Reuters’ business relies on disseminating tailored information to global financial and media services. Without a seamless communication network, Reuters would have no business. More specifically in its video news division, executives at Reuters describe this as a wholesaler operation. Around 200 global news bureaus supported by more than 2,300 editorial staffers, journalists, photographers and camera operators send content back to its U.K. headquarters where, in turn, roughly 450 broadcast customers around the world receive tailored news and information from Reuters.

But the business of news has changed throughout the years and Reuters has remained in-step with those changes. What may at one time had been considered a daily wire service is today a multimedia clearinghouse of text, graphics, video and pictures. Tony Donovan, managing director of television services for Reuters, recently spoke with Satellite Business Solutions and shared how satellite technology is assisting Reuters in providing tailored content to each of its broadcasting customers.

Tony Donovan

Managing Director, Television

Problem:
Disseminate rich media content that is customized for each client and expand the company’s business offerings.

For Reuters, not all of its 450 customers have the same needs. Given this fact, Reuters has to tailor the frequency and the content delivered to each of its broadcasting clients.

“Reuters collects more than 2,000 hours of content a year and we cannot simply send all that content to everyone,” says Donovan. “We needed an always-on distribution environment that could help us catalog, encrypt and seamlessly disseminate the right news to each broadcaster without wasting our time or the client’s by flooding them with content they would never use.”

Solution:
Enhance the satellite connectivity and further utilize its bandwidth capabilities.

Even though the communications network at Reuters is inherently a hybrid system, Donovan quickly points out that the satellite component is the company’s “arteries and veins.” In its North American operations, Mainstream Data distributes Reuters’ digital photos and real-time news to broadcasters, newspapers, Web portals and other media points through an integrated wireless, Internet and satellite platform. The satellite evolution for Reuters, however, was to find new ways in which to ease the sorting of the content by its clients and to increase its own information collection business segment. That is where attention focused on satellite.

“One of the enhancements satellite brought us was the ability to watermark our content so we can track what is being used and by whom,” says Donovan. “Today, we have great data at our fingertips and know what types of news events are most in demand, thereby enabling us to collect the most pertinent news. In addition, satellite cache services have given our clients the ability to download, edit and record only the content they need from what they receive. We could not operate without satellite connectivity.”