Reality Check Systems understands the enormous potential of leveraging social media during live broadcasts. According to Nielsen, social media conversations about sports made up nearly 50% of all Tweets about TV-related content in 2013.* RCS is already on the front lines helping clients like the NFL, MLB, SpikeTV and Golf Channel manage, curate, automate and integrate social media posts from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with live events and live studio analysis. Our custom designed software, middleware, hardware, touchscreen apps, insert graphics packages and on-air media walls drive live event programming and boost viewer engagement in exciting and dynamic ways.
For FremantleMedia North America’s American Idol, we helped display and broadcast real-time voter data visualizations using Facebook profile photos. More recently, we created social media templates for NBC News’ coverage of the 2014 Midterm Elections that let the network gauge reactions to its coverage almost instantly.
RCS solutions intelligently and elegantly bring social media posts from viewers to air with minimal setup and maximum impact, moving highly interactive, real-time viewer reactions and exchanges into the spotlight where they belong.
Facebook’s Media Solutions Program debuted new tools this week for broadcasters that provide access to data from the social network to create memorable visuals for viewers throughout programming. As part of the initiative, they collaborated with our Public Content Solutions team to create custom graphics displays that give life to the stories, people and media trending on the social network in a broadcast format. Dubbed “Facebook Now,” the installations, which reside in the company’s New York and Menlo Park offices, provide detailed visualizations of buzzworthy Facebook data in a broadcast format that could easily be integrated in newsrooms, media outlets, offices and other professional environments.
“Facebook Now” combines Vizrt technology with custom RCS control software, making popular Facebook data accessible via the social network’s API for real-time display in an animated layout. We worked closely with the Facebook team to develop a variety of modifiable templates that illustrate everything from leading topic trends to top posts, popular Instagram photos and more. Each display is powered by Ignite, RCS’ new solution that fuses real-time data and breaking news with dynamic 3D graphics to offer 24/7 live coverage of developments ranging from sports to social media. As we continue to work with Facebook’s media solutions team to evolve the displays, we’ll be adding a host of new visualizations and templates.
To learn more about Facebook’s new offering for broadcasters, visit the Media Solutions team’s blog.
*Nielsen’s Year in Sports Media Report 2013