LOS ANGELES—Editing a documentary requires editors who are organized and who have iron-clad patience to search through and review hours upon hours of footage.

But for a show like “Deadliest Catch,” on which I’ve been a picture editor for the last 14 seasons, these talents are stretched to the limit. Up to 47,000 hours of footage is captured for each season of the show and all those rushes—which include footage from shoulder-mounted cameras shot by camera operators/producers who are on deck with the crab fishermen, as well as multiple fly-on-the-wall mounted cameras from each boat—need to be condensed down into just over 20 hours of finished programming. 

“Deadliest Catch” is the Discovery Channel’s high-octane series that documents fishing vessels in the Bering Sea during Alaskan king crab and snow crab fishing season, which is considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The show has been a fan favorite throughout each of its 300+ episodes in 19 seasons, the latest of which I was honored to be nominated for an Emmy Award.

Rushes Come in 'Waves'
In my work on this show, I work exclusively with Avid Media Composer editing software to turn the hours of footage that make “Deadliest Catch” the suspense-filled show that it is. I work with approximately 10 other editors and together we’re responsible for crafting the daring stories of life on the fishing boats. 

For “Deadliest Catch,” footage comes in waves (pun intended) because the boats are on remote parts of the Bering Sea for weeks or months at a time. That means we’ll be editing earlier episodes of a season while the season is still being documented and footage is still being shipped back as we only get the rushes once the camera operator/producers come ashore.

The unpredictable nature of the job and the delay in receiving rushes means changes need to be made to episodes already in the edit­—the death of Captain Phil Harris late in season six for example. An unexpected event that happened in the middle of a stint at sea, we were told that we’d soon be receiving footage of his death. We went back to previous episodes to line up what was coming. It made us look at older rushes, considering using things that before his death seemed unimportant but afterwards felt significant. 

Editing Flexibility
In any season we use a lot of different features that help us turn the huge amounts of footage into the episodes that you see on TV. While I edit, I’ll mark up clips in our edit bins with locators that do a few things; reminding us to request other angles of something that happened on board or flag something as a good shot that I might want to use later. 

As a team of editors, we also narrow down bins to only show unreferenced clips to our advantage. Seeing only clips that haven’t already been used means we don’t accidentally double up on musical cues in any season. 

I’ve had the pleasure of working on “Deadliest Catch” for so long and I love seeing how the stories have continued to engage audiences with each season; not only that but I’ve also been lucky enough to have already received an Emmy for my work on the show. But none of that would be possible without the incredible job that the whole production team does bringing us this mountain of footage from which to craft these stories. 

For more information visit www.avid.com. 

SYOSSET, N.Y.—ESPN was a fixture in the top spots of Beta Research’s studies looking at what cable networks U.S. viewers valued the most. In its 2019 edition of the “Cable Subscriber Study—Evaluation of Basic Cable Networks,” the sports network was never worse than second in any finding.

Beta Research conducted its survey with a national sample of 1,400 cable subscribers age 18 and older, using three questions to measure 45 basic cable networks.

The first question asked what cable networks men and women consider “must haves,” meaning they scored a four or five on a scale of one to five. Among men, ESPN came out on top with 47% of respondents rating it a must have; for women, their top must-have station was the Food Network (36%). Only three cable networks ranked in the top seven for both genders: Discovery Channel, Weather Channel and FX.

Respondents were also tasked with providing an average perceived value for the networks. ESPN was again at the top, however it tied with Nick Jr., with viewers giving an average value of $1.74. Sports and kids programs were among the most popular in this section, with Disney, Cartoon Network, ESPN2 and Fox Sports 1 also making the top 10. ID, Food Network, Comedy Central and National Geographic rounded out the top networks.

The lone instance where ESPN was not the top station in a survey was when it came to determining how many people would switch cable providers if a basic cable network was dropped from the service. Discovery came out ahead with 19%; ESPN and History Channel followed with 18% each.

Beta Research conducted the study in June of 2019.

NEW YORK--The Next TV Summit will be presented on Thursday, Nov. 1, at the Westin New York as the closing event for Future’s NYC Television Week. Multichannel News asked Joe Schramm, president of Schramm Marketing Group, and the producer of the Next TV Summit, what attendees can expect at this year’s event.

MCN: What’s the focus of this year’s Next TV Summit?

Joe Schramm: The Next TV Summit is about planning for what the business of TV and video will become by 2021. The industry is disrupted, and is more competitive and requires strategic decisions for what’s ahead. So, our theme is, “mapping for the future of TV & video.” We take a holistic view of the fresh growth opportunities throughout the industry where individuals and companies can successfully compete for customers, viewers and advertisers. There’s been more change in the industry in the last three years than the 30 years I’ve been here — I’ve never seen as much change as there is currently. It’s hard to keep up. In one single day, an attendee at the Next TV Summit can get a good understanding of how these changes affect their professional success in the next three years.

MCN: What topics are you addressing at the summit?

JS: We mix giants of traditional TV with leaders in nontraditional and digital media, data and technology. We address revenues and financial requirements needed for successful launches of new services, as well as identify how to select content in an environment of multiplying platforms like over-the-top, mobile, smart TVs, TV-connected devices, VR, and AR. There’s a panel on the shifting landscape of content distribution, and there will be two super sessions, one on technology and OTT and the other focused on marketing and advertising. In addition, there will be keynote discussions with leading executives from Google, Nielsen and NCTA–The Internet and Television Association, as well as a duo of interviews with former cable TV CEOs who are now reinventing and adapting their careers by innovating new businesses ready for tomorrow’s TV and video environment.

MCN: What are some highlights that attendees can expect at the Next TV Summit?

JS: The whole agenda is exciting, but some of the highlights include NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell, who will share where cable is leveraging new opportunities. Jen Koester of Google will focus on distribution models and Andrew McCollum of Philo discusses the “affordable” option for consumer access to video. There’s a unique set of back-to-back fireside chats about innovation, adapting and reinventing one’s self, featuring John Hendricks, the founder of Discovery Channel, and Jon Klein, former CNN president. The closing features a presentation of recent viewership findings from Peter Katsingris of Nielsen.

MCN: Who should attend this summit?

JS: Anyone who intends to still be working in the TV and video industry in three years, including managers and senior executives as well as newcomers from traditional media, new digital media platforms, technology, advertising, audience research and measurement.I would especially encourage women and people of color who want to be part of this business in 2021.

The Next TV Summit will be held Nov. 1 at the Westin New York Hotel, 270 W. 43rd St at Eighth Avenue. Doors open at 8:30.

To register, click here.

OTTAWA—In 2015, Discovery’s process of producing programming was overdue for a fundamental overhaul. The company was relying on a mix of tape-based workflows and physical media delivery that was anything but standardized across the enterprise–and it was causing problems.

For instance, although Discovery’s U.S. facility had standardized on receiving content using LFTS-formatted LTO data cartridges (Linear Tape File System/Linear Tape-Open), other Discovery regional facilities were using their own file delivery systems. Discovery’s various facilities even differed on whether content suppliers had to provide the network with broadcast-ready or master-quality video files; the latter being formatted in whatever frame rate the content producer had selected.

This lack of standardization was costing Discovery time and money. This is why the network selected software from SDVI, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of content management software to standardize its content acquisition and creation workflow over IP. The company’s Rally next-gen, cloud-based media supply chain platform gives Discovery’s many content providers a central point to submit their content, in line with the network’s file standards. Having made this happen, SDVI’s Rally now gives Discovery a fast, effective, end-to-end solution to serving out content to cable, satellite, and the web, as well as a way to spin new program streams and even channels.

[Read: ‘Deadliest Catch’ Lands In The Cloud]

Discovery is just one example of a traditional broadcaster/media company that has adopted what the industry refers to as a “next-gen media supply chain” to speed up and rationalize its content creation workflow. Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG) is another: They are using Imagine Communications’ Versio platform, EPIC MV, SelenioFlex File, and Nexio Motion to provision SBG’s KidsClick children’s programming block to SBG TV stations. Meanwhile, Disney/ABC is using Verizon Digital Media Solutions’ evolved delivery platform and Broadcast/OTT Solution to prepare all of their content for online distribution; with sufficient flexibility to allow ABC affiliates to insert viewer-targeted local advertising quickly and easily.

THE NEXT-GEN ADVANTAGE

In a traditional media supply chain, content is either created or received—or both—at a broadcaster/media company, and then packaged using production hardware and software that is dedicated to the company’s existing playout channel(s) on their physical premises. If a new playout stream needs to be added or a new channel spun up, an entirely new physical production workflow needs to provisioned; machines, personnel and floor space are included.

In a next-gen media supply chain, all of this functionality is provisioned using software and commodity computer hardware; just add servers and stir. Move it into the cloud, and a third-party provider like Imagine, SDVI, or Verizon can handle all of the details. All the broadcaster/media company has to do is to interact with the software (which can be stored in the cloud or loaded onto their own on-premises servers) to format their content as they see fit, and then play it out to a linear delivery system (broadcast./cable/satellite), or serve it directly to the viewer via OTT online.

LAUNCHING NEW CHANNELS QUICKLY

With access to a next-gen media supply chain, broadcasters/media companies can spin new channels up and down as quickly as opportunities dictate.

In the case of SBG’s KidsClick and Imagine Communications, making this happen required some initial customization to serve the varying needs of SBG’s many local stations. But once this work was done, “it was really just an exercise of pointing at the cloud, requesting the required resources, and validating that they’re available and match your requirements,” said Brick Eksten, Imagine’s CTO of Playout & Networking. “We do this for this particular customer three times a day.”

Being able to spin up new channels virtually in the cloud is obviously far more economical than building an entirely new physical plant to produce and distribute them. But the savings can go even further. For instance, at Verizon Digital Media Services, “we only charge you based on the number of viewed content hours,” said Jason Friedlander, the company’s senior director of Product Marketing. “This approach enables our customers to experiment with new strategies and test what works in the market; if no one is watching, you don’t pay.”

SOLVING DISCOVERY’S PROBLEMS

At Discovery, SDVI’s Rally platform is a key part of the company’s global, scalable, and automated media supply chain. “Over the past three years we’ve worked to rebuild our supply chain, transitioning from physical media and fixed assets to a flexible, cloud-based model,” said Josh Derby, vice president, technology development & strategy at Discovery.

According to Derby, moving to a next-gen media supply chain has provided three key benefits to Discovery.

First, “the inherent scalability of Rally and of the public cloud has allowed us to improve the throughput of our supply chain,” he said. “This week we celebrated the upload of the 100,000th asset through our front-end supply chain, a milestone we hit within just two years of our launch. Earlier this year, that supply chain seamlessly absorbed over 20,000 additional assets in just four months as we quickly brought content from our new networks into the supply chain.”

Second, moving to a next-gen media supply chain has allowed Discovery to incorporate “a tremendous amount of automation into our workflows,” Derby said. “We are no longer reliant on having our logistics staff shepherd content through the supply chain. In our Rally supply chain, the assets find their own path through the workflow based on the system’s ability to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the asset metadata and the results of previous workflow steps.”

Thirdly, adopting a next-gen media supply chain has standardized content acquisition and handling across Discovery’s entire operation. “The new supply chain lets us have a truly global media factory,” said Derby. “Regardless of whether it’s an episode of ‘Deadliest Catch’ airing in the US or an episode of ‘House Hunters’ going to Poland, the content comes through the same supply chain. It’s checked against the correct standards, converted to the necessary file format, and delivered to its correct destination based on metadata from our business systems, allowing us to give each region the files it needs while maintaining a single global media pipeline.”

Next-gen media supply chains have the power to revolutionize content creation workflows, according to Lawrence Kaplan, president and CEO of SDVI. “The fact that they can speed up the rollout of new channels is just the beginning: Next-gen media supply chains can fundamentally improve the ways in which broadcasters and media companies prepare, playout, and distribute their content worldwide.”