Masstech Transforms Newsroom Sharing, Archive Workflows for Sinclair Broadcast Group

Masstech has received a major order for its Masstech for News newsroom sharing, media management and archiving system from Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Sinclair owns and operates, programs or provides sales services to 163 television stations in 79 markets, more than 60 of which have news production operations. Sinclair’s stations employ varying combinations of newsroom computer system (NRCS) and video production platforms. Masstech for News simplifies the movement of video and stories between Sinclair locations and archives and eliminates the workflow barriers.

A centralized Masstech for News installation serves as a hub for sharing content amongst all news-producing Sinclair stations. Local, interlinked deployments at numerous Sinclair sites empower those stations’ newsrooms with the full capabilities of Masstech for News, including automated local archive management; advanced, drag-and-drop sharing workflows; and access to content in the archives of other similarly-equipped Sinclair locations. The new order expands the number of Sinclair stations with full Masstech for News installations by more than 50%, following on the tangible benefits Sinclair has enjoyed from its initial implementation.

“Maintaining our leadership in local news requires optimizing our workflows to make the best use of our content resources across the entire group,” said Del Parks, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Sinclair Broadcast Group. “Masstech for News has enabled us to do exactly that, delivering measurable results that made it an easy decision to expand our initial deployment across many more stations.”

“By removing workflow obstacles and automating our news sharing and archiving processes, Masstech for News has fundamentally changed how we produce and share news video between our stations, making us faster and more efficient while freeing our journalists to focus on creating the best possible content for our viewers,” said Scott Livingston, Vice President of News at Sinclair Broadcast Group.

The success of Sinclair’s initial Masstech for News deployment has been tangible, with Masstech-enabled stations sharing news stories and video more than two and a half times more often than those with legacy sharing processes.

Sinclair journalists at sites with local Masstech for News deployments now use a single, drag-and-drop operation to move text and video between stations or their archives, directly within their familiar AP ENPS and Avid iNEWS NRCS interfaces. The Masstech Media Wires feature also enables Sinclair journalists to ‘push’ selected stories and video of national or regional interest to other stations across the group, appearing in a special news wire within ENPS or iNEWS at the other locations.

Masstech’s unique Video-Follows-Text technology ensures that all story elements including text, metadata and media are transferred together seamlessly with one simple drag-and-drop action. This tight association between the story text and related video also makes it faster and easier for journalists to find and access archived video stored at their own site or other stations directly from their familiar NRCS interface, enabling and encouraging the re-use of content. Meanwhile, automated transcoding and tight integration with Sinclair’s various production platforms ensures content is always in the correct format while transparently shielding users from the technical details.

“Sinclair’s expansion of its Masstech for News deployment clearly demonstrates that the solution is delivering the rich benefits that it was designed to provide,” said Joe French, President and CEO of Masstech. “By eliminating manual steps, technical complexity and the need for multiple user interfaces, Masstech for News lets newsrooms focus on producing great, content-rich stories in less time — all while maximizing the use and re-use of valuable content across the entire enterprise. The results of Sinclair’s first installations have proven the system’s value, and we’re delighted to be continuing to work with them to bring these benefits to many more stations in the group.”