Top 6 Media Asset Management Flubs Broadcasters Must Avoid

Top 6 Media Asset Management Flubs Broadcasters Must Avoid

Media Asset Management (MAM) comes with its own set of perils. If managed properly, the media can attract huge views and TRPs. However, if mismanaged, it leads to waste of money and sometimes, loss of valuable media assets.
To help you deal with your media assets like a pro, we bring you six flubs that broadcasters must avoid.

If you look around, content is no longer limited to a particular channel. Movies that were once limited to theatres are now available online in the form of short films, daily soaps have made way for internet-series, and mobile apps offering live news updates have replaced 9 o’clock news.

While producers mark their success by the new content created, they often overlook the fact that the same content can be used across different channels to increase its usability. Content curators need to restore the old content in various formats to ensure it can be consumed by a wide range of audience.

“My content is not searchable” is a common complaint by the users. As content library grows, managing the content and ensuring it is searchable is a big task. With time, users do not have an idea of where content is kept and even duplicate existing content often.

While search feature in modern MAM solutions are powerful, they can’t offer the desired results without proper metadata and indexing.  It has been observed that despite having the best MAM solution in place, the users often discount metadata, which makes discovering, sharing and distribution of media difficult for the users. To ensure the content is usable, new media files must be tagged, old must be versioned and re-tagged if required,   and operators must follow strict quality checks while ingesting the files in a MAM solution.

1. Aged and Untreated Content

A lot of content from yesteryear still lies in the old formats, like films, audio reels, and videotapes. While the world has moved ahead to consume media over the internet, a lot of such valuable content still lies untreated. Additionally, content that has made its way to the new format are often not processed well and is of poor quality.

As the millennials consume content in different formats across different mediums as per their convenience, it is important to ensure that content of the yesteryear are treated and converted properly for their consumption. Content owners need to address the damages caused by natural disasters and factors like humidity, heat, etc. and have a defined quality check process in-store. Moreover, they need to assess the assets to determine the best way to convert the untreated content and find an appropriate platform to store, access, and distribute the content.

2. Not Considering Multiple Channels for Broadcast

If you look around, content is no longer limited to a particular channel. Movies that were once limited to theatres are now available online in the form of short films, daily soaps have made way for internet-series, and mobile apps offering live news updates have replaced 9 o’clock news.

While producers mark their success by the new content created, they often overlook the fact that the same content can be used across different channels to increase its usability. Content curators need to restore the old content in various formats to ensure it can be consumed by a wide range of audience.

3. Not Choosing the Right Storage Solution

While having good content is important, storing it using the right medium is equally important to ensure that it is easily accessible. Depending on a number of factors like how geographically distributed are the users; rights and governance; network infrastructure and connectivity; the scalability of content users, a robust storage solution should be chosen.

IT managers need to understand that a single storage options will not cater to all kinds of content. For some, Linear Tape-Open (LTO) and Networked Attached Storage (NAS) might be ideal, while for others cloud will fit the bill. To ensure seamless access of content, the asset management team needs to explore different storage options and, at times, store and distribute the same content using multiple solutions.

4. Discounting Metadata

“My content is not searchable” is a common complaint by the users. As content library grows, managing the content and ensuring it is searchable is a big task. With time, users do not have an idea of where content is kept and even duplicate existing content often.

While search feature in modern MAM solutions are powerful, they can’t offer the desired results without proper metadata and indexing.  It has been observed that despite having the best MAM solution in place, the users often discount metadata, which makes discovering, sharing and distribution of media difficult for the users. To ensure the content is usable, new media files must be tagged, old must be versioned and re-tagged if required,   and operators must follow strict quality checks while ingesting the files in a MAM solution.

5. Ignoring the Workflow

Choosing a MAM solution without assessing the existing workflow can pose major challenges for any broadcaster or a media organization. To get the best out of a MAM solution, it must seamlessly integrate with other systems like production automation, newsroom automation, editing suites, traffic billing system etc.  For providing a smooth content distribution across the organization, some level of customization might be required for a tightly packed integration between various modules. IT managers must meticulously examine the workflow and then recommend the right MAM solution.

6. Wrong Choice of Partner

More often than not, organization partner with a vendor to manage their media asset. Choosing a vendor who does not have the expertise to manage your media can wreak havoc.

If you have chosen a specific MAM solution, ensure that the partner you choose to implement has expertise in the specific tool and more importantly, they understand the technical workflow of a broadcaster. Check references and prior experience to ensure the partner you chose to know the system and are able to implement it.