A cutting-edge Newsroom Setup

Under the name “BR hoch drei” (BR to the power of three), the newly created “Strategy and Innovation Management” department at Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) has been driving forward the transformation of the public broadcaster into a trimedia media company since 2011. The ultimate goal is for editorial teams that previously operated in silos to plan, research, and exchange ideas together, thereby expanding the journalistic offerings for users across all distribution channels. BR’s Studio Franken in Nuremberg is the furthest along in this change process. That’s where the trimedia news center (“AktZent“) was built. Groundbreaking was in December 2010, and the cost was just under five million euros. The author got an exclusive look behind the scenes of this newsroom setup.

One studio for local and nation-wide news

To understand the advantages of the AktZent, it is necessary to take a brief look at the entire BR Studio Franken: The complex, which has been in operation since 1949 and consists of buildings of various sizes in a park area on Wallensteinstraße in Nuremberg, is one of over 20 ARD studios in Germany. From there, around 320 permanent and freelance employees provide an area as large as Hesse with journalistic information via online, television, and radio. In addition to producing its own programs, BR Franken contributes to nationwide programs on ARD.

Due to space constraints, the television and online editorial teams had to leave the studio park in 2008 and to move to a building on neighboring Edisonstraße. The new two-story AktZent building in the studio park created 70 new jobs. The current television, radio, and online editorial teams are now reunited there. The heart of AktZent, the trimedia newsroom, is located on the first floor. Around 50 functional workstations are distributed across a large team area. Working in shifts, they offer space for over 120 media professionals. The production areas are located on the floors below (see photo gallery).

Newsroom setup: The planning desk

Right next to the separate offices of the two AktZent bosses, Stephan Kirchner and Gerhard Kockert, the desks of six employees form the planning desk, i.e., trimedia planning and research.

Specifically, an online, a TV, and a radio planner work at this desk. There is also a live reporter who prepares broadcasts for specific programs and coordinates the necessary use of the satellite news gathering (SNG) trucks in the building opposite. Together, they prepare the programs for the coming week. To do this, they also review topics from emails that arrive at a central email address. A journalistic gatekeeper forwards the emails to them.

The planners are supported by an assistant who, interestingly, is also the social media manager. As in all modern media companies, planners enter topics and dates into special software tools that facilitate collaboration and control the cross-media workflow.

Another special feature of the pre-planning group is a workstation for employees from the TV and radio archive (media documentarians). On a weekly basis, one of them sits at the planning desk and creates dossiers and fact sheets for their colleagues. These compilations can include videos, audio files, press articles, photos, and web content. Their primary research tools are a video asset management system (ViAM) and the so-called media broker for searching all BR archives and, in some cases, ARD-wide.

Newsroom setup: The news desk

Right next to the planning desk is the news desk. There, journalists from all three media genres discuss the current news situation, send correspondents to the scene, and produce news for all broadcast channels. A modern glass studio has been specially integrated into the team area for radio news (see picture below). This means that news can be broadcast even faster.

A video journalist (VJ) and a video editor are responsible for moving image news, producing NiFs (news in film) for online. Correspondents and reporters have been trained in media production with mobile devices through mobile reporting workshops to ensure quality journalism in the digital media age.

Finally, the online editor-in-chief also has a place at the news desk. He acts as the central coordinator for web content on the regional portals of BR-Online. In addition, he approves content before it is published. Four online colleagues support him at an adjacent desk island, among others. A multimedia assistant posts images and videos online in the evening. The online staff are also responsible for maintaining the metadata.

Newsroom setup: The editor-in-chief desk

While the online editor-in-chief sits at the news desk, the TV editor-in-chief and radio editor-in-chief have their workstations at the adjacent editor-in-chief desk. The editors-in-chief take turns in the role of editor-in-chief for the day, who decides on the multimedia topics of the day. The daily editorial conference, which is also chaired by the editor-in-chief on duty, plays a very important role in this process. The large conference table is also located in the team area, slightly separated from the desk islands.

Trimedia editors and staff meet there every day at 8:15 a.m. After a brief press review, they discuss what will be broadcast in which medium, when, and how. The Mainfranken studio in Würzburg, headed by Eberhard Schellenberger, is always at the table via video link. The topics and schedule are projected onto the wall. The ambitious goal of the AktZent team is to surprise BR users in Franconia with up to three of their own trimedial stories every day.

It is always a pleasure to experience successful concepts for integrated communication up close. The author had this experience ten years ago when visiting the newsrooms of the Financial Times Deutschland (presented at the time by editor-in-chief Christoph Keese) and BILD (presented by Kai Diekmann). BR’s news center is the right response to the rapid change in media use. BR is thus in good company. As Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, said in November 2012: “Our future is on to video, to social, to mobile.”

Pictures of the newsroom setup

Updates

Update November 14, 2013:

According to a press release from BR, the “BR hoch drei” project is continuing to develop successfully: At its meeting today, the BR Broadcasting Council unanimously approved the management’s plans to establish a multimedia information department. From May 2014, this will include the Internet editorial department and the following program areas currently in operation: “B5 aktuell – Politik und Wirtschaft” (radio program area), ‘Politik’ (politics), including the news programs Abendschau and Rundschau, and “Sport und Freizeit” (sports and leisure) (television program areas). The multimedia information department will also be responsible for the trimedia news center currently being built in Munich-Freimann. With 3,200 positions and a budget of around one billion euros (2013), BR is the fifth-largest ARD regional broadcaster.

Update December 13, 2013:

In an internal BR interview, Director General Ulrich Wilhelm explains his plans to create a new “Information” department: “In the future, we will combine editorial teams, which will then plan and research topics together and prepare them for all distribution channels, i.e., television, radio, the Internet, and social media.” The Information Department will thus be BR’s first cross-media program department, bringing together all current editorial teams from radio, television, and online under one umbrella. Thomas Hinrichs will take up the new position of Director of Information on May 1, 2014. He is currently Deputy Editor-in-Chief of ARD-aktuell, responsible for the “Tagesthemen” news program. In addition, the BR Broadcasting Council appointed the former head of the BR Studio Franken, Martin Wagner (see above), who was born in Würzburg, as the new Radio Director.

Update March 19, 2019:

In recent years, all program areas of Bayerischer Rundfunk have been gradually merged across media according to subject areas. According to a press release from BR, the traditional division of management into “radio” and ‘television’ will no longer exist at Bayerischer Rundfunk as of July 1, 2020. They will be replaced by the “Culture” program management (Bayern 2, BR-Klassik, planning for Bavarian television, ARD-alpha, 3sat and the digital channel “BR Heimat”) and the “Information” program management (Bayern 1, Bayern 3, Puls, Politics & Economy, and Sports & Leisure).

Update June 29, 2020:

BR Director General Ulrich Wilhelm announces in a press release that the trimedia restructuring of Bayerischer Rundfunk has been completed at the organizational level. The occasion is the retirement of Radio Director Martin Wagner due to age. His position will be eliminated, leaving only the positions of Director of Information and Director of Culture announced last year.