Scripps Networks planned a series of new broadband channels featuring content from their vast video library. It was clear that relying on traditional manual editing workflows would consume valuable creative staff and equipment, yet fail to produce the quantities of revised content required. Scripps needed a breakthrough; a multi-platform publishing solution that would connect to the Avid environment and off-load content, automatically perform all programmatic editing and reformatting steps and produce proxy files for a streamlined segment review process.

Agility Web

The world’s largest media companies rely upon Agility Web for fully automated, round-the-clock broadcast-to-Web publishing. With unparalleled reliability, it automatically ingests content from any source file, preprocesses for optimal online viewing, simultaneously encodes it into any number of Web formats, and delivers finished files to servers or content delivery networks for consumer viewing.

Repurpose Content, Launch New Channels

- Free editors from tedious content reformatting
- Seamless integration with Avid environment.
- Reclaims 40 hours of NLE capacity per week
- Automatically generates proxy files for review approval

Scripps Networks: Making Niche TV a Reality

The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP) is a diverse and growing media enterprise with interests in national cable networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, electronic commerce, interactive media, and licensing and syndication. The company’s portfolio of media properties includes Scripps Networks, with such brands as HGTV, Food network, DIY Network, Fine Living, Great American Country and HGTVPro. Scripps Networks programming can be seen in more than 115 countries.

‘Niche’ TV

In May 2005 Scripps Networks announced plans to launch a series of niche online broadband channels. This announcement was the latest in Scripps’ innovative approach to cross platform media publishing. For nearly a decade the company has been at the forefront of providing content for emerging platforms. With more than 40 million households subscribing to broadband Internet access, 2005 was an ideal time for Scripps to roll out new broadband channels.

“Our flagship Web sites, such as HGTV.com and FoodNetwork.com were well established,” said Chuck Hurst, Scripps vice president of systems development. “With the success of those Web sites, and the explosion in broadband access, it was time for us to begin to fully leverage our massive library of video and text to reach a greater and more diverse audience.”

The new niche channels are designed to reach sub groups within Scripps existing viewership in order to ‘super serve’ those audiences with a richer, more targeted online experience. Scripps plans to launch ten of these broadband channels over the next two years while still maintaining it’s existing online properties and with plans to begin branching out into even more media distribution streams.

“Internet television, broadband channels, this is just the beginning,” said Hurst. “Traditional broadcasting is being challenged by exciting new media opportunities. At Scripps, our content is ideal for short video clips on a Web site or on cell phone. Imagine watching a chef take you through a recipe in the palm of your hand, or learning a do-it-yourself project on your laptop. The potential is limitless.

New distribution channels, like the planned broadband channels, will allow companies like Scripps to build brand loyalty by expanding the availability of their content on a wide array of platforms while increasing revenues through segment sponsorships, advertising, and new forms of merchandising. However, as they scramble to take advantage of these new media opportunities, programmers like Scripps are running into production bottlenecks that threaten to eat up any added revenue they might derive. Today programmers still rely on manual, craft-based processes for video repurposing and distribution to new media platforms. These time-consuming and labor-intensive processes require trained editors to re-create existing materials for alternative platforms or distribution partners. Not only do these processes usurp the time of highly skilled resources, but they also hinder expansion into new markets.

Changing the Economics of Multiplatform Video Publishing

Like many programmers, Scripps knew it had to change the economics of multi-platform video publishing if it was going to succeed in its mission to repurpose content for a multitude of platforms and a variety of niche markets. For five years the company evaluated its options, while still relying on homegrown, mostly manual processes, to repurpose its video. After a lengthy search, Scripps decided in the fall of 2005 to replace its existing system with Anystream Agility.

“We chose Agility because of its reputation in the marketplace and its ability to integrate seamlessly into Avid folders,” Hurst said. “It was the best solution for our needs and is allowing us to simply and automatically repurpose our content for distribution to new platforms such as our niche broadband channels.”

Anystream Agility is an enterprise-class production suite used by the world’s largest media companies to maximize the value of their content by capturing it at the lowest possible cost and transforming it into on-demand, actionable content that can be immediately and profitably distributed in any format, to any device.

Agility is an automated, mission-critical solution that tightly integrates with legacy production systems to extract video and enhance it with metadata for indexing, searching, advertising and distributing it through any system, to any device.

Anystream has eliminated Scripps’ production bottlenecks by automating key workflows and enabling massive, simultaneous output of multiple content versions — giving Scripps the capability to produce everything from 10-second “mobisodes” for tiny handsets to full-length, high-definition output suitable for broadcast distributors.

Agility frees Scripps’ editors of such routine functions as inserting cross-channel promotions or advertisements by handling the entire workflow without manual intervention. Since installing Agility, Scripps has been able to reclaim 40 hours of editing time a week from its non-linear editing systems and decrease the need to outsource encoding; a savings in excess of $100,000 for some of Scripps’ business units. Agility also makes dynamic advertisement insertion a reality, giving Scripps the ability to delay the insertion of advertisements until the end of the production process, guaranteeing that ads are current and not delayed by slow production.

Scripps also realizes huge savings by connecting Agility to Avid. Instead of editors doing their encoding on the Avid, they can offload to, and automate encoding work on, Agility. With Agility, the input/output process takes one-third the production time as it did previously, because before they used to have to record to a new tape in real time.

In addition, Agility saves time during the segment review process. Previously, when a clip or video was produced they used to have to copy it to tape and pass the tape around for all the producers to review. With Agility they can easily and automatically stream proxy files to their producers for edits and reviews.

“Before Anystream, our production process was like harvesting 100 acres of wheat with a sickle,” said Scripps vice president of research and development Bryan Fails. “Since the launch of Agility, we can input video content once and send it out everywhere. The system saves time and money while enabling us to ‘spin the flavors’ we require.”

Having streamlined their production processes with Agility, Anystream is now looking forward to using it to create added services or promotions they can distribute; to produce video for mobile phones; to produce internal video; and to simulcast live shows to television and the Web, transcoding in real time.

“Agility has made it possible to more cost effectively mass produce video in different formats and distribute it in a multitude of different ways,” said Hurst. “Agility is allowing us to take our content as far as our imagination can carry it.”

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