IBM

IBM, a major advertiser on X, has pulled its spending from the social media platform, whose employees are grappling with what to tell its other advertisers, according to internal messages. X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, and others at the company scrambled on Thursday to contain the fallout.

IBM said Tuesday it’s selling its weather unit, including its mobile app and websites, Weather.com, Weather Underground and Storm Radar. The buyer is Francisco Partners, a tech-focused private equity firm. The price was not disclosed. As part of the deal, IBM will retain access to the company’s weather data, which it uses to power some of the AI models it sells to enterprise clients.

Broadcasters are calling on a combination of cloud, software and transport technologies to facilitate collaborating and sharing at a station or across groups. The pandemic has shifted the many news sharing tools into high gear. Above: Dalet Pyramid Cut is Dalet Pyramid’s web-based feature-rich video and audio editor.

Broadcasters racing to keep up with creating content for an expanding array of distribution platforms told The Weather Company their meteorologists needed two things: speed to publish and the ability to work remotely. The weather provider responded with Max Velocity, a browser based platform that enables lightning fast story creation in a tool so easy to use that it expands the potential user pool to non-meteorologists and even sponsors.

Nate Johnson, director of weather operations for NBCUniversal Local, says the group’s NBC and Telemundo stations are using augmented reality to enhance weather reporting. Every tool counts, he emphasizes, since competition for talent is getting stiffer as Fox readies its own weather network. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Continuous advances in AI, machine learning and natural language processing have boosted automated closed captioning’s value well beyond regulation compliance. Above: The caption edit user interface for Digital Nirvana’s Trance transcription and captioning solution.

Broadcasters aiming to diversify digital revenue streams in the wake of disruption in the programmatic advertising universe may consider partnering with The Weather Company, an IBM Business, and offering a premium version of their mobile weather app. The Max Mobile Premium app, pictured here, uses AI-powered messaging to invite Max Mobile users to upgrade. 

Meteorologists will soon be able to quickly and easily share their best work with colleagues at other stations in their group, thanks to a new solution, Max Cloud, from The Weather Company, an IBM Business. Company executives mapped out their journey to the cloud during a TVNewsCheck webinar.

When it comes to mobile apps, broadcasters still face a range of options from a single- or multiple-app approach to adopting back-end tech allowing user personalization. But some goals remain constant: keeping users on owned-and-operated mobile platforms over social and monetizing the experience wherever possible.

Local TV, considered one of the most trustworthy sources of news by consumers navigating challenging times, could cement relationships with newer and younger viewers by capitalizing on their ability to deliver superior weather content on TV, social, mobile, OTT and the web.

Artificial intelligence has been touted for several years as a potential tool for cleaning up the metadata in broadcasters’ archives and making old clips more easily retrievable. COVID-19’s role in scuttling much live programming may finally push AI’s value for MAMs into the foreground.

Weather forecasts, long the most popular feature of local TV newscasts, are serving as respite for audiences gripped, and exhausted, by news about the global coronavirus pandemic. Can meteorologists, often adept at multiplatform engagement, help cement the relationship with the large numbers of new and younger audience members tuning in? Kevin Eubanks, chief meteorologist at KSL-TV Salt Lake City, Danielle Breezy, chief meteorologist at Nexstar Media’s WKRN Nashville, and Rodney Thompson, senior strategist at The Weather Co., an IBM Business, will talk about strategies for winning the loyalty of new and younger viewers during a June 4 TVNewsCheck webinar. Register here.