Media agency Horizon Media is working with Burst Premium Network to deliver local stories highlighting diversity, equity and inclusion in crowdsourced segments using user-generated content that can be sponsored by Horizon’s clients.
Horizon served as an adviser in shaping the unwired network. which now includes 150 stations that use Burst software to manage and utilize user-generated content to bolster their newsgathering.
The Burst Premium Network segments air as frequently as three times a week on each station and consist of a locally focused 30-second vignette paired with a 30-second commercial. They are designed to line up with commemorations like Black History Month, Pride, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.
“We’re showcasing the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Burst CEO Bryant McBride told Broadcasting+Cable. ”We know there’s a market for that. We want to showcase amazing people in their community that no one’s ever heard of. A lot of them are traditionally marginalized people.”
As a part of the upfront market, Horizon’s national clients are getting a first look at the segments.
“We are intentional about consistently operating in a manner that advances DEI for the good of our clients, our business, our industry and the communities we collectively serve,” Bill Koenigsberg, founder and CEO of Horizon Media, said. “Working with Burst to introduce a new way for brands to forge authentic connections with local communities by amplifying diverse voices and sharing untold stories is an extension of that commitment and of our focus on DEI innovations.”
Burst has been providing its user-generated content software to stations for eight years. The software gives the stations access to mobile video and photos from viewers, fans and social media in a way that’s compatible with the stations’ production systems.
“Our software has become the industry standard for user-generated content for local news,” said McBride.
The user-generated content is used during newscasts to supplement stations’ own newsgathering capabilities with video about weather, fires, animals and other local-news staples. “It’s the stuff you need to feed that local news beast,” McBride said.
When there is a snowstorm, Burst urges people to share their video so it can be used on TV, giving a station potentially millions of cameras to cover a story. “We’ve changed the dynamics of news collection,” McBride said.
After the death of George Floyd amplified the Black Lives Matter movement and corporate America made commitments to tell more diverse stories, Burst started a program to tell stories that teach, heal and humanize at sale for national advertisers, McBride said.
The Burst National Network currently reaches about 90% of U.S. households. There’s only one station per market and each station has either the No. 1 or No. 2 newscasts in the market.
Segments usually appear in the second block of a newscast to be away from the crime and mayhem that can often lead the telecast, putting the stories in a safer environment for advertisers.
Burst splits the revenue generated by the segments with the stations.
Burst solicits videos on various websites, calling for people to help fill what McBride calls “a hole in the American narrative,” McBride said.
People send in stories about a grandmother who was a civil rights leader, or an aunt who was the first person in the country to do something. “The stories are pouring in,” he said. “Of the tens of thousands we get, we take the ones that really grab people and inspire and shape them and repackage them.”
McBride himself is a storyteller. He grew up in Canada and wanted to be the first Black hockey player in the National Hockey League, but found out Willie O’Ree had played for the Boston Bruins from 1958 to 1979. McBride later became VP of business development for the league and hired O’Ree as an NHL Ambassador.
He co-produced a documentary about O’Ree, called Willie, which can be streamed on Peacock.
“There is a need to tell these stories,” McBride said. “Victory for us is really simple. When people go, ‘I had no idea. How come I wasn’t taught this? How come I don’t know this?’ that’s victory. These stories aren’t being told widely, or as widely as they should be.”
