MEDIA-I: CNN US newsroom to follow HK integration

HONG KONG: The CNN headquarters in the US and newsrooms in Europe are to adopt CNN Hong Kong's cost-cutting 'integration' model, which converges TV and web production across a single platform. Bruce Dover, who was named managing editor of CNN Asia-Pacific earlier this year, has been responsible for the network's regional television, web site and integrated production. "We wanted to avoid duplication so you could use one journalist to cover one story, including newsgathering and production for the internet, TV and audio. The way we worked before was to have a separate team for the TV and for web, which was obviously more costly and not as efficient," he said. According to Dover, each journalist has been trained to work across multiple channels. "It means you don't need web masters and other supporting staff because you can train your journalists to put up pictures, audio and video for the TV and internet. It gives a much faster turnaround time on interviews and has increased our margin value because the cost of creating for specific platforms is no longer there." The cost of sending a full production crew with editing equipment, cameras and journalists to cover an interview could range between HKdollars 200,000 and HKdollars 250,000, Dover said. However, armed with digital cameras and laptops, multi-talented journalists and a small production team reduce the cost to HKdollars 20,000. Dover added the Hong Kong newsroom was the first to try out the new system because it was a smaller operation, making it a "good place to drive the integration progress" in CNN's new Hong Kong facility. The regional market, he believes, is also more advanced in terms of technology usage. CNN's Atlanta headquarters will adopt the new system in July, while the London operation will integrate its TV and web production when it moves into a new facility in December. While the integration model has allowed CNN to offer bundled advertising packages to advertisers, Dover believes ad agencies are still coming to grips with "moving beyond the banner". "For advertisers it means they can be associated with content across a number of different shows. The bundled buy also gives their ads a longer shelf life. We are generally working closely with agencies to guide them in terms of what you can do for creating ads for say the web that could also run on PDAs." Dover added CNN content streamed through PDAs will soon include video images. The new system not only allows journalists to expand their skills, Dover explained, but it also enables CNN to build the profiles for its correspondents across various channels. CNN launched its Asia website in February. It also hired an additional 30 journalists. The regional headquarters now consists of 85 TV and web journalists, who produce more than 31 hours a week of programming, including six prime-time, live regional programmes.

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