Vatican News is streamlining its multi-platform content production capabilities with Media Backbone Hive. The official information service of the Holy See, Rome-based Vatican News, has chosen Sony's multi-platform production system to reach audiences across online, social media, TV, radio and print communication channels.
The challenge – multilingual, multicultural, multichannel and multidevice content and audiences
Vatican News, the official communications web portal of the Holly See, provides information on activities of His Holiness Pope Francis, the Vatican, local churches and world news updates via a platform that is multilingual, multicultural, multichannel, multimedia and multidevice.
Following on the Vatican Reform, the ‘Motu Proprio’, initiated by Pope Francis and issued in 2015, the Dicastery for Communication was established to reorganise all Vatican’s media content in the current digital era. The Dicastery is committed to reform the Vatican audiovisual information system and structure a new omni-media technology platform capable of supporting the workflow of the official Vatican Communication System.
The current set up would be challenging for any media house, in terms of all, technical, management and people resources. The organism of the Dicastery, which is behind all Holy See's News, works on an ‘agency basis’, providing footage for broadcasters across the globe for free, alongside audio, text and still images for any kind of press.
Solution – multiplatform cloud based content delivery
Media Backbone Hive gives Vatican News greater power and flexibility to create, edit, share and archive content that can be ‘syndicated’ to various distribution channels globally.
“Hive supports Vatican News’ long-term strategy to create a single omni-media platform” says
Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of Dicastery for Communication. “This enables us to optimise content creation workflows and reach all our audiences more efficiently – today and tomorrow.”
To begin with, they will use Sony's Media Backbone Hive to ingest content into the Vatican News website, which currently gathers various forms of content for the public as well as press. In second phrase, the news team will consider adding radio and social media into the Hive workflow.
“Sony is proud to support Vatican in embracing new technologies to help them engage with their huge worldwide audience,” comments Hideyuki Nakamura, Head of Media Solutions, Sony Professional Solutions Europe. “In today's fast-paced digital world, Media Backbone Hive demonstrates Sony’s commitment to help content creators tell their stories more effectively across a wide range of platforms and communication channels.”
Sony Professional Solutions has been working closely with the Vatican for several years, achieving a number of significant technological firsts in the process. On December 24th 2017, the Christmas Eve Mass was broadcast live from St Peter's Basilica by Vatican Media in Sony 4K Ultra HD, with a Sony UHC-8300 camera capturing additional images of the liturgical ceremony in 8K. In December 2015, The Ceremony of the Opening of the Holy Door was captured live in Sony 4K HDR by Vatican Television Centre. In April 2014 the ceremony where Pope Francis raised Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII to sainthood was transmitted live in HD, 3D, and in 4K Ultra HD. The event was captured using six Sony PMW-F55 4K cameras. In March 2013 the first Mass of Pope Francis to inaugurate his pontificate was captured in Sony 4K.
About Media Backbone Hive
Media Backbone Hive is Sony's award-winning multi-platform networked news production system that helps content creators engage audiences across multiple platforms with unprecedented speed and agility.
Based on a powerful, freely scalable unified content platform and running on standard IT hardware, Hive can be deployed on‑premise, in the cloud or a combination of the two. Field-based journalists, producers and editors can collaborate from anywhere in the world, pooling material and tailoring stories for online, social, TV and radio audiences – with fewer silos and less duplication of precious production resources.