MY NIS4 PLAYOUT DIRECTOR WORKFLOW

As the News Director I am the person who is ultimately responsible for what news stories are played to air when, the quality of the presentation of those stories and ensuring that all the required stories fit into the overall news programme time slot. This is a high pressure job that needs a computer system that is highly reliable, easy-to-use under pressure and provides me with access to all the tools I need to get the right information to air at the right time. NIS4 is the reliable assistant I need for this...

GETTING STARTED
My first task is to log into NIS4, go to the Rundown for the programme I will be directing and review the stories that the journalists have prepared for it. An icon on the Rundown listing clearly indicates which stories the journalists have marked as “Final”, and therefore ready for my review. I click on these in turn to open their TV Scripts, reviewing the prompter text, the assigned media and any other information entered, such as the CG text. If needed I may make minor changes myself, or ask the journalists for changes to be made. Once I’m happy with the story in terms of content and timing, I change the status of the TV Script to “Approved”.

AS ON-AIR APPROACHES
As the time to on-air approaches, I continue to receive and review Final stories from journalists, easily adjusting the Rundown in NIS4 as required — moving stories to different time slots, cancelling stories or placing stories on the “shelf” (which means that they are available for playout, but not assigned to a time slot). Prompter text and technical instructions are printed for the anchors and the studio crew. I monitor the latest breaking news, and if needed I can rapidly create new TV Scripts, getting journalists to build the breaking stories at short-notice.

DIRECTING THE LIVE NEWS
While the link between NIS4 and the playout system can be maintained even when the news programme is on-air, with changes made in NIS4 automatically transferred to the playout system, I prefer for control reasons to have the playout system as master while on-air. At a pre-determined time before on-air, or manually triggered by myself, NIS4 is therefore disconnected from the playout system and I start to direct the playout direct from the playout system controls.

Fast. Efficient. Reliable. NIS4 takes some of the stress out of my job, particularly in that period before going on-air when multiple news stories are being finalised by the journalists and I have to make rapid decisions whether they should go to air and when.