Opinions

With the launch of its new Global Media Network and Media Management Centre, Babcock has placed £2.4 million of its money where its mouth is. Josh Sparks, Senior Consultant, explains why it had to prepare to expand beyond short wave radio.

Radio still retains the qualities and benefits which have made it the most available global communications medium. Its cost-effective coverage, its ability to carry messages across geographical and political boundaries and the universal availability of cheap, portable receivers have led to radio becoming the platform of choice when you need to communicate with your audience – whoever they are and wherever they are.

But as technology develops, additional platforms have become available which are able to reach into some areas traditionally served by radio. Modern technology is becoming converged into IP (Internet Protocol) networking, providing an ideal foundation for the delivery of Web-based digital media, such as audio/video-on-demand, mobile/Web streams and podcasting. Put simply, making an existing radio channel available over multiple platforms will gain additional audience reach without changing the editorial content. But to take advantage of this opportunity, new approaches to transmission must also start coming into play, and this means an investment in new technologies.

So how do you deliver the same, unmodified content across multiple platforms with equal effectiveness? The answer is that you can’t. But you can deliver modified content over multiple platforms if it is based upon one set of raw material using intelligent annotations or tags. By accurately describing and annotating unedited content within a defined template, you create meaningful metadata (information which indexes and defines “raw" programme material). This information allows transmission of the same content, cleverly tailored for delivery over different platforms. For example, traditional radio can be broken down into topical components and presented on the web, together with links into more detailed base content. Graphics and background links can be quickly associated from the archive and also be added, giving a richer media experience tailored to the Internet. In this way content can be re-purposed to be effective on, and compliant with a particular platform, rather than being generated from the start each time.

To maximise the benefits and minimise the cost it is logical to carry the metadata model through into content delivery, minimising the storage and handling of multiple formats of the same media. Babcock has already recognised the need for change and we have just completed a three year project to replace our control room facility and distribution network infrastructure with a new Global Media Network and Media Management Centre –designed specifically for processing and delivering digital media and metadata. The Global Media Network centres on a digital archive, with integrated metadata handling driving playout facilities and content re-purposing engines. Last-mile platforms which connect the Global Media Network with the end-user, such as Internet streamers, CMS (Content Management System) websites, mobile portals, satellite uplinks and terrestrial transmission sites, are all seamless integrated around the edge of the network. By building the core of the media processing, distribution and delivery systems upon convergent IP technology, all of the media content management takes place naturally in the IP domain without further transcoding or conversion. Additional capabilities, such as mobile phone portals and media-focused, content-managed web sites sit comfortably as last-mile delivery mechanisms around the periphery of a common infrastructure which also supports our heritage of short wave and medium wave transmission.

From the broadcaster’s point of view, the habits and requirements of their audience will change and the broadcaster will have to cater to these requirements if they are to grow, or even maintain existing audience levels. With more and more content available, the winners in the audience war will be the broadcasters who provide the best targeted, easily available, quality content. The existence of converged platforms will facilitate their responses to changing audience requirements and developing markets. The ability to alter swiftly the demographic and geographic focus of their programming through multiple platforms with access to global reach and with less consequential internal organisational restructuring should be compelling. The complexity of the delivery and supporting technology must become transparent to the broadcaster, leaving the broadcaster to focus on its core skill: producing the high-quality content that will capture the audience.