Manual Commercial Scheduling Soon a Relic of the Past
LOS ANGELES — During its annual October conference, The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), which hosts one of the media industry’s most intensive technology gatherings, will announce SMPTE’s Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF) 3.0, a significant breakthrough in commercial scheduling for broadcasters, advertising agencies and advertisers. BXF 3.0 will automate the time-stealing data entry process (re-keying of traffic instructions) that has been in place for more than 50 years.
For years, ad agencies and broadcasters have focused on the media buy (known as the order) and invoice. Yet scheduling the commercial, the most critical step to ensure a spot airs correctly, is still an entirely manual process. Industry experts Christopher Lennon of MediAnswers and Angela Tietze of Entertainment Communications Network (ECN) will present Faxes, Emails, Pagers, and the Macarena: Adios to Relics of the ‘90s. Both will delve into one of the advertising and media industries’ least talked about workflows, which today relies on dated technology: TRAFFIC.
Currently, once a commercial has been produced, ad agencies assign it a commercial code (Ad-ID) and create traffic instructions advising broadcasters when, where and how to air it. Typically, traffic instructions are distributed to stations and networks via fax or email, and the commercial information is re-typed by hand into the traffic system. It takes valuable time to re-key the data and underscores the inevitability of errors. That’s where SMPTE’s Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF) 3.0 comes in.
Lennon and Tietze spent the past 18 months working with a group of industry professionals to create a standard within BXF that will enable traffic instructions to be ingested electronically into traffic systems at stations and networks, automating commercial scheduling using XML. The result will be no more manual data entry and faster time-to-air for advertisers, while significantly reducing discrepancies and make goods.
Contact Chris Lennon (clennon@medianswers.tv) or Angela Tietze (atietze@ecnmedia.com) for more information on Faxes, emails, pagers, and The Macarena: Adios to Relics of the ‘90s, to be presented at the SMPTE 2013 Annual Technical Conference (Loews Hollywood Hotel, Hollywood, Calif., October 22-24).
About ECN (Entertainment Communications Network, Inc.)
ECN distributes commercial instructions to broadcast media on behalf of virtually every major agency in North America. The company’s expertise in commercial traffic operations, its proprietary media database and seamless connections to all major buying systems (Mediaocean, CORE, Harris, STRATA and Infotech), has established ECN as the bridge between content and media. ECN also provides compliance services to its clients, including acquiring written confirmation of scheduled commercials and revisions for agencies, as well as program playtracking for networks and syndicators.
About MediAnswers
MediAnswers is a ground-up new approach to broadcast consultancy, specializing in software interconnectivity, workflow optimization, and the integration of old and new media. Chris Lennon brings 25 years of experience working in all aspects of both software and hardware broadcast systems, while Peter Storer brings experience from a career spanning radio, network, TV rep firm, station, and software vendor companies. Both have been involved in standards work for many years and will bring their unique talents together to solve your particular problem.
