NewsTECHForum 2016

Ten Sinclair stations are already equipped with drones and the personnel to operate them and 35 will get them next year, says Sinclair Chief Pilot Jeff Rose. “Viewers love drones, he says. “They go over really big.”

Stations are looking for content management systems and workflow solutions that will help their newsroom managers wrangle and organize content created at their stations for both linear and digital, as well as user-generated content from social media. And the speed required to post stories quickly on station digital platforms, coupled with the need to always be generating video to go with them, has spurred an evolution in portable transmission equipment

Technology leaders from Hearst, Fox, Gray Television and Nexstar discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by recent advancements in automation and robotics technologies. Among the advancements that are improving station newscasts are templated graphics, consistent newsroom editing, consistent studio lighting and multifunctional workstations.

Gordon Borrell says that in addition to that decrease, digital was up $1.3 billion. In 2017, he says, core TV spending will be flat, with digital outselling traditional media. What stations need to do, he advises, is show advertisers how broadcast spend can help drive traffic to their website or Facebook page. “When they begin to put the two together — that broadcast advertising drives digital traffic better than anything else, and it does — than you’re going to see more … advertising.”

Among the keys to station group success with graphics hubs: a long-term commitment from top-level leadership, strong bonds with the local stations and a willingness to constantly evolve the graphics package.

News directors, content managers and producers in TV newsrooms across the country have begun to realize that the old legacy model of TV news won’t fly on digital platforms. Simply “chopping up” a newscast into smaller, bite-size, separate story segments and then posting them on a station website is fast becoming an outmoded concept.

Some suggestions from a NewsTECHForum panel: You need to really listen to the demographic’s interests, build content with a platform’s specific use in mind and deliver it to where they are — social feeds.

The consensus of the panelists at a NewsTECH Forum session is that Facebook’s impact in the local media marketplaces today represents both a threat and an opportunity. They urged local broadcasters to get involved in Facebook because they can’t afford not to. But stations need to develop strategies that let them manage the amount and quality of content they post on Facebook, while also keeping in mind the integrity of their own platforms, which is, after all, the place where station content gets monetized.

The company’s Newsy digital video service now produces around 30 pieces of short-form video content per day. While Newsy is on 21 OTT platforms, its GM, Blake Sabatinelli, says the company is very much pursuing a “plant the flag” approach in anticipation of the coming consolidation, which he views as inevitable.

On Day 1 of TVN‘s NewsTECHForum, Andrew Morse of CNN Digital Worldwide emphasized that stations need to produce digital news content with an eye primarily on the platforms and audiences for which the content is being designed. In addition, the quality of the content is more important than how it’s branded.

The Dec. 12 opening session of TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum will feature Hearst TV’s Roger Keating; E.W. Scripps’ Sean McLaughlin; CJ&N’s Steve Schwaid; and Dalet’s Frederic Roux who will be “Imaging the Newsroom of the Future.”

Broadcasters have become increasingly reliant on its referral traffic, and Facebook’s platform is gobbling up more and more of broadcasters’ resources and original content. A panel discussion on Dec. 12 at NewsTECHForum will also mine how they’re negotiating Facebook Live and monetizing on the platform, featuring input from Tegna, CBS Local Digital Media, News Press & Gazette and more. 

The fourth annual conference from TVNewsCheck and Sports Video Group will feature an on-stage Q&A with Blake Sabatinelli, the general manager of the Scripps-owned OTT service Newsy.

The fourth annual conference from TVNewsCheck and Sports Video Group will begin Dec. 12 with an interview featuring the executive vice president of CNN. Other sessions will address monetizing news with OTT; designing digital-first newsrooms; state-of-the-art TV graphics; distributed content; chasing millennials with streaming media, mobile and OTT; the evolution in ENG; managing user-generated content; real-world story-centric workflow; and more.