It’s highly important for state and county governments to monitor and respond effectively to news coverage and issues aired in broadcast media. Sussex County in southern Delaware is home to about 200,000 people and relies on TVEyes to help it stay on top of coverage in local, regional and national media – efficiently and economically.
“Most of our media coverage is local, but there have been times when we’ve been in regional and national news, such as when our leadership was interviewed on TV and radio during Superstorm Sandy,” says Chip Guy, the County’s communications director. “We needed to be sure our messages were getting out correctly.”
Mr. Guy’s responsibilities as the County’s primary public affairs officer include community relations, writing and distributing press releases, answering questions from the media, coordinating Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and supporting public relations for all government agencies.
The Challenge
Early in his tenure, Mr. Guy decided to monitor how the county government’s activities were reflected in the media. Tracking mentions in print was easy, thanks to newspaper clippings and online search engines. Finding references in broadcast media, however, was much more difficult.
He built a homegrown broadcast monitoring setup that enabled him to record one local TV news program at a time on his PC. It was an unsatisfactory system, prone to failure and hang-ups that required him to reboot the computer. In addition, he could not record radio broadcasts. Unless a radio station added a particular clip to its website, it was lost forever. And with talk radio emerging in the county, the need to monitor and respond to radio was on the rise.
Bringing matters to a head in late 2011, the local cable company announced it would switch from analog to digital transmission. This meant Mr. Guy would lose the cable feed to his computer.
“I knew there had to be a better way. And then I remembered a marketing email I had received from TVEyes. During a free trial I saw that I could get virtually anything that airs in any market.”
The Solution
Mr. Guy found the TVEyes experience liberating. Previously, he had to manually scan up to six hours of video every day to see if there were mentions or graphics of the county. By contrast, TVEyes monitors broadcast media in all 210 DMAs simultaneously, and shows him clips that match keywords he enters into TVEyes’ monitoring list.
“I’m in the TVEyes service at least a half-dozen times each day, maybe more,” Mr. Guy says. “Any time my keywords are mentioned, I can zoom right into the clip to see if it’s relevant.” If it is, he quickly edits and stores it and includes it in the daily digest he provides to the County’s elected leaders and agency directors.
“The reaction of elected leaders has been very positive, and now there is almost an expectation that I can capture anything at any time. I frequently get requests for radio or TV coverage – and I wonder now how I ever lived without it.”
Client Benefits
TVEyes has greatly broadened the County’s ability to check how it appears in the news and how its messages are being disseminated and absorbed. Mr. Guy estimates that TVEyes gives him 200% of the content he was previously able to capture. In April 2013 as an example, he recorded 18 TV and more than 60 radio clips – “just in our little neck of the woods,” he says. Since TVEyes offers unlimited clips with no per-clip charge, he saves as many as he needs.
TVEyes’ key benefit, according to him, is that it makes him more efficient. “It has freed me to take on other tasks,” he says, “and as I go from crisis to crisis, it’s nice to know I have access to a service that is faithfully monitoring the media and taking a large load off my shoulders.”
Further, he can now monitor broadcast media from any computer, whether in the office, across the country or overseas. He is always cognizant of what the media are saying about the County. If the message is unclear or distorted, he can correct it immediately.
“I can depend on TVEyes to do its job so I can do mine better,” Guy says. “It’s a service that doesn’t add more to your plate, it takes some of the workload off. You work better and more efficiently.”
Finally, he concludes, “What TVEyes means to us is immeasurable.”
Want to learn more, or check out a free trial? Contact TVEyes Sales at +1 203-254-3600 x100 or email us at sales@tveyes.com.
