to use pictures or video from other (competitor’s) sources?
After the coverage today of the crash of the American A300 in Rockaway, where I noticed that CNN was carrying a live feed from CBS, I was wondering how the networks get permission to do this so quickly. Obviously with breaking news there’s no time to sign an agreement. Is there a general agreement on file beforehand, whereby all networks share each others video when there’s breaking news? Or (I’m guessing this is the case) is it more complicated than that? Is there payment involved after the fact? How is that determined?
I know from reports I’ve heard in the past that this sort of thing is usually figured out ahead of time.
Every news organization can’t stand the thought of being left out of a major breaking story. They all know that there will be times when they don’t have a guy there but their competitor will. It is therefore in all of their best interests to share when they can.
I do not know the specifics however. As a pure guess they may have a prior arrangement that says, “You can automatically show my video at your choice and will pay me $1,000 per minute you show it.” The news organization then has a choice of coughing up the money or missing out on the story. If the times each news organization happens to be in place at the right time then it may all be a wash in the end. If one news organization excels at having people everywhere it helps mitigate the expense of keeping all those people on the payroll. I am almost positive such sharing is never free.
An exception to this was the events on 9/11 where shortly afterwards the news organizations agreed to share everything with everybody, presumably for no cost. Everyone wanted in on the story and nobody wanted to be accused of holding out when such important news was happening so they all shared.
In sports they do have agreements to show highlight clips from all events no matter who televises it.
The 1 big exception to this is the Olympics. NBC bars any non-NBC affiliate from showing highlights during the same day the event was held. Normally you will hear them mention this “we are sorry, but NBC bars us from showing you that today.” That way they get a dig in the same time they explain it.
Much of their video is NOT the same. But, most of their cameras are on the same camera platform, using a common audio feed, so there’s essentially no difference between shots. Or agencies pool for a video person at a low priority event. OR, some spin doctor is pushing some story this week, and providing video clips to all and sundry.
Most “hot” video is from independents, who are selling to everybody they can as fast as they can. They can put it up on a satellite once and have a whole bunch of news agencies get it and pay a fee for it. And occasionally, they will swing a higher priced deal with a network for footage “obtained exclusively for…”.
The video I’m talking about (including on CNN this morning) is the sort where they either say “used by permission from NBC” or you can actually see another network’s logo on the picture.