How to Future-Proof Your Newsroom Production

Shifting audience preferences, emerging technologies, and spiking competition pose a significant challenge for newsrooms. It amounts to operating in uncharted waters and makes staying ahead of the curve daunting.

We have helped some of the industry’s top news broadcasters — like the BBC, Sky News, and CBS — futureproof their newsrooms — and we’ll go deep into how we do that in this article — but here’s a summary of the article for those of you in a rush: 

• Flexibility is Key: Switching to scalable and mobile technology lets you adapt to industry or technological changes without breaking the budget.  
• Use Software-Enabled, Open Infrastructure:
  Switching to an open infrastructure framework lets you build a bespoke news production system around your specific newsroom needs — and change it whenever they change.  
• Tightly Integrate All Your Systems:
  An open infrastructure framework lets you house all your tools under one roof, making it easier to scale when required.  
• Streamline and Automate Content Workflows:
  Harnessing the power of automation reduces your team’s workload while driving productivity and creativity.

Staying Ahead of the “Next Big Thing” 

Control room directors, VPs of Engineering, and news production teams face significant budgetary constraints, including:  

• More Channels and Formats to Optimize for: The rise of streaming services and digital platforms requires newsrooms to deliver content across multiple channels in different formats.  
• More Localization and Regionalization: You must deliver content in different languages tailored to various regions and cultural preferences.  
• Ever-Increasing Demands from Producers: Producers continually require powerful rendering engines and sophisticated technology to create immersive and compelling content.  
• Resource Constraints: Budget limitations may curtail your ability to hire additional personnel or upgrade your equipment and infrastructure.  

Increase Flexibility and Agility with Software-Enabled, Open Infrastructure 

Software-enabled, open infrastructure is an innovative software-driven technology framework that uses open standards and modular components. With such an infrastructure, you can build highly adaptable, interoperable, and cost-effective systems that evolve with your needs. You can create a custom news production system without deferring to costly proprietary systems.  

An open infrastructure decouples hardware from software functionality to help you maximize flexibility and scalability in news broadcasting. You can scale your operations to match demand and adopt new technologies without constantly investing in new hardware.

An open infrastructure easily handles breaking news events, peak period demands, and multi-platform content delivery. You seamlessly integrate the best-in-class newsroom production solutions into your workflow while reducing the learning curve.  

Flexible licensing models such as pay-as-you-go or subscription services grant access to innovative solutions as needed. You can scale your operations or experiment with new technology without costly, long-term solutions. This approach reduces upfront costs and helps optimize resource allocation while giving limitless freedom to try new tools.  

A software-enabled, open infrastructure powers your ability to create a flexible and adaptable newsroom. It helps you create a bespoke system that accommodates your production and broadcasting needs without the astronomical price tag of a proprietary system.  

Increase Scalability by Tightly Integrating All Your Systems 

Investing in integrated systems with easy remote access can give you a much-needed edge. This will enable seamless communication and collaboration between your teams while powering automation. An automated workflow eliminates error-prone manual handoffs while accelerating production times. You can streamline processes and eliminate potential breakages that could result in delays that could undermine your newsroom’s credibility.  

Switching to a highly integrated system helps eliminate the complexities of managing a patchwork of vendors and systems. You can harness the best-in-class solutions from different vendors and create a highly functional solution. This approach allows your news team to use the best news production workflow tools while drastically reducing the learning curve. It makes for quick and effortless onboarding that lets your new hires hit the ground running. The more intuitive your production system is, the more you will get out of it.      

Streamline and Automate Content Creation Workflows 

Switching to MOS workflows and tools like XPression helps automate news content creation and editing processes. Media Object Server (MOS) seamlessly integrates newsroom computer systems with your broadcasting production system. XPression is a specialty graphic system that automates graphic creation and playout. With MOS workflows and XPression, you can polish your content creation process and automate the capacity to create and insert graphics into live broadcasts.  

Harnessing the automated transcoding and playout capabilities of tools such as Media I/O and OverDrive helps skyrocket your market reach. You can effortlessly tailor your content to fit the needs of a diverse audience and platforms. Media I/O automatically converts files into different formats to suit various distribution platforms. OverDrive simplifies content scheduling to ensure distribution efficiency across platforms.  

With these automation tools, you can effortlessly grow your distribution channels without burdening your newsroom team. Automated transcoding ensures content is tailored to fit the requirements of each platform for a seamless viewing experience across devices and screen sizes. OverDrive lets you customize content delivery based on local and regional preferences.  

Automating your workflow reduces your team’s workload and allows your editors and producers to prioritize content creation. They can leverage their skills and talents toward creating immersive and compelling stories that resonate with your target audience.  

Switching to automated workflows gives your newsroom a competitive edge by allowing you to leverage your team’s creativity and talents. It ensures the low-value but crucial tasks are efficiently handled while leaving your team to focus on high-value tasks that drive viewership and revenue generation.  

Keeping Pace with Innovation in News Broadcasting 

Adopting flexible, cost-effective, and user-friendly broadcasting solutions helps you thrive in the highly dynamic media landscape. It powers your ability to adapt to changing market needs, accommodate emerging technology, and meet your viewers’ expectations. 

Embracing adaptable, integrated technology is critical to thriving in the broadcast industry because it enables you to quickly pivot your content strategy in line with changing viewer preferences and consumption habits.