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Online NewsHour is an example of a production unit that has integrated
interactive television into their daily production process. Initially, Online
NewsHour approached enhanced television with two very different projects in
mind: 1) a forward-looking project for the high-end potential technology of
digital cable through the CPB Incubator Project, exploring personalized stock
quotes, video on demand, and the ability to choose segments of the show both as
a continuous hour and a la carte; and 2) a reality-grounded, analog-enhanced,
synchronous experience for WebTV users. While the first project was completed
as a demo, Online NewsHour has moved forward with the second creating daily
WebTV enhancements for NewsHour.
The NewsHour WebTV trial went live in September 2000, after seven months of
design and debugging work. A grant from Microsoft Corporation funded one and
one-half positions (editorial and design, respectively), and provided
additional assistance in developing a platform for daily news content
presentation. Microsoft also designed special software, known as SLIM, to
assist the team in setting the ATVEF-A JavaScript broadcast triggers that drive
the synchronous enhancements. Now, Online NewsHour relies on a staff of 11 to
produce the Online NewsHour Web site, enhanced television packages, and
additional special projects.
The WebTV format presented many challenges to the Online NewsHour team.
While the complex issues and events at the heart of their subject matter
usually benefit from detailed contextual explanations, it was unclear how much
text users would actually be interested in. The NewsHour staff expects that
viewers watch the show at full-screen, and dip in and out of the enhancements.
Accoringly, while the content is kept simple, factoids and bullet points, it is
always made sure that these add content and don't merely reiterate the show's
focus. The look and feel of the NewsHour WebTV interface are derived from the
program, featuring the globe and logo. The broadcast appears in an inset
window, flanked by the enhancement content, which is further shrunken by the
template for graphic assets such as maps and charts.
An average day for the Online NewsHour staff begins at 10:15am, when there
is an Editorial Meeting for the show. Host Jim Lehrer and all the broadcast and
Online producers discuss the topics for that night's show, for example the
conflict in Macedonia. An Online Editorial Meeting convenes immediately after
and the Online producer distrinutes the assignments to the staff reporters.
Because NewsHour generally follows a developing story over time, the
reporters have carved out niches of expertise to facilitate research and work
flow. The reporter covering Macedonia, then, is charged with updating the Web
site and WebTV features to reflect the changing situation. They look for
content that's non-repetitive (ie does not simply repeat what is in the
broadcast) , and that adds context to the larger story. Supplemental materials
such as maps, timelines, charts, and graphs are especially welcome.
Interestingly, breaking news or one-time events, often take longer to write and
produce because the topic is not a continuing focus, and the reporter must do
more research to get up to speed.
By late afternoon, the resulting research has been turned into a Word
document that's handed off to producers for editing and conversion to HTML. For
the website, html is created in Dreamweaver, for WebTV, the tab graphics that
complete the user interface are created in Fireworks, along with any graphs,
charts, or maps. By 6pm, all the graphics and HTML are in place, the JavaScript
ATVEF-A triggers have been placed in accordance with the estimated broadcast
times for each segment, and the content is ready for the live broadcast.
The show is taped live from 6pm to 7pm EST and is fed nationally three
times: at 6pm EST, 7pm EST, and 9pm EST. The live feed is beamed up to WGBH for
captioning, then beamed back to WETA with captioning in half of Line 21. As
this is being received, the SLIM inserts computer inserts the WebTV triggers
into the second half of line 2.1Finally, the completed show with captions and
triggers is beamed up to the satellite for national distribution. For special
newsworthy occasions, such as on Election Night each feed can include updated
information within the enhancements.
Because the show is live, it is often necessary (between 10-15% of the
time) to make changes during the broadcast . Segments are regularly
reorganized, dropped, and/or replaced at a moment's notice, and the Online team
must be ready with a quick and accurate fix. The back end is designed to be
simple enough for anyone to make drag-and-drop changes, and to make them on the
fly. Since the SLIM software creates the triggers in real time, the team can
easily adjust the triggers mid-stream to follow the modified broadcast. In the
event that an enhanced feature is suddenly cut, the team often opts to drop the
content they spent the afternoon developing, rather than offer content that
will appear incorrect to the viewer. In these cases, a default trigger sends
the user to the Main Menu.
This all appears seamless to the viewer. At the beginning of the broadcast,
WebTV users see a prompt to "go live" for Enhanced Interactive
NewsHour. During the show, the symbol for interactivity (a lowercase
"i" icon) appears in the corner. Viewers who engage the enhancements
then connect to WebTV and download the enhancements. On a dial-up system, there
can be a delay of up to three minutes. After some amount of trial and error, it
was determined that the enhancements would remain accessible only for the
duration of the show, but would not require a new download if the user left the
channel and returned again.
What's next for Online NewsHour? They expect that by 2002 they will be
producing 80% of their enhanced television content for a walled garden
implementation of the Liberate platform via digital cable and only 20% for
WebTV. The asynchronicity of the Liberate enhancements present a new challenge.
The content will need to be strong enough, and present enough information, to
stand on its own, while conforming to format limitations on the amount of text
considered acceptable on a television screen. There is also an internal push to
move towards a more platform agnostic production system, based in XML. The
PalmPilot project is the first step in this direction: The HTML pages designed
for WebTV are exported from Dreamweaver into XML content, allowing the
PalmPilot version to be created dynamically.
