Syndication marketing uses searchable scene metadata databases to target audiences.

Evidence

In a hype-driven climate of media saturation, new methods for tailoring content to certain audiences and demographics are a necessity. As it entered off-network syndication in September 2011, 30 Rock was marketed by NBCUniversal’s Domestic Television Distribution arm with a sophisticated technological apparatus called TVPro/MoviePro CMS (“content management system”), which is a database for digital media with an easily navigable interface that allows users to collaborate and easily add metadata. The developer of this program is a Los Angeles–based marketing and postproduction company called DG Entertainment, which cataloged every scene of every episode with searchable metadata in such categories as character, action, dialogue, and location. All of this metadata was then cross-referenced and annotated in context by a small team of editors, amounting to thousands of richly detailed clips. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 390

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what a content management system (CMS) is in this syndication context and how scene-level metadata cataloging works.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core question about finance-to-form: the business of syndication reshapes how content is indexed, an infrastructure precondition for derivative resale.