Octopus Newsroom – Building tomorrow’s newsroom
“The new reality of content creation centers on three C’s: Connection, Collaboration and Communication. All done remotely. Octopus Newsroom is the best solution for that reality.”
Scott Fitzgerald, Director of Sales, North America, Octopus Newsroom
Remote Work
The pandemic forced many companies into a remote work environment with little preparation time. What nobody realized at the time was the unleashing of a powerful new way to expand staff, bring more experience, and cater to audiences with the remote work cycle. Four years later, that emergency-generated workflow has become a standardized practice of production.
By hiring remote producers and reporters, stations can tap into a broader talent pool beyond their immediate geographic location. Additionally, remote production can lead to cost savings for stations by reducing overhead for maintaining physical office spaces and equipment.
High-speed internet, cloud-based collaboration tools, and advanced communication platforms have made it possible for producers to work from virtually anywhere.
Octopus, by design, acclimates to a client’s needs. Our system is as adaptive as it is flexible to meet the needs of small newsrooms or network multi-channel powerhouses in any kind of work environment. Octopus software allows content creation in real-time and remotely with access granted to the client’s preferences, not pre-set categories.
Networked Production
This trend involves the convergence of hardware and software technologies to create more flexible, scalable, and efficient production workflows.
One of the key advantages of using network switches over traditional routers is their flexibility and programmability. Network switches can be configured and managed using software, allowing broadcasters to adapt their production workflows more easily to changing requirements.
Another benefit of using network switches is their scalability. Unlike traditional hardware routers that have fixed port configurations, network switches can be easily expanded by adding more switches or ports as needed. Many new production workflows use a hybrid of hardware, software and cloud to create a complete universe of content creation tools.
Furthermore, software-defined networking allows for greater automation and orchestration of production workflows. Broadcasters can use software-defined networking controllers to dynamically configure and manage network resources based on workload requirements, optimizing resource utilization and improving overall efficiency.
Flexible Workflows
Newscasts, webcasts, podcasts, lifestyle shows, streaming, OTT, on-demand, digital content, social media – the expanding list of “being there” shuns any hopes of a one-size-fits-all model of workflow.
Exemplary systems focus on the fast but not furious. Octopus Newsroom’s software architecture is designed to be scalable, allowing broadcasters to add users, expand storage capacity, and increase processing power as needed. This scalability ensures that production workflows can easily adapt to changes in content demand without compromising performance.
Octopus Newsroom provides tools for customizing workflows to suit the specific needs of each broadcaster. This flexibility allows production teams to tailor their workflows to accommodate varying content formats, delivery platforms, and production requirements, ensuring efficient scaling of production operations.
Dynamic Content Streams
In 2024, it seems laughable there was ever a time when everyone got to focus on one newscast or event a day. Adapting to unscheduled and irregular programming is now the golden goose that wins the contact battles in individual markets and nationwide.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Octopus Newsroom provides a centralized platform for editorial teams to collaborate in real time for breaking news, live events, or other urgent and important content dissemination.
- Flexible Story Planning: Octopus Newsroom’s story planning tools allow editorial teams to create flexible programming schedules that can easily adapt to irregular content streams. Even with automation, the flexibility of the system caters to live events.
- Multi-Platform Distribution: Octopus Newsroom supports multi-platform distribution, allowing newsrooms to publish content across various channels, including television, websites, social media, and mobile apps. Story- or rundown-centric approaches to content production allow every exit point of content a place to live in plain view, yet they allow individual teams to focus on their particular stream.
Evolving Newsrooms
One of our favorite journalists often said, “News doesn’t happen in the newsroom.” Time, energy, and operating expenses of running back and forth from interview to scene to station to live shot in perpetuity were eventually going to burn itself out.
Tools such as video conferencing, cloud-based collaboration platforms, and project management software enable journalists to communicate, share information, and collaborate on stories without being physically present in the same newsroom.
The need for community and hyperlocal journalism often requires journalists to be embedded within the communities they cover, working from local coffee shops, community centers, or other shared spaces rather than traditional newsrooms.
The ability to distance ourselves from the confines of a newsroom through technology brings us closer to the communities that we serve.
Time Optimization
Optimizing processes and workflows provides more than just getting the story out there first. It aims to remove redundancies and exhaustive daily tasks that fuel employee burnout.
With the proliferation of digital platforms, newsrooms are focusing on cross-platform publishing strategies to reach a broader audience. This involves repurposing content for various digital, social, broadcast, and non-linear channels.
Through automation, scheduling, content organization, and alerts, you can customize time-sensitive workflows that adapt to the needs of all employees, from the edit bay to the anchor desk to the live shot 50 miles away.
AI Integration
As a trailblazing company, Octopus was one of the first to integrate AI tools into the system without forcing it on clients who aren’t ready to adapt to that landscape. We see Artificial Intelligence as another way to accomplish all of the above goals – efficiency, evolution, adaptability, and saving time.
Automated content creation, curation, and personalization enhance efficiency and engagement. Fact-checking tools ensure accuracy, combating misinformation. AI-driven analytics provide valuable audience insights and guide content strategies. Automated transcription and translation expand accessibility and reach.
Overall, AI integration empowers newsrooms to produce high-quality, diverse, and impactful journalism that resonates with audiences in any global community.
