News Broadcasting
News sites picking up share in the video streaming market
MUMBAI: While in India streaming downloads are very little absent thanks to the lack of bandwith in the US a study has found that streaming video on popular news sites has reached new levels of reliability and quality.
The study of seven news sites was conducted by Keynote Systems. Overall streaming registered last year was up 104 per cent. Last year the news category captured 28 per cent of the streaming viewing share.
It has also published results which are based on the two week period 24 April to 7 May. Keynote measured 2441 streams from seven sites. In a tight race, Abcnews came out on top for stream availability. The BBC is noticeably behind in terms of the quality of streams.
All the sites achieved availability scores of 98 per cent or better for their top video stories over a two-week period. Keynote used StreamQ which is its proprietary metric which provides an accurate measurement of overall stream quality based on connect time, buffer time, and rebuffer time. These streaming measurement criteria affect an end user’s perception of the quality of the stream.
Keynote’s study is particularly timely given the recovery of online advertising revenues in the US. Advertisers paying to sponsor streaming media need assurance that the brands they are paying to advertise on have created enough loyalty with quality offerings on their Web sites to keep the audience coming back.
The study makes clear the need for Web sites offering streaming as an important component of their overall offering to monitor their streams in order to assure a consistently positive streaming experience for site visitors.
BBC News lagged considerably behind for quality with a grade of C+. This low grade was a result of excessive buffering which meant that users on average, had to wait 18 seconds for a BBC video stream to begin. In contrast, Fox News had the fastest average start-up times, with streams starting around 1.7 seconds after the initial click.
Keynote benchmarks the performance of Internet applications including streamed media.
News Broadcasting
Rajesh Sundaram joins NDTV Profit as senior editor, assignment
The 32-year newsroom veteran has launched channels on three continents and covered everything from 9/11 to South African television
MUMBAI: NDTV Profit has bolstered its newsroom with a hire who has done rather more than most. Rajesh Sundaram, a journalist with over three decades of editorial, managerial and consultative experience across India and international markets, joins as senior editor, assignment, tasked with sharpening the network’s newsgathering and real-time response.
Sundaram’s career reads like a tour of Indian media’s most formative moments. He began at Businessworld in 1994, moved to Zee News as bureau chief across Mumbai and Chennai, then joined NDTV in 2002 as part of its political bureau during a particularly febrile period in Indian politics. A stint as India correspondent for Al Jazeera International followed, where he covered key geopolitical developments and got his first serious taste of the global newsroom.
What sets Sundaram apart, however, is his serial channel-launching habit. At NewsX, he helped get the operation off the ground. At Headlines Today, part of the India Today Group, he served as editor. At News Nation, he helped launch the Hindi news channel and its digital ecosystem. He then crossed continents to lead the launch of ANN7 in South Africa as editor-in-chief, overseeing both television and digital. Back in India, he launched Tamil news channels News7 Tamil and Cauvery News, and later served as principal consultant for the launch of Marathi channel Lokshahi. Most recently, he helped build and lead the Press Trust of India’s video service and content studio, before stints consulting for Business Today and The Himalayan Times.
Rahul Kanwal, chief executive and editor-in-chief of NDTV, left little doubt about what Sundaram is expected to deliver. “The assignment desk is where a newsroom’s intent becomes action,” he said. “Rajesh brings a rare combination of field experience and leadership in building news operations at scale.”
Sundaram has reported from across India and the world, covering elections, civil conflicts, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 US presidential election.
At NDTV Profit, he will lead the assignment desk, driving editorial coordination and real-time response across markets and breaking developments. For a business news network sharpening its focus on speed and multi-platform delivery, it has hired a man who has built newsrooms from scratch on three continents. The assignment desk is in good hands.
