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AP report: AI is an opportunity for local newsrooms

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Groundbreaking report surveying hundreds of newsrooms points to the importance of AI.

By Tim Wolff
VP, TV & Digital Publishing Innovation, Futuri Media

What would you choose if someone else could do part of your job? What if, instead of a person, artificial intelligence could do it? And what if it could go beyond just replacing a mundane task to actually creating ways to make your product better?

Newsrooms across America have been wondering about that, and some have actively engaged AI — artificial intelligence. How much a newsroom uses AI has a lot to do with how many resources and how much time a newsroom has to experiment.

That’s according to a new report from the Associated Press, which was part of a project where they interviewed people from hundreds of newsrooms across the U.S. The goal was to learn what newsrooms are using and what newsrooms want, then to chart a plan for getting our newsrooms to that AI future.

Quoting from the AP’s press release:

“Key findings from the report include:

  • There is a significant gap between large and small news organizations in terms of how widely AI and automation technologies are used.
  • Despite some concerns about handing off human work to machines, there is nevertheless strong support among local newsrooms for automating tasks that could free journalists for deeper reporting, streamline production or enhance content monetization.
  • While interest is high, AI technologies are not in wide use at the local level because many news outlets lack the resources or time required to experiment.”

Diving deeper into the report itself, while survey respondents came up with a wide range of uses, there were some areas where nearly everyone agreed there was a need. Finding stories a local market would care about in social media was near the top of the list for newsrooms of every kind (the AP works with newspapers, TV and radio stations, and digital-only newsrooms).

This quote in the report really stood out to me:

“WTAE-TV News Director Jim Parsons said that sometimes events happen in the communities the Pennsylvania station serves, and the reporting team misses it on social media. ‘We don’t have a great system in place, other than keeping our eye on TweetDeck 24/7,’ he said. WTAE-TV relies on manual scouring of local websites and social media that AI may help solve. ‘It would help to have some ‘robotic eyeballs’ trying to find these events.'”

Sure, as the AP’s key findings note, there is some concern among newsrooms respondents about handing human work off to machines. But when resources are finite, aren’t they better spent creating compelling content that sets your brand apart? What’s the harm in letting technology do the busy work?

Reporters in every newsroom are spending a lot of time looking through social, trying to find stories. As anyone who’s spent a lot of time on social can tell you, most of it isn’t newsworthy. Our own research here at Futuri (conducted in partnership with SmithGeiger) shows that social media is the number one way newsrooms get stories today. It’s part of what makes AI-powered TopicPulse ContentAdvantage such an incredible tool. Futuri has been creating cutting-edge AI media tools for more than a decade, and the amount of data processed through a powerful AI is a true difference-maker for newsrooms.

The survey also showed automated writing and automated personalized experiences for users were also near the top of newrooms’ wish list, among about a dozen other key newsroom needs.

The adoption of AI in newsrooms varies, as has the AI knowledge within newsrooms. The AP will begin offering classes to close the knowledge gap next month. And as artificial intelligence in the newsroom is a topic on which I’m passionate, I’ll present the session What News Managers Need Now — spoiler alert! It’s AI — at NAB Show in April (learn more about the session and how to join me by clicking here).

I applaud the Associated Press for calling attention to the benefits of AI for local news. Used correctly, AI stands to change our industry — for the better, meaningfully.

Tim Wolff is Vice President of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri. He has 20+ years of experience as a digital and broadcasting leader who’s led top-performing teams across the country at companies including Gannet, Belo, and Cox Media Group Ohio, which includes three daily newspapers, three radio stations, WHIO-TV, and more. Wolff, who holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, also makes a mean green chile stew.

 

Image of journalists taking notes

The good reporter who became a bad reporter (and how to be good again)

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Are you doing the right things to retain your top performers? 

By Tim Wolff, Futuri’s VP, TV and Digital Publishing Innovation

The full article lives on RTDNA.com, the website of the Radio Television Digital News Association

How do you use your best people?

I’ve learned a lot over the years in news management. One of the earliest and most profound lessons was what happens when managers think their job is to plug people in where they can operationally succeed that day.

Let me explain what mean and how I learned this. Early in my career, when I was a news producer, we had an incredible reporter. He enterprised lead stories every day, was brilliant covering breaking news, and often left extra packages for later shows. He could also dive in to tricky stories and make them make sense, all with a positive, willing attitude.

The editorial decision-makers knew this, of course. So every day, the other reporters got the easy, no enterprise needed stories, while he had to come up with his own lead stories and take on the toughest stories of the day. And then he’d get pulled for big breaking news first, while other reporters just did their one easy package and left.

This went on for probably close to two years. Then one day, I noticed his package and live shot were just ok; not horrible, but not up to his standards. And the next day he had no story ideas, and again seemed to mail in his package and live shot. I wasn’t a manager then, but I knew something was up. I pulled him aside the next day and asked him how he was.

He seemed surprised for a second, then exhaled and said something like, “I guess it’s obvious, right?”

Click here to read the full article on RTDNA.com.

Tim Wolff is Vice President of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri. He has 20+ years of experience as a digital and broadcasting leader who’s led top-performing teams across the country at companies including Gannet, Belo, and Cox Media Group Ohio, which includes three daily newspapers, three radio stations, WHIO-TV, and more. Wolff, who holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, also makes a mean green chile stew. You can see his live presentation “What News Managers Need Now” at the upcoming NAB conference. To learn more or continue the conversation, email him at timwolff@futurimedia.com or message him on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwolff1/.

A newsroom

Will your newsroom be ready when social media transparency becomes regulated?

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Social media transparency is about to get regulated: here’s what it means for your newsroom.

By Tim Wolff, Futuri’s VP, TV and Digital Publishing Innovation

The talk–and there’s been a lot of it in recent years–is becoming more than talk. Bipartisan bills have been introduced; the public wants action. Even the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, says, “The place where we have the best chance at progress is legislating a certain amount of transparency.”

The main driver, of course, is that so many people use social media and that there is little clarity or consistency around how each social platform chooses the content we see. Toss in a dash of global election interference and warnings that addictive social media is harming our psyche, and you can see where transparency regulation sounds good for consumers.

But what about newsrooms?

An accurate and in-the-moment understanding of the topics and stories people are sharing and seeing on social media has enormous benefits for newsrooms, who are, after all, trying to report and create content about what interests the most people. As the news events of 2022 unfold in a year that will mark the dawn of social media’s legislated transparency, newsroom strategies for monitoring social media will shift as access to more and different social data becomes available. 

It’s foggy at best how social platforms will evolve data sharing in post-regulation. For now, newsrooms need to be careful not to put all their eggs into one basket. A reliance on data coming solely from the social media company itself could become disruptive if the company stops or changes how and what it shares, which currently would be an entirely legal decision on their part.

Consider, for example, CrowdTangle. They were launched as an independent, free-to-use social monitoring tool bought by Facebook in 2016. CrowdTangle is used in almost every newsroom in the U.S. Journalists log in using their personal Facebook account to access a depth of data culled from public Facebook Pages and Groups, Instagram accounts, and the most popular subreddits. But that can all change in a hurry. 

This week, news came out that the co-founder of CrowdTangle, Brandon Silverman, left Facebook and is now working with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators to shape laws intended to make social media more transparent. Silverman also told the New York Times that the CrowdTangle team was disbanded last fall, and the product was being moved under Facebook’s integrity team. He also says it became an annoyance within Facebook, making it unclear how long Facebook will support it.

That’s one reason we have always focused on a much broader range of data here at Futuri. With TopicPulse, the most advanced AI-driven social data tool, we track data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and over 100,000 news publishers. Because we monitor all these different sources and publishers, our partners are covered and won’t be disrupted by one social company shutting something down.

We also include real people as part of the mix, helping monitor and manage the artificial intelligence that brings real-time, live demographic data and predictive analysis to thousands of stories every minute.

We believe in data, we believe in transparency, and we believe in constantly improving the best tools that help newsrooms spend less time unraveling the data behind trending stories so they can concentrate on serving their communities.

Here are our top pro tips to help your newsroom track social media for content:

  • Have a broad scope of data sources
  • Choose information that can be widely accessed in your newsroom; if only one or two people have access, that’s a significant risk for you
  • Track more than just your brand(s) social media and your competitors; after all, that’s only a tiny portion of the average consumer’s social media activity
  • Remember, it’s not a zero-sum game between you and the other TV/Radio/Newspapers in town. Social and digital are virtually unlimited, and you have endless opportunities to grow your brand
  • Keep a healthy skepticism about any self-reporting platform
  • Track trending news topics outside of your news team’s comfort zone (we tend to live in similar areas, follow similar social media, and only reflect a portion of our communities)
  • Ask for (or demand) transparency whenever possible, just as we should be as transparent as possible with our news consumers
  • Ask your news team how much time they spend mining social media for news and tips. Then have them track it to get the actual number
  • Look for tools that can save your news team time and get them the essential information they need (you’ll need AI, and you’ll see an immediate positive impact on your team and your news)
  • Take a look at what personal data your news team has had to share to get access to tech or social media data; journalists are under fire as never before, and it’s a good idea to have a cybersecurity expert review the risks journalists have taken in exposing private information to tech and social media companies
  • Stay up to date on changes in social, AI, and media technology by following on LinkedIn, Twitter, or your platform of choice

Tim Wolff is Vice President of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri. He has 20+ years of experience as a digital and broadcasting leader who’s led top-performing teams across the country at companies including Gannet, Belo, and Cox Media Group Ohio, which includes three daily newspapers, three radio stations, WHIO-TV, and more. Wolff, who holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, also makes a mean green chile stew.

Futuri’s AI-Driven Content, Audience, and Revenue Growth Technology Sees Record Usage Growth in 2020

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Solutions like TopLine, POST, and TopicPulse are being used more than ever amid seismic shifts for content creators and broadcasters.

CLEVELAND, December 14, 2020 — In a year of unprecedented change in the ways broadcasters do business and audiences consume content, usage of Futuri’s AI-driven audience engagement and sales intelligence technology hit record highs. Analysis of 2020 product usage data proves that content creators and broadcasters are more reliant than ever on technology across all aspects of their business:

TopicPulse, Futuri’s AI-powered story discovery, show prep, and social content system, has seen 135,688,133 minutes — that’s more than 94,000 days — of usage by partners in 2020. The 61% growth spike in user sessions TopicPulse saw earlier this year when disruptions began has sustained throughout the year as broadcasters look for new ways to differentiate their brands by discovering and creating content that engages their specific target audiences.

POST, Futuri’s podcasting system, has now published podcasts with over ONE BILLION plays, enabling content creators and broadcasters to grow audience and revenue on multiple platforms. Exclusive POST features specifically designed to make the podcasting process fast, easy, and efficient for broadcasters have been key in driving this growth.

TopLine, Futuri’s revolutionary sales intelligence system that pairs cutting-edge AI with expert human analysis, has helped deliver $130 million in advertising/sponsorship revenue for its partners in 2020. This represents TopLine’s highest revenue number ever, despite the fact that this has been an unquestionably tough revenue year for media sales executives.

“This year, there have been seismic shifts in the way broadcasters and publishers create, produce, distribute, and monetize content, and there is no sign that we’re going back to the old way of doing things,” said Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig. “The massive growth in usage of Futuri’s AI-driven solutions shows that we’re uniquely capable of helping media companies and content creators grow audience and revenue now and in the ‘next normal.’”

Stations interested in a complimentary consultation on their productivity and distribution strategies can fill out the form below to learn more.



Futuri’s AI-Driven Content, Audience, and Revenue Growth Technology Sees Record Usage Growth in 2020

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Solutions like TopLine, POST, and TopicPulse are being used more than ever amid seismic shifts for content creators and broadcasters.

CLEVELAND, December 14, 2020 — In a year of unprecedented change in the ways broadcasters do business and audiences consume content, usage of Futuri’s AI-driven audience engagement and sales intelligence technology hit record highs. Analysis of 2020 product usage data proves that content creators and broadcasters are more reliant than ever on technology across all aspects of their business:

TopicPulse, Futuri’s AI-powered story discovery, show prep, and social content system, has seen 135,688,133 minutes — that’s more than 94,000 days — of usage by partners in 2020. The 61% growth spike in user sessions TopicPulse saw earlier this year when disruptions began has sustained throughout the year as broadcasters look for new ways to differentiate their brands by discovering and creating content that engages their specific target audiences.

POST, Futuri’s podcasting system, has now published podcasts with over ONE BILLION plays, enabling content creators and broadcasters to grow audience and revenue on multiple platforms. Exclusive POST features specifically designed to make the podcasting process fast, easy, and efficient for broadcasters have been key in driving this growth.

TopLine, Futuri’s revolutionary sales intelligence system that pairs cutting-edge AI with expert human analysis, has helped deliver $130 million in advertising/sponsorship revenue for its partners in 2020. This represents TopLine’s highest revenue number ever, despite the fact that this has been an unquestionably tough revenue year for media sales executives.

“This year, there have been seismic shifts in the way broadcasters and publishers create, produce, distribute, and monetize content, and there is no sign that we’re going back to the old way of doing things,” said Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig. “The massive growth in usage of Futuri’s AI-driven solutions shows that we’re uniquely capable of helping media companies and content creators grow audience and revenue now and in the ‘next normal.’”

Webinar: Programming During a Pandemic: How to Defend and Grow Your Audience

Webinar: Programming During a Pandemic: How to Defend and Grow Your Audience

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The coronavirus pandemic has implications for ratings, digital programming, and even your target listener profile — it’s bigger than the shift to working and broadcasting from home. As overwhelming as it all may seem, there is opportunity in the midst of this chaos. This 30-minute webinar, presented by Futuri Media’s Scott Lindy and Charlie Maxx, explores specific, actionable ways that you can defend and grow your audience today while setting yourself up for growth and success in the post-pandemic world.

This webinar has already taken place. To access this content on-demand, please fill out the form below.

 


major research study at crs 2020

Futuri Media and the University of Florida Present Major Research Study at CRS 2020.

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The final day of CRS 2020 featured the presentation Defending Your Audience Share: Exclusive Research Findings, the results of a major study conducted by Futuri Media and the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. 

The study was conducted in January 2020 and surveyed nearly 1,400 people who named country as their favorite music format out of a list of seven options. It also broke out those who listen to AM/FM country radio (both terrestrial and streaming), and those who listen to country music but not via AM/FM country radio. 

Presented by Daniel Anstandig, Futuri Media’s CEO, and Rob Harder, Director of Programming / Brand Manager for the University of Florida radio properties, the study aimed to answer three questions facing country radio today: 

  • How do we defend our country audience and revenue share? 
  • How should we extend our country content onto new platforms? 
  • How will we transcend our challenges as the country competition landscape changes?

Key findings from the study can be found at futurimedia.com/CRS2020. Among the findings: 

  • 76% of AM/FM country listeners would prefer more video content from their favorite country radio station. 
  • Country radio listeners are tuning in to nearly the same amount of AM/FM radio as in the past, but 23% plan to listen to more country radio streaming in the next three months.
  • Women 18-34 who listen to broadcast radio tend to be more active on social media than streaming listeners. Throughout the study, data shows that country stations should have a social strategy that targets country fans, especially younger females, with sticky and recyclable content. 
  • Country listeners who have listened to a podcast in the last month name music as their favorite podcast topic genre. This number is 30%; the next highest topic genre is news/politics at 11%. Country radio station are great at talking about music; this presents an excellent time-shifted and original podcast content opportunity. 
  • Quality station-specific mobile apps present a major engagement opportunity. Younger listeners are more likely to install them, and they’re an opportunity for more connected car listening. Of AM/FM country radio listener respondents, 44% have their favorite station’s mobile app installed on their mobile device, a number that jumps to 48% when looking at the 18-34 demo. And 26% of country fans listen to country music via a connected car platform and are highly likely to listen to country music connecting their mobile device to their vehicle.

For more key findings, including many related to driving revenue, visit futurimedia.com/CRS2020.

4 ways to maximize your talk breaks

Four Ways to Maximize Your Talk Breaks

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To create engaging breaks, radio should focus on timely tidbits, local happenings, and reveal themselves 

Faced with more competition than ever, radio stations need to make sure their listeners stick around for talk breaks rather than tuning out. The good news for AM/FM stations? Audiences want to hear what hosts have to say. In fact, listeners routinely say their favorite DJs and hosts are a top reason they use local radio. Talk breaks give these popular personalities a chance to speak directly to their audience, engage them on quirky or newsworthy topics, give a glimpse behind the curtain, or get personal. To make the most of breaks radio hosts and producers should plan and program these segments. Understanding that it takes 5 minutes of listening within a 15 minute period to get ratings credit helps us strategize length and content of these breaks as well.

When it comes to breaks, you want to sound as fresh as possible. If you’re a country station, your listeners want the latest music news and celebrity gossip. Sports listeners are hungry for info and insights on their hometown teams. Pop stations can dish on pop culture news and fun factoids to entertain younger fans, like it being National Avocado Day or National Leftover Day and local celebrations or promotions. Radio hosts can share details about their lives and interests. (Listeners really do want to hear about your dating life and your new puppy!) In these breaks you have the audience’s attention, so don’t waste the opportunity. 

Of course, radio hosts and producers are already multi-tasking media mavens juggling on-air, digital, and social responsibilities. Here are four suggestions for making your breaks as engaging as possible: 

  1. Hot topics in your community

    Radio stations are local experts, so there’s no one better to share news and information about happenings in your community. During talk breaks, music stations can share news about upcoming concerts and events while also plugging events your station is sponsoring and where talent is making appearances. You can also clue listeners in on up-and-coming acts that might be coming to town as well as intimate venues they should check out. Similarly, news and talk stations can keep listeners up to date on local news and current events including any newsmakers coming to town or gatherings. Sports stations can dish on local players and teams as well as upcoming opponents and the best tailgates in town.

  2. Give them the best industry news

    When it comes to dishing on the latest news and gossip, you need to be as plugged in as possible. Listeners expect their favorite DJs and hosts to be in the know.  Music format talent should be as up to date as possible on pop culture, celebrity news, and music information, and they should be ready to share that information like a newscaster. Likewise, sports stations can comment on developments in your team’s league or conference and information on teams and sports. Establish your over the air, digital, mobile, and social brand as the go-to resource for your audience’s latest news and information needs and your breaks will become indispensable.

  3. Craft conversation starters and destinations

    Listeners often view breaks as water cooler moments that give them fodder to use in casual conversations throughout the day. To facilitate those moments, radio hosts should be on-point with trends, quirky tidbits, and oddball news, and as they then relay that to your audience and tell them how it impacts your life. This can even be a way to tie in advertisers. For instance, if it is National Ice Cream Day, tell your listeners about your favorite flavors or failed attempts at making homemade ice cream. You can also direct them to a local ice cream shop for free cones. With effective breaks, you can help guide listeners’ conversations as well as drive them to local businesses.

  4. Keep an eye on what’s fading

    While it is important to stay on top of news and trends, you also need to know what’s fading out. These may be topics that you want to avoid, such as a song that’s past its prime or a celebrity who has faded from public view. If the audience thinks you’re out of touch with what’s cool and interesting you lose your platform as a must-listen during breaks. Take note of the topics in your industry that seem to have lost their luster, whether that’s an overplayed song, an overexposed talent, or a meme that’s had its five minutes run out.

At Futuri Media, we know AM/FM stations need help tracking news and trends. Our TopicPulse tool is like insurance for your talk breaks. We track what topics and conversations are trending or fading with your specific target audience so you can focus on your live broadcast, and make sure any voicetracked content is as fresh as possible once it airs. As a real-time story discovery tool, TopicPulse’s AI curates news and information from social channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as more than 100,000 verified news sources. We track what’s popular, what is emerging, and what’s fading.

With TopicPulse, hosts and producers can quickly and easily find fodder for talk breaks, social posts, on demand content, and more! The web-based tool allows you to search by format, topic. and even keyword to find information and news stories that are relevant and interesting to your listeners. Based on our live-tracking, TopicPulse can see what topics are trending and what is burning out. During a live radio broadcast it is invaluable to know what your audience is searching for and reading about in real-time. Our system tracks what is about to go viral, and you can’t get much more up-to-the-minute than that.

TopicPulse also offers IdeaStarters™ that are updated in the TopicPulse app throughout the day and delivered via e-mail twice daily to prep for AM and PM drive. These packaged talk break content offerings feature talking points and even pre-written script suggestions that your hosts can plug and play.

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Futuri is the leading provider of cloud-based audience engagement software for the enterprise. Brands rely on Futuri to make their content more relevant, accessible, engaging, and results-driven. Founded in 2009, Futuri holds 12 published or pending patents in 151 countries. Named to the Inc. 5000 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies for seven consecutive years, Futuri is the only audience engagement platform that includes solutions for sales, marketing, and content teams.