Tag: BROADCAST NEWS

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REACHING OUT – WHO AND WHERE IS THE AUDIENCE?

Working on the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi reminded us again of some of the key questions raised by the changing news environment.

 

Where is the audience?

This was an event that got the global media excited as one of the world’s greatest museums allowed its legendary name and reputation to extend into the Middle East. Getting live video of the inauguration – which involved many VIPs including both the President of France and the Ruler of the UAE – out to news channels on traditional and new media around the world was a vital part of the launch plan.

By reaching out to the international broadcast news agencies as well as to key target stations we were able to ensure that the story was distributed by satellite as it happened, making it available to both TV and web channels on an equal basis.

How do you reach the world’s broadcasters?

It may not be obvious, but individual broadcasters are not always well equipped to distribute stories – even those they are covering exclusively – to other broadcasters around the world. Any channel can make a production technically usable by other broadcasters but their normal focus is on producing and delivering content to their own audience. This means they may not have the contacts and experience required to communicate with the world’s media and organize the necessary satellite feeds.

For this story, our relationships with broadcasters and news agencies, together with our experience of arranging satellite paths that can reach around the world, allowed us to maximise live access to the story as it unfolded.

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BROADCAST OR WEB? BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES

Broadcast or web? There has sometimes been confusion about whether OLB – which began life as On Line Broadcasting, a name chosen before the digital revolution – works in broadcast or online media. Originally the answer was broadcast, but over time the lines between the two have blurred. Now we do both.

Whether working in London, Dubai, Riyadh, the Kalahari Desert or the Kazakhstan Steppe (just some of the locations we visited during 2016), we produce video and audio for broadcasters that also works for online channels and social media.

Today, as bandwidths expand and digital technologies improve we still use satellites, but we also often use the Internet to distribute the stories we produce to broadcasters, news agencies and web media.

Split screen during bi-directional satellite link (Riyadh/London) at MiSK Hackathon.

As an example of the old and new technologies working together, for the inaugural MiSK Hackathon held in Riyadh and London we provided live satellite links for broadcast interviews and bi-directional video and audio communication between the UK and Saudi Arabia throughout the three-day internet-based event (for more see Clients & Projects here: olb.tv/projects).

Devised and staged by London-based agency Xpert, the Hackathon enabled young men and women from Saudi Arabia and the UK to work together co-operatively, in person and online, to seek new solutions to current medical and healthcare challenges. As well as linking the events and feeding giant screens at both venues, we used the same satellite and internet links to distribute news edits we produced for Middle East and international media.

We are now working to build on the success of the Hackathon for future projects in the Middle East and around the world.

 

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THINGS WE TELL OUR CLIENTS ABOUT BROADCAST NEWS

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  • Almost every significant broadcaster around the world subscribes to at least one of the main international broadcast news agencies which makes them a powerful route to communicate genuine news stories.
  • We produce news edits not VNRs. The term VNR is often associated with marketing material dressed up as news (which isn’t our thing at all).
  • Live interviews from interesting locations can enhance a story for international broadcasters.
  • News is fast-moving, fluid and driven by events. For most stories we can ‘test the water’ with broadcasters in advance and tell our clients what level of coverage they are likely to achieve, but no-one can guarantee broadcast news coverage until it is aired.
  • Beware of promises to guarantee the broadcast of news or documentary footage on large audience TV stations in return for a fee. It won’t appear on normal news programmes (where coverage is earned entirely on editorial merit) and it may be aired in ‘dead’ broadcast time with little or no audience.
  • Cameras and video formats are constantly evolving; video that looks good on the web won’t necessarily be broadcast quality.
  • Like everyone else, broadcasters are cost-conscious. With tighter budgets and fewer staff it’s often hard for broadcasters to cover anything more than the ‘must have’ stories with their own resources, particularly if a more marginal story involves expensive or time-consuming travel.
  • We can use an electronic ‘fingerprint’ to track whether, where and when footage has been used on almost 2,000 stations world-wide.