With the technology and business models associated with the newsroom changing and evolving monthly, you can hardly be faulted for wondering where it’s all heading next. There are three primary elements that are adding to these changes: the need to deliver news product to a variety of platforms, not just the big screen; consolidation in station ownership, which is creating new opportunities to leverage news resources group-wide; and IP connectivity that makes it possible to put more TV reporters on the street.1
Once upon a time, newsrooms created newscasts exclusively for air; but that’s in the past. Audiences are demanding their news on mobile devices, laptops, tablets, etc. Social media is also driving demand for news – so if you’re still preoccupied with your on-air newscast, you’re about to go the way of the dinosaur.
Chances are, though, that you’re looking to move forward and evolve. But how can we when the technology we’ve been using is becoming more outdated every day? And what about all that new tech that only does bits and pieces, forcing us to use various platforms with various log-in pages?
“Serving content across social media and OTT is a major challenge facing today’s TV newsrooms, and adding personnel is usually not an option to address the larger workload,” said Fred Fourcher, Bitcentral CEO.
The answer newsroom computer systems (NRCS) vendors have adopted is to put the story — rather than a newscast rundown — at the center of the process. As journalists begin creating news, they can access the elements they need —scripts, video clips and graphics — seamlessly from within the NRCS user interface and build stories for different delivery platforms without the hassle and confusion.1
Bitcentral is serving up the lion’s share of the solution with the various tools. Its CORE:news provides news production and master control and automation solutions that facilitate simplified broadcast and digital media workflows. Create is a single interface featuring a robust story-based workflow from video capture and encoding to editing, playout, publishing and archive. It publishes content to wherever your customers want to see it; from TV to web to mobile and OTT.
“Multiplatform production, or what some people call a story-centric workflow, is absolutely one of the hottest areas in newsroom computer systems right now,” says Jason Smith, director of product design for AP’s ENPS.
“This is bleeding-edge tech that we’re making sure is constantly evolving. Rest on your laurels and the competition will surge past you”, Fourcher observes. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback that suggests we’re doing the right thing. A lot of happy clients who let us know how much easier we’ve made their jobs. They love the tools we offer.”
Broadcasters are also increasingly asking NRCS vendors to grow the functions of their newsroom systems to the street where their reporters are gathering news.
Again, Bitcentral comes to the forefront of this technology with its Oasis platform. Oasis allows you to share and repurpose stories from anywhere with anyone. It allows field journalists to pull video to and from Oasis to finish a package and they can feed video without satellite or microwave trucks. If you’re working in house, it allows you to discover valuable stories from other facilities and partners.
Another such tool is Bitcentral’s Precis; it’s a full playout solution that integrates seamlessly into your workflow, driving play-to-air servers and ingest encoding ultimately taking rundowns to air. Precis creates a seamless production for everyone, allowing writers, producers and directors to quickly attach items to stories in rundowns, access all video sources (live and non-live) as well as manage publishing quickly – often in real time.
1http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/93559/newsroom-systems-adapt-to-new-necessities
3https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-share-of-newsroom-computer-systems-NRCS-globally