A newly released study argues that U.S. broadcasters face a content crisis, in part because up to 75% of journalists’ time is squandered on technical busywork.
Broadcast journalists are currently spending three-quarters of their time on technical workflows often referred to as busywork, according to a Caretta Research study sponsored by streaming technology firm Quickplay. That leaves just a fraction of their time available for doing what they’re best at, Quickplay said—delivering timely, accurate, trusted and relevant content to their local audiences.
This constraint is particularly troubling because it puts North American broadcasters at risk of losing viewers to third-party platforms, the researchers noted.
“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,” Quickplay Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer Paul Pastor said. “While the demand for trusted and relevant local content remains high, new rules are in play for local broadcasters to survive.”
This “technical busywork…could be automated, accelerated and improved,” Ed Barton, research director at Caretta Research, added. “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.”
The report, titled “The Broadcaster Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” examines how broadcasters can use their strengths—deep local knowledge, trusted brand equity and their content archives—to stay relevant and compete effectively as visual entertainment shifts decisively to streaming.
One major challenge is the fragmented state of broadcasters’ content archives, the report noted. Local stations hold vast amounts of content, but it is spread across many different media asset management systems and file types.
Without the right infrastructure, finding, retrieving and repurposing this content takes too long, the study reported.
Furthermore, many newsrooms and production teams lack a complete view of all their assets, according to the study, making the process of finding the right clip or footage too time-consuming for 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.
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, the study said.
Social media platforms reward consistent, relevant and rapid publishing that elicits engagement and reaction. Boadcasters who want to increase their video presence on these platforms, using the appropriate formats and distinct editorial voices expected by a given audience, need new workflows.
To address these issues, the study found broadcasters are increasingly adopting unified software or orchestration layers that 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 that quickly stack up, even in smaller operations.
By making core workflows visible and controllable from a single UI, or "one pane of glass,” editors and journalists can 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 where their audiences spend the most time.
“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, click here.
