Page 50 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 1 2012

Acting MD Andy Williams has been involved in ITN Source's 'Project Digital Archive'
since 2009. The mammoth task of digitising all assets now completed, he says it has
transformed the business while making it easy for media companies worldwide to
access and purchase digitised clips online around the clock
CONTENT& DELIVERY
ome companies or
entire industries
have seen the
change to digital as
a threat and have
lost business or
market share, yet
others have embraced it and
capitalised on the move to a world
of e‐commerce. The broadcasting
industry is a case in point.
Producers, broadcasters and
media businesses can either see the
web as something that threatens the
industry ‐ citing online media as
taking advertising revenues,
viewers or talent away from TV –
or they can work with online
platforms and publishers to
diversify and find new ways to do
business or push content.
Broadcasters are commissioning
multi‐platform programmes,
advertising sales teams are
developing online and TV packages,
and marketers are using social
media to engage viewers in content.
WAYS TO EMBRACEDIGITAL
As a leading news and multimedia
content company, ITN has embraced
digital in a number of ways. Our
news outlets ITV News and Channel
4 News have smart, sophisticated
online offerings, our content
creation hub ITN Productions has
the most popular news and
entertainment channels on
YouTube, we have multiple Twitter
feeds and Facebook pages across
the business, and our consulting
division gives global media
companies strategic advice on key
issues including digital technologies.
However, for the purposes of this
article I’m going to outline how
ITN Source – the content licensing
division of ITN – has overhauled an
aging business model through
digital content and delivery.
ITN Source manages the ITN
archive dating back to 1955 and
partner archives for companies
such as Reuters, ITV Studios, Fox
Movietone and Nine Network
Australia, which means we license
footage from as far back as 1896.
Every day we syndicate and license
footage from these archives to
researchers and producers who use
our content in news programmes,
documentaries, feature films, music
videos, museum exhibitions, art
installations and corporate
productions. Our move towards
digital really began in earnest in
2006 when we gave our website a
complete makeover and started
archiving all on‐the‐day ITN
content digitally as well as storing
it on tapes or film. The website
began operating as an e‐commerce
portal with our newly digitised
content available for search, preview,
download and purchase online for
researchers and producers.
DIGITAL ARCHIVE
We then took a further big step in
2009 when we decided only to
archive content from ITN and our
partner Reuters digitally and stop
using tapes and film altogether. We
had recognised that archiving
content digitally had a number of
benefits for ITN Source in terms of
storage, accessibility and search
functionality, but we were well
aware that having content in a
digital format was a major benefit
for our customers too.
Archives are often seen as static
repositories that live firmly in the
past, but we were now determined
to bring ITN’s content up‐to‐date
with the digital times. The archive
is one of ITN’s biggest assets,
containing thousands of hours of
iconic and important footage, and
we had learnt enough from our
experience of digitising and
delivering content from 2006
onwards to know that we needed a
full digital makeover to best exploit
the way that we could use and
license our content and preserve it
for generations to come. So, in 2009
we spent six months scoping and
planning Project Digital Archive – a
project that would see the whole of
the ITN archive digitised.
It was clear from the outset that
this would be a transformative and
mammoth task that would take
around two years to digitise and
flash‐scan 30,000 film cans and
legacy tape formats. Project Digital
Archive would require significant
investment as we needed the technical
support of third party Deluxe
It took two
years to
digitise
and flash-
scan
30,000
film cans
and legacy
tape
formats
“
S
THE CHANNEL | CONTENT
50 | ISSUE 1 2012 | THE CHANNEL
DIGITAL