WASHINGTON—Curtis LeGeyt, president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters told a Senate Forum this week that while local broadcasters have historically been among the most trusted sources of news and information, the rapid dissemination of misinformation fueled by advances in generative artificial intelligence is creating new challenges.

“Broadcasters are committed to delivering trusted, fact-based local and national news and are investing heavily to ensure stories are verified before they are aired,” LeGeyt said during the Senate AI Insight Forum "Transparency, Explainability, Intellectual Property and Copyright.” “While many broadcasters are responsibly embracing AI tools for operational efficiencies, such as scripting commercials and first drafts of content for human review, AI presents challenges to the critical local journalism broadcasters provide.”

Calling the trusted journalism broadcasters provide “the antidote” to such AI-based misinformation, LeGeyt said such “uncontrolled advancement”  of generative AI increases the costs of vetting stories and footage for local broadcasters and lead to copyright violations. 

“The ingestion of broadcasters’ copyrighted news content in AI systems without authorization or compensation risks further diminishing reinvestment in local news,” he said. “AI tools use stations’ work product without compensation while at the same time broadcasters are being forced to devote more resources to fight the misinformation AI systems so easily proliferate.”

“Broadcasters’ expressive content is particularly valuable for AI ingestion precisely because it is vetted and trusted,” LeGeyt added. “If broadcasters are not compensated for use of their valuable, expressive works, they will be less able to invest in local news content creation.”

LeGeyt used the current violence in the Middle East as an example of the issues broadcasters face in verifying footage.

“After the terrorist attacks on Israel in October, fake photos and videos reached an unprecedented level on social media in a matter of minutes,” he said. “Of the thousands of videos that one broadcast network sifted through to report on the attacks, only 10% of them were usable or authentic.”

In addition to the difficulties posed by AI-generated misinformation to distinguish the difference between fake and real news, LeGeyt added several other concerns to the list. 

Using generative AI in news production “increases the likelihood of legitimate, copyrighted broadcast content being ingested and then mixed with unverified and inaccurate third-party content, especially when the particular use wasn’t authorized in the first place,” LeGeyt said. “There is also particular concern among broadcasters about AI tools being used to create images, video and audio that replace the likeness of a trusted radio or television personality to spread misinformation or perpetrate fraud. The use of AI to doctor, manipulate and distort information is a significant and growing problem that must be addressed in balance with the First Amendment.”

LeGeyt cited numerous efforts from broadcasters to deal with misinformation, including CBS News’ “CBS News Confirmed” unit that investigates misinformation and deepfakes; Tegna’s VERIFY team, used across all of its 49 newsrooms to evaluate stories and help viewers identify misinformation; and Hearst Television’s partnership with FactCheck.org to produce segments combating misinformation for its stations across the country.

LeGeyt’s warnings come amidst the 2024 presidential election campaign in which AI-generated misinformation could have serious consequences for the country. 

“According to the Pew Research Center, an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that “false information online” is a major threat to our democracy,” LeGeyt said. “According to Morning Consult, just 37% of Americans believe the upcoming 2024 election will be both honest and open, and nearly two-thirds believe that disinformation will influence the outcome.”

NEW BERN, N.C.—Gone are the newscasts of yesterday when one person ran the Chyron, another person ran the switcher, yet another on the mixer, and several technicians along with a director and producer overseeing cast, cameras and live breaking updates. Today, many of those jobs are done by the producer, the director and perhaps a teleprompter operator, who may or may not double as a presenter.   

That’s two or three people with their heads on a swivel trying to manage all the work once done by seven or more people during a typical newscast. The TV news team has evolved and so has the audio mixing system in six key areas. 

All Part of the Workflow
Audio is a workflow: Production automation systems now manage audio as part of a workflow that needs to be coded, normalized for levels, and slotted in as elements in the newscast. This has been true for some time in larger markets, but hometown news operations are now also adopting these systems. 

Bringing audio into the overall production workflow as an element, rather than mixing as you go, requires a much tighter working relationship between the audio mixer and the automation system. For this reason, AoIP console systems today interface easily to the automation and some also provide a means for fully integrating the automation and mixer into one native IP audio environment.

Motorized faders are the new VU Meter: Those swiveling heads now doing many different jobs rely on motorized faders tracked to the automation to indicate that newscasts are going along smoothly. Consoles that have motorized faders let producers monitor the faders as they fly and make adjustments when needed. 

Occasional mix-ups: The two or three newscasts produced in the day of a television station are typically done with production automation whereas for the occasional news report or sporting event, hands-on mixing is generally the norm. Today’s newsroom console has evolved to include more backend functions on the AoIP network and more upfront functions on the surface. 

Tactile faders on the one hand and touchscreens on the other make it easier to adjust EQ, fix levels and mix in feeds for the producer or director who is busy making sure talent is hitting all their marks and the robotic cameras are pointed in the right direction. 

Fewer Personnel
The shrinking news studio: Virtual production sets continue the great downsizing of the news studios and with this comes a much smaller console. Consoles that used to take up half a room now take up half a desk, thanks in part to AoIP networking. AoIP carries much of the load that once sat on the console and simplifies the layout of the board overall. 

No audio operator onboard: The person overseeing the audio is likely to be the same one running the video switcher, and both of those duties are likely to fall to the sole producer on set. Bottom line: the news studio console has evolved to be far easier to navigate than ever before. 

IP accessibility rules: Booking satellite time for a guest interview and rushing them over to a studio for a three-minute segment is so 2019. Web conferencing is in along with IP overall, and embedders/de-embedders and HD/SDI are out. By connecting routing, mixing and studio control through Ethernet cabling, AoIP opens up accessibility and gets rid of outdated wiring and layers of audio infrastructure. 

For example, we’re seeing more and more stations that are dropping an I/O Blade (which are basically our AoIP access units) at various mic or talent workstations in the studio and then running a cable back to a central rack room. We’re also seeing more stations connecting the wall of plug-in mics and other auxiliary XLR devices to the control room using something like our WheatNet-IP high-density I/O Stagebox One and a cable. 

AoIP mixing consoles come with expansive IP audio networks that can scale all the way up to several network elements and geographic locations, such as across a WAN for use in REMI or other remote broadcast applications. 

NEW YORK—NBCU News Group is significantly expanding its streaming and digital operations with plans to add 200 new positions and several new hours of live, original programming to NBC News Now. 

The company is expecting to fill the jobs over the next few months. The new slate of NBC News NOW programming will debut this fall. 

The investment is being made at a time when streaming news operations are seeing rapid growth and new organizations have been making significant investments to expand their streaming operations.  

NBCU News is hoping that new staffers and programming will help it build on the success NBC News Now has seen since its launch in 2019. 

NBC News Now currently averages more than 44 million views and 14 million hours watched per month, the company reported. 

“When we combine the power of our portfolio, across our many platforms, our reach and impact is unmatched,” said Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCU News Group. “Our core focus is to consistently innovate in how our brands deliver distinctive, high-quality journalism. This substantial investment in streaming and digital allows us to meet the needs of news consumers in a rapidly-changing digital media industry.”

In addition to launching NBC News Now, NBCU News Group also debuted Today All Day and The Choice from MSNBC on Peacock in 2020, making it the only news organization with three major streaming channels. 

The NBCU News Group reported that the majority of the 200 new jobs will be in NBC News Now’s growing streaming operations and programming. Those new jobs follow a recent investment of more than 70 new hires.

The news group also noted that it would be doubling the Today newsroom, growing NBC News’ successful breaking news and beat reporting, expanding the MSNBC digital footprint and continuing the momentum of commerce and CNBC Pro. All of this will be underpinned by continued investment in mobile, video, social, product, engineering, etc.  

The new NBC News Now live, original programming will include a daily, primetime news program anchored by senior national correspondent, Tom Llamas; a daily evening show and weekly special newsmagazine series hosted by senior Washington correspondent and anchor, Hallie Jackson; and an evening news analysis and explainer program, hosted by anchor, Joshua Johnson.

NBC News Now will also continue to expand its weekday live programming throughout the fall and add to its weekend live, original programming beginning in Q1, 2022. The streaming network will also begin its international distribution later this year. 

SAN FRANCISCO—If the last year has proven anything, it’s that broadcasters are a resilient bunch. In March 2020, when newsroom stations began to be shuttered, news staff scrambled for ideas to pull off productions at home. 

Despite some hiccups, many stations across the country pulled off a successful, on-the-fly runaround because newsroom production technologies proved up to the task—the ability to pull in content, edit proxy material, upload graphics, cache locally—all with the final goal of covering breaking news faster even though they weren’t in the newsroom at all. 

Consider the obstacles: security restrictions, VPN hurdles and the related problems of less-than-adequate broadband connections, licensing limitations, news workflow disruptions and more. Despite all that, the work needed to be done. 

THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF CLOUD

“While anyone can bring an on-premises editor into their house, it’s the team collaboration, news production workflow and management of files that is problematic. There is simply no editorial process or metadata management [in place],” said Raoul Cospen, director of product strategy for news at Dalet.

For any station pushed into a pandemic workaround, access to the cloud proved key as did a way of managing many reporters and editors in multiple locations. 

“We had a number of news customers asking for help to support their remote workforces and adjust their infrastructure so that it could support editing from home,” said Bea Alonso, chief market officer at Dalet. The company’s answer to newsroom shutdowns was Dalet Galaxy xCloud, a cloud-based newsroom solution, she said.

“[It] allowed our customers to offload some of their teams to work on Dalet-hosted infrastructure while being away from the physical newsroom,” Alonso said. “Other clients used it as an extension of their on-premise Dalet installation, to provide business continuity to reporters, producers and editors.”

One interesting element about Galaxy xCloud, Alonso said, is that it provides tools familiar to anyone familiar with working in a physical newsroom. This meant there was no additional training required to enable people to produce, edit, write scripts and collaborate with their teams from their homes, Alonso said.

One broadcaster that made quick use of this tool was France Télévisions, the national television network of France, which employed Galaxy xCloud to enable news workflows from home. The SaaS-based system helped facilitate end-to-end remote news production workflows, giving them the flexibility to support remote work for its more than 300 journalists. 

In addition to concerns over bandwidth, security and licensing issues, working from home created another speedbump: how does a broadcaster handle team collaboration, news production workflow and management of files when your team is no longer in the same room? 

By working with Amazon Web Services and their cloud capabilities, Galaxy xCloud securely connected staff at home to the Dalet Galaxy five on-premise media asset management system. This gave journalists during the pandemic access to tools like the Dalet OneCut news editor so they could search the production system, collaborate with producers and edit growing files. 

“It’s seamless integration whether you are at home, in the newsroom or in the field,” Cospen said.

News organizations also tapped into new mobile applications such as the Dalet On-the-Go mobile newsroom application, which  enables a remote reporter to connect to their newsroom with a mobile device and write scripts, upload content to the newsroom and use the mobile device as a teleprompter. 

“User demand during the pandemic accelerated the development of this mobile app,” Alonso added.

GOING VIRTUAL

But newsroom production technology wasn’t the only tool that stepped into the abyss during the early days of the pandemic.

When U.K. radio station talkRADIO wanted to create video programming to stream online alongside its radio programming, it considered using a virtual set system, but this was made trickier by the fact that guests had to stay socially distanced while in the studio or had to call in by Zoom. 

“We were looking at innovative solutions to engage our audiences and satisfy our advertisers, over and above what other radio broadcasters are doing,” said Nick Prater, head of broadcast technology for Wireless Group Media, which operates 11 radio stations in the U.K. “We determined that virtual studio technology was now mature and could provide the unique advantage we needed.”

The answer turned out to be a StarTracker Studio virtual system from Mo-Sys. The broadcaster only had a small space to convert into a studio, Prater said, “but we wanted it to look big, to look luxurious,” he said. As part of the virtual set, talkRADIO installed Panasonic PTZ cameras and the Unreal Engine from Epic Games running on standard HP workstations. 

The system is combined with a preconfigured rack of switching, keying and the graphics power to sustain photorealistic virtual environments in real time. Using three tracked cameras—one on a rolling tripod, one on rails and one on a jib —customers can set up a variety of shots and scale up to 16 cameras. 

PARTY OF ONE

Beyond the new realities imposed by the pandemic, advanced visual storytelling remains a key goal for many newsroom systems. Vizrt’s Newsroom Solution Suite, a cross-platform newsroom content creation system, allows journalists to independently prepare, script, plan and create with graphics, video, stills, data visualizations and maps. With this system, one journalist can be a one-person production crew.

Journalists can scale and adjust the tools they need based on the volume of required output and the type of content needed for a specific platform, and can also create data-driven election graphics and submit breaking news stories and publish as needed to different platforms. 

That’s the simple reality: The pace of the news cycle has never been faster, said Daniel Nergard, president of Vizrt.

“Today’s journalists need to be able to create on multiple output formats, often at the same time, in order to reach and engage their audience,” he said. Nergard added that Newsroom Suite simplifies workflows and offers easier access to a comprehensive set of tools, making it so that journalists can focus on what matters most: Telling the story.

“Vizrt Newsroom allows journalists to scale and adjust the tools they need to the volume of required output and produce any type of content for any kind of show, program or platform,” said Gerhard Lang, CTO for Vizrt. “Content production teams can create anything from data-driven election graphics and breaking news stories, to social media aggregation, and republish and adapt to any combination of output needs.”

Using Vizrt Newsroom’s browser-based interfaces, journalists can plan, create and edit stories from either their newsroom, the road or from home. This feature proved vital during the early days of the pandemic. 

“During the pandemic we saw creative use of virtual technology not only from broadcasters but also the corporate world,” said Andre Torsvik, head of marketing strategy for Vizrt Group, referring to a corporate event organized by Janssen, an immunology company that saw its Covid-19 vaccine receive emergency use authorization in the U.S. in early 2021. 

The three-day corporate event took place using Vizrt virtual environments. The company used Viz Arc to control graphics and handle virtual camera transitions. All material was produced in the Amazon Web Services cloud and controlled from three international locations, Torsvik said.

“We have seen some brilliant work from our customers in leveraging software-based solutions to break through old hardware-based limitations,” he said.

Vizrt also recently released the Vizrt XR Extended Reality system, which gives journalists virtual, augmented, mixed and extended reality storytelling capabilities. Used in the studio or at a home location, the virtual set can be reset from one show to the next in a matter of minutes. A wall at home can serve as a blank canvas allowing for interaction between presenters and graphics objects. 

According to Nergard, the system is designed to make it easier to run immersive, extended reality shows. State-of-the-art camera tracking and AI keying technology create hyper-real, precise graphics. Virtual views, 3D camera flights and myriad analysis tools let the presenter break down a sporting event interactively, either by offering insights on a touchscreen or virtually inserted right on the wall.

You might think unicorns are mythical creatures, but if you know where to look, you’re bound to find one. And after a recent virtual conference, I can guarantee you it’s well worth the effort.

A good place to start the search is at Denver7, the E.W. Scripps Company’s KMGH ABC-affiliate serving the Mile High City.

Dean Littleton, vice president and general manager of Denver7-KMGH, had a lot to say about unicorns during a weekly Zoom conference in mid-May put on by the Oconsortium. 

“…[W]e hired a number of what we refer to as ‘unicorns’,” said Littleton. “These are people who can run the presets on the [NewTek] TriCaster; they can be on camera, and they can write.”

While being “a tough position to hire for” in Littleton’s words, these unicorns are a critical part of the station’s larger OTT strategy, which has seen the launch of a streaming 24/7 local news channel that operates on the “news wheel” concept with frequent break-ins for live breaking news.

Littleton likens the unicorns to radio DJs who can run the board, go on-air and write their own stories—skills and a propensity towards flexibility not typically found in a single person. That makes finding these unicorns about as tough as tracking down the mythical creatures.

The unicorns at Denver7 are emblematic of the qualities broadcasters must possess to thrive during today’s seismic shifts in the media landscape. Like these unicorns, broadcasters must leverage existing skills in new and unique ways to meet today’s challenges. 

You need look no further than Denver7, which not only offers the 24/7 linear news channel as an OTT stream, but also a similarly structured 24/7 weather OTT channel, a linear OTT channel of Scripps-produced shows like “Court TV” and “Right This Minute” and another called the “Zen Stream,” featuring user-generated content. 

Then, for good measure the broadcaster re-spins all of the content from these linear OTT channels as VOD offerings.

Not only do the free ad-supported OTT channels generate revenue, but equally as important they track the changing habits of viewers, who in droves are subscribing to OTT services like Amazon Prime and Netflix.

It’s also worth noting the availability of the OTT channels strengthens the broadcaster’s OTA position. For instance, the OTT news channel feeds Denver7’s 1 p.m. newscast over the air, said Littleton.

Further, the availability of the stream means Littleton can spin up a new 24/7 OTA local news channel whenever needed or desired.

With IP-based NextGen TV rolling out around the nation—70-plus percent of the nation is expected to be covered by year’s end—it might make sense for other broadcasters to get serious about similar OTT streaming channels that can be easily simulcast over the air via 3.0 when available.

Learning a lesson or two from a unicorn might make it easier to find the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) has been designated a global pandemic by the WHO, newsrooms are being forced to adapt their operations to protect their employees while still providing key information to their audiences.

Axios has summarized the actions taken across the news industry, which for most has involved some kind of work-from-home policy.

When it comes to video production, some steps being taken include Quartz featuring more individualized explainers to limit peer-to-peer contact. Buzzfeed, meanwhile, moving forward with video production, is providing thermometers on all production sets. NowThis News says that it is “well-versed in remote interviews and virtual meetings,” so it does not anticipate a large impact on its offerings at this time.

For live television productions like talk shows, nearly all are moving forward with taping without audiences. This includes late night shows on CBS, NBC and Comedy Central, and all ABC live studio shows.

For more information on the news industry’s response to coronavirus, visit Axios’ website. 

NEW YORK—Due in part to the proliferation of social media, the way people get their news continues to evolve, and broadcasters are embracing these changes in how the news is even disseminated. The linear broadcast that has been a staple of TV reporting—including the daily evening news—has given way to multiple delivery platforms. At the same time belt tightening means newsrooms increasingly have to do more with less, but here too technology is having a serious impact as audiences fragment in the evolving 24-hour news cycle. 

This has led to broadcasters adopting the “digital first” policy that was first championed by publishers, according to Warren Davis, senior product manager at Bitcentral in Newport Beach, Calif. 

"Digital curators are getting access to content as it is being created for live broadcast," he said. "This is being facilitated by new search, production and publishing tools in the newsroom being shared across the digital production teams. Additionally the push for earlier metadata enhancement of raw camera and finished content allows for the automated curation and assistance in creating new or re-versioned content for live and digital distribution."

This year could see significant changes, beginning with how news is produced, but more importantly how it is delivered or distributed and also in how it is consumed.

"There are many, many new things that are coming up," predicted Raoul Cospen, marketing director for news at Dalet, which has also adopted a “digital first” approach. "The first one is obviously the digital disruption and the fact that even televisions now have websites and digital ways of putting their news or posting their news. So, digital is becoming more pre-eminent in workflows."

This digital first approach addresses changes at the production level, and Dalet is among the companies leading the move to the next-generation, borderless multiplatform newsroom with Dalet Galaxy Five, which will leverage advanced cloud and AI technologies, Cospen said.

GOING WITH THE WORKFLOW

The work of producing news for viewer consumption has long been about the workflows, but in 2020 these will continue to evolve as part of that move to digital first. However, in many ways it could still be "business as usual," as the end result is about delivering the news in a timely manner.

"Editorially, there are new needs for the TV script but also the CMS script, but also the narrations that are going to go inside the video and so on," said Cospen. "Then on top, you will have broadcast video that sits on one side but also the digital version with multiple formats; obviously, 9:16, 4:3, [Instagram] square and so on. But that will embed some additional graphics, some captions, maybe some translations, maybe some narrations, some stuff that is going to make the video more compelling to the digital viewers, basically."

None of this is exclusive to news production, but it is the never-ending daily news cycle that presents the added challenges to the workflows. In addition, there is the fact that viewers aren't sitting around the TV to catch the evening news at a set time. As such, the traditional workflow is very much a work in progress.

"There is the move toward mobile journalism, user-generated content and we need to arm those journalists with the toolsets so that they can do everything they need to do over a phone or tablet," said Ray Thompson, director of broadcast & media solutions at Avid. "We're seeing a move away as well from the truck or even cameramen, and the new technologies enable broadcasters to become more nimble and operate with less."

Even within broadcast facilities the actual newsroom is undergoing significant changes, notably with the move to IP.

"This is extending the ability for anyone in the newsroom to work with reporters who are everywhere, and this can include editing of video and the adding of graphics," added Thompson. "We're also seeing a move to a cloud-based repository, which allows broadcasters to route video as a story breaks whether it is regionally, nationally or internationally, and to be shared to that audience."

The evolving workflows will address this cross-media proliferation of news content delivery as well. "We can increase the number of output channels, and a lot of our existing customers are looking to be more efficient from these tools," said Trevor Spielmann, head of sales for newsroom solutions at SCISYS, which was acquired by CGI last year. 

However, there are also new challenges as a result.

"We are finding that it must be cost effective, easy to learn, easy to deploy and flexible when deployed," added Spielmann. "Our ‘Open Media’ [platform] can do all this and be customized, and integrated with third party applications, which provide that flexibility to our clients." 

AI FOR NEWS

While the newsroom may have to do more with less in terms of people, it will be getting help from artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, which can provide the ability to utilize content in the archives far faster than ever before. This could also result in a change in the general repurposing of archived content. 

"I would not call it ‘repurpose’ anymore because we used to repurpose before, but because of the ‘digital first’ aspect, it's not about repurposing," said Cospen. "It's about producing some content for many outputs, taking many outputs in consideration."

This is just one aspect of how AI could be utilized this year and beyond. AI has fully strategic uses, which include the calibration element as well as the ability to better collaborate across a story even as it has more contributors.

This will allow for a more collaborative working environment added Cospen, who noted this includes, "the ability to comment, the ability to do to-do lists, the ability to follow pieces of news and so on. The last point is adding a resource management on top of your newsroom, to optimize, to be more efficient and again to tell better news faster, cheaper and in a more efficient way."

Searching for just the right content, when it is needed most, could also be made easier via AI, and Dalet is offering its new automated “Discovery Search,” which works with the planning editor and story editor. "It is identifying potential matches for what you’re currently doing, for things that you didn't identify as potential material for your story," said Cospen. "It's going to help you to dig further in your archive and to bring some extra content that is going to make your story a bit more compelling."

AI can provide the way to pull the content from the archives via metatags and other metadata in a way that simply wasn't possible in the past, but it can also do searches far faster than a team of researchers.

"It can do facial, speech-to-text and use other algorithms to recognize a particular scene or even logo," said Thompson. "This is where the rubber meets the road in really being able to take advantage of the archives, but it can also determine the right content for a specific audience."

However, the full potential of AI will not come soon.

"AI is still a buzzword at the moment," cautioned Spielmann. "It is what everyone is talking about, even if a lot of it isn't really AI. There are plenty of third-party AI solutions as everyone has a different view and a different application in mind. So our view is to be as flexible as possible in how these can be integrated."

USER GENERATED

Today, thanks to our increasingly powerful smartphones, it isn't just the professional TV reporters that are doing the work of newsgathering. More and more content is being shot on those devices, and with the right toolsets this content can be used by teams in the physical newsrooms.

"TV news production has always had access to user generated content [UGC]," said Davis. "Stations are marketing it to be used with their apps and website UGC contribution portals directly from the user's mobile phone. Of course all of these consumer-level video contributions require transcoding since a variable frame rate is used for most all mobile phone recorders and must be converted into a fixed frame rate before going to air."

The quality of the actual content is just one part of a very complex equation, and here is another aspect that AI can streamline.

"The big challenge is about getting the rights to use that content, but we now have the toolsets that can allow you to scrap the social media feeds via hashtags and other metadata," said Avid’s Thompson. "User generated content is produced so quickly that users can beat the actual broadcasters to the story, so it is imperative that those news providers find that content and can get it posted."

LAS VEGAS—Television news directors have a love-hate relationship with social media; they love the traffic it brings to their stations’ websites, but they aren’t too wild about the effort and expense of making frequent posts, says Bob Papper, emeritus distinguished professor of journalism at Hofstra University and professor emeritus at Ball State University.

“News directors know they have to do social media. They know why they have to do social media; and they wish they didn’t have to,” says Papper, who will present some of his research findings on social media and TV newsrooms Nov. 21 at 1 p.m. EDT during the “Social Media Platforms—Profit or Problem” TVTechnology webinar sponsored by Avid Technology. (Full disclosure: I am moderating this hour-long webinar.)

The problem with social media centers on how a newsroom does social media without it “eating you alive,” he says. “That’s a valid question because it takes up a lot of time of your station and your staff.”

In a recent article for the RTDNA, “Serious Consolidation in Social Media in TV … and Maybe a New Trend with Twitter,” Papper examined how newsrooms are employing social media and the attitudes of news directors about social media based on findings from the latest RTDNA/Hofstra University survey. Papper will discuss his findings during the Nov. 21 webinar.

TV newsrooms really want to avoid duplicating effort when it comes to social media, digital and on-air content. “In some respects, you are doing the same thing over and over and over again. And that is a killer, especially for a station that is smaller staffed,” he says.

For stations with an adequately sized news staff, social media is “an inconvenience,” but for smaller and medium-sized stations it becomes a “huge problem,” he says.

Staffing is only part of the problem, however. Arguably, the more serious problem stations face with social media is that there is not enough money in it to make the endeavor profitable –at least on its own, he says.

“Facebook makes money in social media. Google makes money in social media. If you throw in Amazon, you have 70% of all the revenue that goes to social media, and stations get essentially nothing,” says Papper.

Regardless, stations know they must do social media, he explains. Social media promotes audience engagement with the station.

While social media on its own might not fill station coffers, broadcasters that know how to use social media to promote engagement can use their posts to drive audience to station websites –a destination broadcasters can monetize, he says.

“For the most part, the majority of audience you get online comes via social media,” says Papper.

Broadcasters, however, should be realistic about their social media expectations, Papper cautions.

While young people are heavy social media users, it’s not too likely that a station will attract large numbers from this age group simply because it posts to Facebook or some other destination. This has more to do with the fact that young people don’t typically read or watch the news, he says.

“The last time young people read and watched local news was in the 1960s and early 1970s,” says Papper. “We could send young people back to news today by reinstituting the draft. But since we probably are not going to do that, the first thing we need to do is be realistic about it.”

Register for the “Social Media Platforms –Profit or Problems” webinar.