Pausing to evaluate the successes of this year’s NABSHOW in Las Vegas and the splendid exhibits presented there for the delight of our media moguls, I could not escape the thoughts of how much interest was generated by the content benchmarking software tool which was demonstrated at the show.
The days of long discussions in smokie rooms in order to evaluate the future profitability of video content are fast drawing to a close as software solutions are now able to compare and evaluate content potential. Even before purchasing such assets as content, it is possible to asses and therefore maximise future returns on investment budgets. Global software developers in the broadcasting industry are perfecting a tool for content benchmarking which is rapidly becoming a “must-have” in the software portfolio of the 21st century broadcaster.
Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Benchmarking actually started as a means of measuring the accuracy of rifles by fixing them to a bench and comparing the marks made by different types of ammunition on a fixed target. Such comparisons enabled manufacturers to develop the best combination of bullet and gun. Today, benchmarking has developed into a business idiom relating to the measurement of selected variables and their comparison against industry’s best practice.
In the world of broadcasting, content benchmarking compares the potential profitability of a range of offered programmes in order to evaluate the most appropriate content for their delivery. Comparison is still a major component of this methodology but in this case, it is not against industry’s best practice but is against a choice of competing content. The benchmarking software is based on criteria relating to some fifteen factors such as, target group, schedule zone, week zone, week day, seasonal index, holidays, cost per point, sold-out rating, average ad agency commission fee, average cost per hour, average discount, average index of TRP during ad breaks, commercial minute coefficient in one hour, etc. Of course, the set of factors can be extended as required. The criteria themselves are flexible within their own ranges and are used by the software to calculate a comprehensive forecast of a content’s future potential. This allows evaluation of both existing content and that which the broadcaster may be considering producing.
“Our solution gives content purchasers the hard numbers they require in order to decide whether or not to sign the purchase contract”
“In addition to this, our revolutionary and highly competitive promise of implementation of our whole scheduling system, within five weeks, also generated a huge amount of interest” says Zdenek Razek, Product Manager Scheduling, Provys.
The first professional benchmarking solution has been developed in close consultation with AMB (All Media Baltics), who are now trialling the application and reporting favourably on the performance and clear benefits which they are experiencing. “In the context of media and art, the content purchase manager might love something at first sight, but this tool will hit the financial bull’s eye” comments Kristaps Safranovs, IT System Manager at AMB.
