In the face of a highly competitive industry and ongoing competitive nature of the industry, media companies today are strongly incentivized to make use of their archive content. However, many have been stalled in their attempts to leverage archive content by their libraries' sheer volume and complexity.
Broadcasters may have several decades of unorganized material to sort through and furthermore, said companies’ content may still reside on physical media (e.g., tapes), thus needing to be digitized.
Metadata—simply put, a set of data providing information about other data—can enhance content, providing useful descriptive information, such as the individuals featured, the location of filming, the narrative context, and more advanced information, such as copyrights, expiration dates, and audio descriptions. It can also aid this organizational process.
Thus, we can understand that the money and time-consuming task of digitizing and organizing archive content can be much more purposeful if metadata is added during and after the digitizing process. This ensures the organization process is streamlined, and that media and entertainment companies’ content is in its most advantageous form, with enhanced discoverability, allowing them to stay ahead in the competitive landscape of digital streaming and production services.
Clearing the Way
Metadata is becoming increasingly important for all media companies due to its improved consistency, data quality and cost efficiency. Its value needs to be utilized across the value chain, where different systems have different metadata requirements due to applications, such as a Content Management System (CMS) and within a production environment via a Product Asset Management system (PAM).
Without establishing or implementing metadata management within a coherent business strategy, media companies could find themselves at risk of making costly mistakes and missing out on new monetization opportunities.
One way they have been doing this is through metadata enhancement. Enhancing or enriching metadata is a method used to boost the value and discoverability of digitized content. This involves expanding the existing metadata associated with the content. Moreover, AI-assisted processes can fully automate the addition of extra metadata.
For instance, in sports content, enhanced metadata might involve tagging individual players, specific types of plays, and real-time score updates, among other details. The primary aim is to facilitate efficient and swift content searches later on, thereby encouraging greater utilization of the available content.
Status Quo Opportunity Costs
Opportunity costs are difficult to quantify, but it’s worth assessing the ROI of metadata capabilities in the context of a highly competitive and fast-moving industry. Media companies that fail to maximize their resources with metadata enhancement put themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
The media and entertainment industry’s business models are increasingly geared towards diversified monetization strategies, and archive content provides the raw materials to expand your offering. Many sports broadcasters have already caught on to the value of archive material, such as highlights from past matches, to reward dedicated fans and maintain engagement between seasons. The same principle applies universally: having more content ready at your disposal reduces the likelihood of churn and puts you ahead of the competition.
Setting the Stage for Seamless Collaboration
With a metadata-rich library at their disposal, production teams will have a highly accessible bank of content to work with. This is one of the key differentiators among media companies in 2024: how well are their systems optimized for collaboration? Content that has been indexed through metadata is easily shared and accessed across remote or asynchronous teams.
The speed and complexity of modern production and distribution may have increased, but metadata will enable teams to zero in on whatever files they need to find at a moment’s notice. Whatever challenges production teams face, ‘needle in a haystack’ situations can be a thing of the past with the assistance of metadata.
Carpe Datum
Now is the time to embrace metadata. It offers immediate benefits and a long-term ROI that includes business agility, revenue opportunities, and highly-specialized use cases to suit individual content strategies. Production teams gain access to an indexed library that positions everything they need within arm’s reach, empowering them to make full use of their resources.
With that said, the technology is still new, and we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg for what metadata has to offer. With the support of a trusted tech provider, metadata can be one of the essential tools that empowers broadcasters to stay ahead of the curve.
