Mark Hasselmann CGI Product manager – OpenMedia
What are the main challenges facing the media industry right now? Consumers demand more content on more devices than ever before, expecting personalisation to reflect their interests. The way we produce that content is changing. Newsrooms have undergone a transformation that encompasses the move from SDI to IP, from craft stations to journalists being empowered to edit their own material, and from siloed departments to story-centric workflows that bridge organisations. The pandemic accelerated much of this, as the value of capabilities like remote, browser-based editing became clear. Many media organisations were experimenting with remote production workflows preceding the pandemic, but were reluctant to fully commit. Luckily, the industry had done the groundwork already, and the move What are the main challenges facing the media industry right now? Incredibly enough, the same as last year. With travel restrictions and social distancing still in place, traditional production remains compromised. However, virtual technology saved the day for live events, even production itself. It has been essential for maintaining some productions, live events and presentations, and its usage has evolved faster than expected because of the Miguel Churruca Brainstorm Marketing and communications director
to browser-based and cloud-native production workflows was a fairly easy pivot. Estimates are that the pandemic short-circuited the full deployment of remote workflows by as much as six years, as companies rapidly adapted to stay on air. The question is, as we move out of lockdowns worldwide, will remote workflows become the new normal? Organisations are looking to a hybrid future, where staff move from one environment to the other, depending on their circumstances and wishes. There is much to be said for the collective synergy found in a busy newsroom, but huge advantages to those same spaces not accommodating the whole staff all the time. As more companies strive for carbon neutrality, so the environmental costs of maintaining large office spaces will couple with the economic ones,
producing a blended future that mixes the legacy bricks-and-mortar approach with new ones enabled by the cloud. Areas of media production can definitely benefit from the application of AI: automating production to provide wider access to content, but at lower costs. Another area where it makes sense is fake news detection. At CGI, we work with the Fraunhofer Institute on AI innovation for radio production, to prevent the falsification of audio material. However, when it comes to live news broadcasts – particularly on television – AI still has a long way to go. Tell us your hopes for 2022. That Covid-19 cases will continue decreasing and vaccination numbers across the globe keep growing. I am looking forward to introducing CGI’s new products – an all-new NewsBoard,
pandemic. Also, the chip shortage is hitting new business opportunities hard for both manufacturers and clients, as video IO card and GPU deliveries are considerably delayed. Tell us your hopes for 2022. It has been two years without major trade shows now, and the desire for 2022 is to bring back business as we were used to. That means personal meetings, standard productions and a return to
person-to-person interactions: hugs, shaking hands, giving business cards, etc. If you could invent any technology, what would it be? We are already proud of innovating technologies now in common use, and in constant development for virtual production – such as teletransportation. But if we were to invent anything, it would be something to enhance user creativity, letting them work more freely, facilitating the delivery of their dreams. What is the piece of analogue technology your business has got the most use out of? Pencil and paper. You can’t live without them. Everything starts with a blank piece of paper, no matter where you finish.
VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY SAVED THE DAY FOR LIVE EVENTS, EVEN PRODUCTION ITSELF
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