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Real-time coverage of big events by newspaper web portals, still a novelty and curiosity a few years back, is now becoming a matter-of-fact press tool for attracting news-hungry readers, competing with social media.
Second screen breaks into mainstream media
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Sunday night, the Postimees website treated its viewers with live broadcast from Estonia’s 95th anniversary celebrations in the theatre Estonia. President’s speech, concert and reception were commented by Tiina Kruus, Anu Saagim, Allar Tankler, Gerly Tinn, Hendrik Alla and Anvar Samost. The event was illustrated with photos, news stream spiced up by best #Eesti95 tweets.
Thus, close to half a million live viewer-minutes were created by Postimees, praised by web service provider as a better than expected result. The next live coverage by Postimees comes as soon as next Saturday, with finals of Eurovision song selection, Eesti laul.
And, as the Anniversary transmission ended, those interested could immediately switch over to New York Times website – to watch their broadcast of Oscar-gala. Different events these may have been – except for high percentage of dress-related comments – but they still served to demonstrate that real-time transmission of major events is becoming a vital part of mainstream media.
In both Estonian and world context – referring to Postimees and New York Times – we clearly see evidence of the trend mentioned by almost every presenter at last year’s Screen to Screen media conference: the customer is no longer satisfied with watching just one screen; the information added by another and smaller computer, telephone or tablet screen is becoming ever more important.
With real time major events, users are ever more inclined to get additional information to TV screen, or keep themselves in touch, while away from home, by alternatives to TV.
The reader won’t wait till the event is over, demanding information right away – while expecting to be able to comment and read comments by others.
This time, Postimees included Twitter-users, best tweets also making it to website news stream. Getting into mainstream adds to a Twitter user’s visibility, and, in longer perspective, may inspire them to create more meaningful content.
A special Anniversary programme was also created by Delfi, experimenting with TV programs transmitted via internet, starting and ending with motion picture December Heat, and offering direct switches to the Estonia theatre.
Delfi’s bold attempt was, however, plagued by technical mishaps, blurred picture and uneven sound quality, as also mentioned in Estonian Public Broadcasting’s Vikerraadio by uudised.err.ee editor Rain Kooli, according to whom internet TV is not a threat to real TV, yet.
New York Times, doing its third real-time Oscar transmission, also featured video switching – considered by critics the weakest part of the coverage. Thus, they arrived at the conclusion that the viewers don’t really desire another smaller TV next to the big one. On the second screen, they rather prefer additional material.