Metadata best practices for FAST programming

In the dynamic world of linear TV channel programming and Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST), efficient metadata management is crucial for optimizing operational workflows, faster programming, and delivering a seamless viewer experience. 

Metadata is one of the defining factors of channel programming, and so effectively managing it becomes non-negotiable. We’ll uncover the best practices for metadata management and describe an ideal metadata management framework.

What is metadata?

Metadata serves as the essential foundation of any media system. Each piece of media content is accompanied by detailed metadata, including titles, descriptions, genres, cast and crew information, release dates, and content ratings. This comprehensive data enhances searchability and provides viewers with rich, informative content, significantly improving their overall experience.

Thus, metadata in media can be briefly classified as:

• Descriptive metadata: This includes titles, synopses, genres, cast information, and more. This data helps programmers find the right content to schedule and, at the same time, helps viewers find and choose content from the EPG or VOD catalog.
• Technical metadata: This encompasses details like file format, resolution, and duration, ensuring compatibility and quality. It plays a critical role in workflows—be it during ingestion, transcoding, or distribution—and ensures standards are met.
• Rights-related metadata: This covers licensing information, geo-restrictions, and other legal considerations that govern content distribution.

Proper metadata management across these three pillars ensures optimized media processing workflows, seamless scheduling, accurate content delivery, and efficient operations. It reduces the risk of errors, helps maintain consistent programming, supports compliance with licensing agreements, and engages viewers.

LEARN MORE: Elevating FAST programming using traditional broadcast best practices

Why is metadata important?

Metadata plays a critical role in the following aspects:

1. Content search and discovery: Metadata feeds the content recommendation algorithms with the right information to make relevant content visible to audiences. By showing the content that the viewer might prefer watching, metadata enhances content discovery. 
2. Content curation: Metadata helps curate an eclectic content library that would appeal to the viewer. 
3. Personalization: From user-specific genres and shows to playlists and channels, metadata helps curate a personalized user experience.
4. Contextual advertising: Metadata helps advertisers and publishers derive engagement patterns that further aid in delivering contextually relevant, hyper-targeted ads. This ensures that the right ads reach the right viewer at the right time. 

FURTHER READ: How to optimize linear channel scheduling with automation and AI

Effective metadata management and the ideal framework 

Traditionally, cable operators have leveraged metadata for channel or package recommendations. For example, a user who frequently watches tennis might be informed about an upcoming tennis event they haven’t subscribed to. Today, when we view the guide on our television and search content by genre, such as news or movies, genre-based metadata plays a crucial role in refining our search and curated viewing experience.

Every organization goes through multiple stages of iterations before adopting a standard metadata management framework. It is a change management effort as well as an organizational-wide adoption requirement. The first step is to start with a well-thought-out framework that addresses various aspects of metadata, from what fields to capture to how to name and include versioning.

A robust metadata management framework for media and video asset management should include:

Metadata schema definition: Adopt a taxonomy that every team can utilize and consider using industry standards like Dublin Core, PBCore, or custom schemas tailored to your specific needs. It is important to include descriptive, administrative, and technical metadata fields as well as placeholders for future use.

Metadata standards compliance: Ensure the framework supports interoperability with other systems and standards. Regular audits and authorization should be employed to ensure metadata adheres to defined standards and schemas. Automated validations need to be in place to ensure the framework is followed. Providing comprehensive documentation involved in metadata creation and management helps maintain compliance across internal and external teams. 

Adopting a centralized media manager: Content Management Systems (CMS) like the one offered by Amagi, provide a seamless option to ingest and manage metadata set according to the governance policy. They also provide automation capabilities to capture metadata during ingestion, such as subtitle generation, content segmentation, contextual metadata, and image generation. Non-factual metadata generation, such as description, genre, etc, is carried out to enhance, enrich, and ease delivery operations automatically. 

Amagi Media Manager supports metadata management, ensuring that all content complies with the specific governance policies of the organization. For instance, metadata can include fields for content ratings, rights management, and localization requirements, which are crucial for regulatory compliance. The centralized media manager allows for the seamless ingestion of content from various sources and formats and organizes it efficiently. 

Modern CMSes also provide APIs that allow organizations to create custom workflows tailored to their specific needs. For example, a news organization might use these APIs to automate the ingestion of live news feeds, transcribe them in real-time, and categorize them by topic.

Metadata access and retrieval: User-friendly interfaces help programmers and operations teams manage workflows intuitively and search, filter, and retrieve metadata and content for scheduling and other downstream activities. Robust APIs for integration with other systems and applications greatly enhance the adoption and use of metadata ingested.

LEARN MORE: How FAST channels complement on-demand strategy

Bonus tips for managing metadata effectively 

Here are a few practical aspects to keep in mind when managing metadata:

1. Create a hierarchy taxonomy to form identifiers between more programs, calculating and finding the most similar programs. For Example Genre_SubGenre_Series_Season_Episode. Well-managed metadata helps simplify media workflows from source to distribution.
2. Use tags to provide additional context (such as theme or mood). Usually, there is no limitation on the number of tags. However, it is ideal to have a standard set of tags and publish a list of tags for others to follow. Also, use tags creatively to indicate the type of content such as live/non-live, premium/sponsored, etc.  Accurately tagged metadata helps operations and programming teams discover, plan, and schedule the right content.
3. Don’t use placeholders in non-mandatory fields such as short descriptions.
4. Key-value-based tags help provide more context to the content.
5. Enriching metadata manually or using AI tools helps in downstream use cases such as contextual advertising and personalization.

Implementing a framework will ensure that your media and video assets are effectively managed, are searchable and accessible — enhancing overall efficiency and value. Prioritizing metadata management helps streamline operations and reduce errors. Continuous improvement and adaptation to new technologies will ensure our practices remain effective and efficient.

Want to learn more?

• To discover how Amagi can help you with your linear channel programming and FAST strategies, get in touch with us
• Explore Amagi’s FAST Center here
• Watch and follow our full webinar series, Amagi AIRTIME