A newly released study argues that American broadcasters face a content crisis, in part because up to 75% of journalist’s time is squandered on technical busy work
New research from Caretta Research made possible by Quickplay found that broadcast journalism and production staff are currently spending three quarters of their time on technical workflows, often referred to as "busywork," leaving only a fraction of their time available for doing what they are best at—delivering timely, accurate, trusted and relevant content to their local audiences.
This constraint, the researchers note, is particularly troubling because it is putting North American broadcasters at risk of losing viewers who are rapidly switching to third-party video platforms.
"When local broadcast journalists lose 75% of their days to technical workflows, they're not just facing a productivity problem, they're staring at an existential one," said Paul Pastor, co-founder and chief business officer, Quickplay. "While the demand for trusted and relevant local content remains high, new rules are in play for local broadcasters to survive.”
Ed Barton, research director at Caretta Research, added that this "technical busywork ....could be automated, accelerated and improved...The shift to unified, software-orchestrated operations is no longer optional, it is the urgent step required to empower and accelerate key staff, enabling broadcasters to compete more effectively in the streaming age. The technologies enabling such a transition used to be expensive and required a lot of customization. However vendors have worked hard to ensure adopting such capabilities is accessible to even the smallest broadcaster”.
More specifically, the new report, “The Broadcaster Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” examines how broadcasters can use their strengths: deep local knowledge, trusted brand equity, and the content archives which effectively form a community’s collective memory to stay relevant and compete effectively as visual entertainment shifts decisively to streaming.
It found that a major challenge is in the fragmented state of broadcaster content archives. Broadcasters hold vast amounts of historical and local content, but it is spread across many different media asset management (MAM) systems and file types.
Without the right infrastructure, finding, retrieving and repurposing this content takes too long, the study reported.
Currently, the study found, many newsrooms and production teams do not have a complete view of all their assets, making finding the right clip or footage too time consuming for the cadence required in a busy news operation. As the report highlights, staff currently "just have to know where it is," often relying on the memory of experienced employees to locate specific video files.
This also highlights the fact that workflows designed for traditional linear broadcasting are too slow for the high volume and publishing cadence needed to satisfy the audiences and algorithms on social and third-party platforms.
These platforms reward consistent, relevant and rapid publishing which elicits engagement and reaction. That means broadcasters who want to increase their video presence on these platforms, using the appropriate formats and distinct editorial voices expected by a given platform's audience, need new workflows.
To address these issues, the study found that broadcasters are increasingly adopting unified software or orchestration layers which offer visibility and control of their content, production and distribution workflows. Instead of risky “rip and replace” approaches to upgrading technology, such an approach reduces deployment, operational and economic risk while conferring significant performance and efficiency gains which quickly stack up, even in smaller operations.
By making core workflows visible and controllable from a single UI, or "one pane of glass,” broadcasters empower editors and journalists to easily find, clip, package, and distribute content without constantly switching between tools or moving files. This change transforms content archives from cost centers into potential drivers for audience engagement, enabling highly skilled staff to focus on doing what they do best. It also enables broadcasters to assert themselves and compete effectively on the platforms their audiences are spending the most time on.
“Gone are the days where broadcast is always the first format and then recut for other platforms,” Pastor added. “Our digital-first world demands the flexibility to start with vertical before broadcast when appropriate. An orchestrated, content-to-value platform then turns one story into formats built for each of these platforms simultaneously, so broadcasters can compete at the same velocity and reach as anyone else without giving up their real superpower: local relevance."
For more information and to access the full research produced independently by Caretta Research and made possible by Quickplay visit here.
