio news teams can work together

you can realise cost benefits too.

making you agile enough to adopt expand or

under a single umbrella system, allowing them

To find out how Sony’s Media Backbone

content. This not only reduces duplication

Hive can help you to streamline your

and negates the need for separate systems

news production operation, go to

and technology, it allows greater collaboration

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to search, access and make use of the same

Audience Reach

Increasingly, success is far more about intelligent platforms and business agility than about managing and delivering media assets. The winners are those businesses that can combine increased content collaboration (across teams and remotely) with greater flexibility to quickly adapt to new trends with an open infrastructure

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Hive: how does it work?

• Integrated assignment and planning tools within Hive automatically send assignments directly to the news crew or a mobile journalist’s camera, linking and structuring key assets • Web-based dashboards provide operational insight, real-time business intelligence and remote monitoring and support • With its multiple ingest capabilities, Hive intelligently routes video inputs to the right places, making a proxy instantly available to all users • Hive automatically updates newsroom systems with new content, linking key metadata to news content • Full integration with wireless cameras enables journalists to begin editing with proxy footage as soon as it’s shot.

Packages can then be switched to using high res files once they’re available • Because Hive is file agnostic it will handle any file type, format or resolution, whether it is video, audio or other types of data • Hive offers simple and advanced logging options to allow users to add markers in real time, building metadata that’s immediately usable • Journalists can quickly search the entire newsroom system to find what they need – whether current or archived content, or material arriving in the moment • Stories can be created wherever they are needed, in a web-based environment, or remotely in the field

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Tech innovation: CCTV case study

China’s CCTV is leading the way in news production modernisation, making use of the public and private cloud and a unified content platform to create a global collaboration network for its journalists When it comes to innovation within news

overseas in English, French, Spanish,

success criteria – making best use of the

broadcasting and production, China is

Russian and Arabic. Offering news,

benefits of both technologies whilst avoiding

currently ahead of the game. In a market

documentary, comedy, entertainment

the inherent limitations – utilising a software

where the lines between linear TV and the web

and drama programming, it has a

platform that is easily deployable in both

are at their most blurred, the broadcasters and

combined audience of more than one

environments.

service providers are constantly seeking out

billion viewers.

new ways to efficiently and cost-effectively

CCTV’s news operation consists of 31

Liu Wanming, technical director of news at CCTV says, “The globalisation of news requires

attract and retain an audience.

Chinese journalist stations, two overseas

a global perspective delivered with local

This is epitomised by the national

branch stations, five overseas central journalist

understanding. Our goal is to give immediate

broadcaster China Central Television

stations and 63 overseas journalist offices.

access to content from across all of our regions, from a wide range of creative toolsets,

“Providing the easiest access to content securely requires a single platform capable of running in private environments and public cloud natively. Our ability to reduce costs while ensuring scalability and flexibility is absolutely critical to the success of this project” Shi Qiang, CCTV

to enable this localisation of stories for the audience and their devices.”

What is the solution?

Partering with Sobey for the HQ system in Beijing, CCTV has opted for Hive, the unified

(CCTV). CCTV has a vision for a new global

What is the challenge?

news production operation that is a step

CCTV plans to adopt a global collaboration

ahead of anything else in the broadcast

platform that allows it to produce TV and

technology in the back-end, and providing

market, using both public and private

new media content at the same time across

operations analysis via customisable

cloud to create a worldwide collaboration

its global output. The requirement is for a

dashboards at the front, Hive streamlines and

platform for its journalists and bureaus

collaborative network that is accessible by

controls a news production operation.

across the world.

all of its offices and locations, and allows

content platform.

By making use of distributed micro-service

Through the use of published APIs many

them to share and exchange content and

different types of creative and authoring tools

Who is CCTV?

access scheduling and planning functions.

are integrated onto the Hive back-end. For the

The Beijing-based public national broadcaster

High availability is key. The effective adoption

first time journalists from different groups and

CCTV operates 43 TV channels including five

of both private and public cloud is a critical

experiences can access the same content, at

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vii

Supplement the same time using their toolsets to craft their

training and support cost with this single overall

The journalist-centric network production

story, tailoring it to their particular audience

architecture and yet ensuring the scalability

system, built on a unified content platform and

or device. Each journalist will have a number

and flexibility to decide where to place the

utilising hyper-converged node technology,

of different toolsets available to him or her,

platforms and which partners to work with is

is suitable for any broadcaster or other media

including Web Editing; WeChat Authoring;

absolutely critical to the success of this project.”

organisation looking to improve the way they

Craft Editing; an Omni-Media Web Portal;

work and attract new audiences.

Image Authoring; H5 Mobile Authoring; SNS

When is it happening?

Authoring (Weibo/Twitter/Facebook/Youtube);

By the time you read this, CCTV Beijing

and APP Authoring.

will be operational. The network will be

With the private cloud, operating as a data centre on-premise, managing metadata and both proxy files and high-resolution footage,

implemented in a phased fashion, in two stages.

Phase1 will include the construction of

facilitating content sharing and new media

CCTV’s headquarters in China complete with

production. The public cloud will then contain

private cloud and public cloud capabilities.

a synchronised version of the private cloud that

This will initially support new media production

has mirrored metadata, the proxy files and on-

only with TV news being produced using a

demand high res.

legacy system.

Using public cloud service in China the public

“Hive marries the technology of the internet economy, cost effective speed and flexibility, to the quality, governance and collaboration of broadcasters systems” Richard Scott, Sony

Richard Scott, head of Sony Media Solutions

Phase 2 will see an enhancement and

said, “The issues being addressed by CCTV are

cloud repository will allow journalists to access

scaling of the headquarters so that it can

uppermost in the minds of all of our customers;

content, handle User Generated material and

support both TV production and new media

collaboration, governance, the ability to tailor

produce new media output locally, and then

production simultaneously.

the stories to the local audience and get those

distribute it across social media.

Irrespective of where the journalist is based, they will be able to build an Edit Decision List

The first CCTV China elements are due to

stories to that audience on their preferred

go live in February 2017. The American and

device. The commercial reality of multiple

European region will follow up later this year.

teams working on or across different systems and waiting for content to be copied cannot

(EDL) and create a news story package using footage and data gathered from anywhere

Bringing Hive to Europe

around the world. The initial work will be done

Although China is a very different market,

using proxies that are then published back into

with different considerations and priorities,

economy, cost effective speed and flexibility,

the main system and re-linked to the high-res

Europe can potentially glean a lot from

to the quality, governance and collaboration

footage. Journalists could also be download

CCTV’s experience.

of broadcaster’s systems.”

clips and control and manipulate them locally.

CCTV project manager, Shi Qiang stated

carry on indefinitely.

“Hive marries the technology of the internet

The adoption of a global collaboration network could bring huge efficiencies and

To find out how Sony’s Media Backbone Hive

that: “Providing the easiest access to content,

streamline workflows for news production. These

could help your broadcast news operation

securely, from literally anywhere, requires a

are benefits that all broadcasters crave.

visit sony.pro.eu/news

single platform capable of running in private

That is why Sony is bringing the same

environments and public cloud natively. Our

innovative back-end architecture to Europe

ability to reduce engineering, integration,

in the form of Media Backbone Hive.

CCTV HQ (Beijing) Private Cloud

Public Cloud

Europe Region Public Cloud

America Region Public Cloud

Private Cloud

Beijing

Private Cloud

Asia Pacific Region

Public Cloud

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