TVEyes, The Leader in Television and Radio Search, Monitoring and Alerting

The Future of Broadcast is Social.

David Ives — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:14:27 +0000

I’m in Brussels to speak at the FIBEP Future of Broadcast Monitoring and Measurement conference tomorrow. Among the key points I am making is the social nature of video and how consumers are already sharing millions of videos online each day – but it is hard for them to capture and share broadcast television content. And this trend is passing broadcasters and content owners by – at least for now.

Copyright and monetization for content owners are the top two hurdles to overcome. Newly launched and very popular iPhone and iPad apps, SocialCam and Viddy top the list. With SocialCam, users are sharing videos they record on their phones. Some of that content also is videos they record from broadcast. To give you an idea of how hot this is, and the opportunity being missed by content owners, TechCrunch recently stated that the user count of SocialCam alone exceeds 20 million, though that number is inflated by the fact that in order to watch a shared video on Facebook one must register with the app – you needn’t download the iphone app to watch. An impressive element of that TechCrunch post is the investors who are already funding these young companies.

If there was a broadcast capture and sharing app that incorporated a monetization platform for the copyright owners, the possibilities are enormous. I can imagine my wife posting a video like this: “did you see what just happened on Dancing with the Stars?” and the video gets posted on Facebook and goes viral. I can imagine one of my sons, “check out this amazing video of Mariano Rivera hurting his knee.” News and entertainment content would become integrated with the social web immediately and with powerful results. Popular segments would have tens of millions of views and would carry advertising and links to content owners’ sites embedded within. This would dramatically increase the audience and revenue possibilities for content owners.

All we need to do is agree on the revenue model. The technology is for the most part built. TVEyes already has every major broadcast and cable station in the US monitored for its business-to-business users. We also built a speech-to-text engine to generate relevant advertising based on spoken words within clips. Advertising placement without context is a no-brainer. Creating an app that allows consumers to search and share their favorite broadcast clips also a small technological step. The big hurdle is an industry-wide agreement on how to share the pie.

Maybe the way to get started is with one large content owner that demonstrates to the industry what is possible. Who’s in?

“It’s a virtual DVR for every channel, every city, at every hour of the day.”

David Ives — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:29:20 +0000

You can’t say it any better than TVEyes subscriber Brian Stelter, a reporter who writes about television and digital media for The New York Times. Stelter is interviewed by The Atlantic Wire on how he keeps up with his beat – the 24-hour media business and its ever-morphing leading edge. The torrent of input he manages is made easier by having TVEyes Media Monitoring Suite in his toolkit. This item is fascinating for the specifics of how Stelter immerses himself in all media during what must be a very frenetic workday.

Thanks for the shout out, Brian! Here’s a link to the full article.

If you’d like to have the most powerful broadcast TV and radio monitoring service on your desk, please call TVEyes sales at 203-254-3600 x100 or email sales@tveyes.com. Be sure to ask about our 30-day free trial.

Video Briefing Books: Preparing a Spokesperson for a TV Interview or Segment Appearance

David Ives — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:06:16 +0000

All public relations professionals are familiar with briefing books, as are experienced spokespeople. There are a lot of tools PR pros use to prepare a business executive or government official for a print interview. A few keystrokes on Factiva or Lexis/Nexis and you can quickly create a relevant set of print articles for your spokesperson to use in preparation for their next interview.

But preparing for TV interviews is different. You can’t count on Google or Youtube video search, or Websites of the media properties themselves to provide quick and accurate access to relevant video clips. The ideal briefing for a TV interview should include clips of recent segments that have aired with similar setups to the upcoming appearance, with the interviewer questioning competitors or political opponents or covering similar subjects during the segment, as journalists tend to follow something of a pattern in their questioning. This enables the spokesperson to get comfortable in advance of the interview; he or she will feel they “know” the journalist and can anticipate the likely themes of the interview before actually being on-air for the segment.

The ideal TV briefing book would be housed within a private Web page, and contain bios of the journalist or journalists who will be on-air during the segment, four to six recent clips with similar subjects being covered, video clips of the segment for the last two to three airings, and likely questions expected from the journalist (and optionally answers). You can build an online briefing book with free tools like Evernote, or use a private area of a Website. If you don’t want to count on the Internet, you can provide the spokesperson with a USB drive or send the briefing book by email for the spokesperson to download well in advance of the interview. The more the public relations person has spoken with the booker, the greater the detail he or she can generate for the spokesperson (it is important to note that there might not always be a lot of time to work the booker for details depending on his/her schedule).

The TVEyes Media Monitoring Suite is a web-based TV and radio broadcast search, alert and monitoring solution that is ideal for public relations agencies as well as in-house PR departments to use in preparing for interviews. You can easily search for clips using any spoken word or phrase, as well as by date and time, and station or stations. It only takes a few mouse clicks for you to have clips from recent and relevant segments of the show for him or her to review. Your spokesperson will ace the appearance on television, and you’ll look good, too.

If you’d like more information, or a free trial of the leading TV and radio broadcast search, alert and monitoring solution for PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad, please call 203-254-3600 x100 or email sales@tveyes.com.

Media Training for Television: Recent Clips Help Spokespeople Better Prepare for TV Interviews.

David Ives — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:52:50 +0000

Media training for spokespeople is valuable in ensuring that the outcome of a TV interview is as close as possible to the desired result. Many of us have seen unprepared spokespeople bomb on TV or just do a fair but not great job. The desired outcome of a TV interview, beyond getting your message points on air is to be asked back. It’s so difficult for new executives to get on TV that you really need to ace the first appearance on any show you’re invited to appear on. For that you need to have a great TV appearance, not just an “OK” one.

To increase the odds of being asked back by the booker for TV shows you want to appear on, it’s best to do your media training with relevant preparatory materials. Many media training companies have stock footage they use to help set the stage for what a good or bad TV interview looks like. Our suggestion is that they add client-specific TV clips to make the session as valuable as possible.

For example, if your media training is for a CEO, CFO, securities analyst or portfolio manager, why not include segments from the top financial and business news shows? For a sports executive or athlete, a few TV sports segments with personalities they know and admire (or not) will help make the point. Show the trainee what a great TV appearance looks like. It also helps to show what a fair or poor one looks like, too. In our experience it helps people to feel at ease if they see what the parameters are and can compare their delivery, dress and on-set demeanor to their peers. And since many media training for TV sessions include how to dress for TV, seeing recent examples from their peer group, both good and bad, can melt any resistance to suggestions being made for dress, grooming, makeup and posture.

The TVEyes Media Monitoring Suite is a web-based TV and radio broadcast search, alert and monitoring solution that is ideal for public relations agencies, media trainers and in-house PR departments to use in preparing for media training sessions. You can easily search for clips using any spoken word or phrase, as well as by date and time, and station or stations.

Opposition Research: Using TV Search and Monitoring for Political Campaigns

David Ives — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:01:46 +0000

An opposing politician’s gaffe, attack, flip-flop or substantive speech as aired on TV can support long-term opposition research projects and create an immediate opportunity for your campaign to counterattack or use as fodder within the news cycle – but only if you have complete and accurate source material. In order to be most credible, your outreach should include reference to the complete context of the video you are pointing out or responding to along with your message. In addition, in order to prepare your candidate for the inevitable questions surrounding the competitor’s statement, providing him or her with original video and audio, as-broadcast and in near-real-time can make your candidate appear to be totally on top of what is being said, by whom and in what context.

In today’s world of social media, twitter and blogs, it’s easy to forget that often the primary source of opposition research material is video that airs on local television. TV cameras are almost always rolling at the campaign stops, stump speeches and events held by candidates for statewide and national political office. In addition to broadcast television local affiliate and network coverage, cable TV cameras often record candidates as they move through a campaign day. In addition to professional video, these TV outlets often air video recorded by citizens themselves. Much of this footage airs only once during a broadcast day, while some of it becomes grist for the news cycle and is repeated endlessly.

Political campaign operatives can easily be alerted in real-time, track, search and download what’s being said by the opposition with the broadcast search, alert and monitoring tools provided by the TVEyes Media Monitoring Suite. MMS provides 24/7/365 real-time indexing, search and alerts for the major network stations serving all 210 U.S. DMAs as well as national cable TV and major market radio. TVEyes is the only broadcast media monitoring service compatible with iPhone and iPad. TVEyes is in use by political campaigns of Republicans and Democrats in statewide and national races, Members of Congress, the Department of Defense, the White House and many government agencies.

If you’d like a free trial of the leading TV and radio broadcast monitoring solution for PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad, please call 203-254-3600 x100 or email sales@tveyes.com.