ABC News

Since first launch in 1932 ABC News has been the primary source for news and current events in Australia. It ranks as the largest news organisation in Australia with the largest news footprint; covering more geographical areas than any other domestic news organisation.

Content has grown from original radio broadcasts through the 1930s and 40s through to television in the 1950s, FM radio in the 1980s through to digital transmission in the 2000s and today embraces every form of commercial television, radio, social media, pod casts and other digital forms.

Recognizing and materializing the digital world development over current times threw a realisation into the ABC that content was king only if it was made immediately available and ready for distribution at anytime, anywhere.

Challenge

Having the largest news footprint in Australia in the traditional and analogue world had to be met by a similar response in the digital world if the ABC was to fulfil it basic Charter to “provide informative, entertaining and education that reflect the breadth of the nation”.

ABC News needed to find a solution that would enable them to not only prepare and retain news for immediate distribution, but also to prepare content for on-selling news other news organisations around the world.

Choice

Media Room had already demonstrated its worth to ABC Commercial so it seemed to be a reasonable ask for ABC News to investigate how Silver Trak’s content management system could be developed to facilitate the News needs.

Through several months consultation, a version of Media Room was created to allow for a workflow that would support ABC News in its delivery of content to other news organisations either as a self-serve model or through a RSS aggregation feed.

Outcome

The simplicity of the workflows allow Producers at ABC News to upload news video which are probed by Media Room protocols. The video is trimmed and bumpers are added front and back. The file is transcoded from GXF to ProRes, returned to Media Room unpublished and producers are alerted the new file being ready and available within minutes of receipt. Descriptive metadata is added and producers can now publish the story. The complete process, enhanced by Aspera file accelerator protocols happens in less time than making a cup of coffee.

The creation of the ABC News product “ABC Now” has become a market leader for the ABC and developed sales opportunities and revenue streams for the ABC both domestically and internationally. Silver Trak Digital and Media Room continue to work closely with the ABC on technology development and will be enhancing the Media Room platform with AI and more immediate and interactive search features.