01: Introduction

Congratulations on purchasing NewsTicker, the most used local ticker system in the industry, as well as the most feature-rich. NewsTicker’s introduction more than a decade ago represented an innovation in lower-fifth displays. Foreseeing a future with increased automation, reduced local TV personnel, and a need for clearer delegation between editorial and technical staffs, NewsTicker was “there” before the demand.

It was the first broadcast product to exclusively use a web-based interface for data entry, at a time when most television stations didn’t even have a website. And it has continued to lead the pack with many industry firsts that competitors are always racing to copy.

This documentation will take you through the core product, but it’s a work in progress as is all of NewsTicker. That’s because we continue to evolve it with enhancements and new functionality requested by trusted clients and thought-up by our Research and Development staff. As a new client, we encourage you to learn how to use the product the way it exists today – the way hundreds of stations across the country are using it. Once you’ve learned “the NewsTicker way,” we encourage suggestions for future upgrades.

Feature Summary

There are a tremendous number of features within NewsTicker – far too many to mention in a list. This summary gives you a brief overview of the basic features of the various parts of NewsTicker.

Headlines and Breaking News

• Category-based organization allows you to enter content centrally but isolate on-air displays
• Intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows you to quickly re-order your content, or move items to different categories
• Configurable for one to three line crawl or hot-change displays content can be pre-loaded, then “approved for air” when ready
• Integrated spell-checker
• National and major international headlines fed automatically via TickerWire

Weather

• Current conditions, forecasts and severe weather (see Severe Weather, below)
• Forecasts may be entered for multiple cities for hyphenated markets or hyper-local forecasting, and broken down by custom-defined dayparts
• Hourly current conditions from National Weather Service reporting stations fed automatically via TickerWire, including temperature, sky conditions, barometric pressure, relative humidity, and more
• Can be configured to read from in-house temperature probe or an AWS WeatherBug network (from participating affiliates)
• Supports weather icons and free-flow text data

Sports

• Flexibility to limit the display to certain teams within a league, allowing you to only display the most relevant games to your audience
• Talent can enter optional free-flow comments about games that can appear along with the score
• Local leagues can be created and schedules loaded months in advance
• NCAA and professional schedules and real-time scores fed automatically via TickerWire 

Finance

• Station can add or delete stocks of local interest, including major indices, on the spot
  Information updated via TickerWire, requiring no manual updating
• Display names of stocks can be changed by the station to improve presentation (e.g. “Penney J C Co Holding” to “JC Penney”)
• Supports expanded stock data, such as 52-week high/low, today’s high/low, and volume

Other specialty content modules

• Lowest price for gas in your market, updated automatically
• Emergency messages from your EAS endec can be passed through NewsTicker, permitting you to use the CGs assigned to NewsTicker for EAS
• State lottery results fed automatically via TickerWire
• Election reporting module for receiving results from the wire, web and manually throughout your market, with support for feeding to lower-thirds, your fullscreen CG, and the web
• Closings and delays module takes in automated data via a telephony and secure web interface, and integrates active records with other NewsTicker content
• Traffic data from Metro Traffic and Traffic.com (if licensed), or manually from station personnel
• Ski conditions from area resorts, updated automatically, is unique and highly sponsorable
• National Terrorism Threat Level, updated automatically

Installation

A dedicated installation coordinator at Newsroom Solutions will work with you on the installation of NewsTicker and its related components. This documentation is about using NewsTicker once it is installed.

Please refer to the Equipment Install Guide for specific installation procedures.

‎Additional Documentation

This guide provides fundamental instruction for how to use the base NewsTicker software, including user configurations and the daily operation of updating content. It addresses all included data modules, the optional Gas Prices module, and the powerful broadcast engine.

While there may be references to the optional Closings, Elections, and SevereWx modules, as well as the Freedom graphics platform, those are covered in dedicated documentation due to their extensive features and specialized operation.

Additional documentation, available from Newsroom Solutions support, include:

• Closings User Guide
  • Primary documentation for the optional school and business closings and delays module
• Elections User Guide
  • Primary documentation for the optional election reporting module
• SevereWx User Guide
  • Primary documentation for the optional severe weather reporting module
• FreedomSD/FreedomHD User Guide
  • Primary documentation for the Freedom graphics platform
• LOGIC Programmer’s Guide
  • Developer’s guide to working with LOGIC, the NewsTicker broadcast automation language

Support

All NewsTicker clients receive the same high standard of support. Our support desk is officially open from 9 AM – 5 PM, Eastern time, Monday through Friday. It can be reached by calling (336) 784-0686, and following the voice prompts for support. The desk is also staffed before and after business hours, so your particular request may continue to be worked on, even though the switchboard is closed.

Most clients find it more convenient to send an email with details of their request, including supporting information like screenshots. The address support@newsroomsolutions.com should be used at all times, versus emailing a support engineer directly. This benefits you in three ways: it takes into account when the engineer is out of the office, makes sure your request is routed to the next available qualified engineer, and is tracked by our ticketing system overseen by a manager.

When the email is received, a ticket is automatically generated and a tracking number sent back to you. Future replies to the tracking email which include the ticket number in the subject line get automatically appended to the support ticket.

Emergency (After-Hours) Support

Emergency support is available 24x7x365 for rectifying things that have stopped working. It is not for creating new looks or functionality, which would normally be handled during regular business hours.

For your convenience, use the same phone number and simply follow the prompts to reach the emergency dispatcher.

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