Making Sense of Syndications - Streem

Syndicated content is something we’re all familiar with in the media monitoring world, however, it can be difficult to identify when or why articles have been syndicated. In order to help you make sense of syndications, we’ve compiled a guide outlining how syndications work across all Media Types on the Streem Platform so you can get the most out of them for your organisation.

What is Syndication? 

Syndication allows broadcast or published media to be spread across a range of media outlets by sharing the rights to a story. For example, rather than having 20 different journalists across 20 different newspapers write the same story about a global event, syndication allows a single journalist to prepare copy on this story and share it broadly across a network of different newspapers. Print and broadcast syndicates have enabled media to become much more widespread and accessible to audiences giving journalists further reach than ever before. 

Whilst the earliest forms of syndication was simply an individual feature being spread across a few publications, the process has evolved into the giant we know today, where media empires own large numbers of publications and stories can be syndicated hundreds of times. 

Media Conglomerates and Syndications 

Today, syndicated content is made possible by large media groups which operate at national and global levels, owning multiple companies and creating a network of publications or broadcast networks to share and distribute content. 

Across the Australian media landscape there are a few media companies that have a large presence across print, online and broadcast media: 

1. News Corp publishes national, metro and regional print and online media across the country including publications such as The Australian, The Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph and news.com.au. As well as their print and online publications, News Corp also owns and operates Sky News Australia.
2. Nine Entertainment Co not only broadcasts TV through the 9Network, they now own and publish some of the most recognised former-Fairfax publications such as The Australian Financial Review, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Their reach is further extended to broadcast radio where they operate eight AM radio stations such as 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR. 
3. Seven West Media is most notable for being one of the country’s leading broadcast TV networks, the Seven Network, however, they also publish leading publications across Western Australia including The West Australian and PerthNow. The West Australian also has a copy-sharing agreement with News Corp.
4. Australian Community Media which was previously part of the Fairfax umbrella, now comprises over 200 regional and rural publications around Australia with one of their leading publications being The Canberra Times. 

Syndications in the Streem Platform

Streem has developed proprietary technology to identify, match and display syndicated content within the Streem platform and reporting. Some of these criteria include thresholds regarding title, word count, content similarity and as well as the published or broadcast time of the coverage to ensure accuracy in syndication and make it easier for you to access syndicated content. 

In order to easily identify syndications on the platform, Streem automatically collates any media across Print, Online, Radio & TV that meets our syndication criteria. It is then identified in the platform by the plus symbol you’ll see next to a publisher or broadcaster name on the Media Item Card. You will then be able to expand this out and view a list of syndicated items, making it easier than ever to identify and access coverage across all syndications. 

Unlike other MMOs, Streem doesn’t rely on standardised (assumed) syndication lists, which means that the syndicated data you access is the most reliable and dynamic view of actual syndication in the market.

At Streem, we know that accessible and reliable information regarding syndications is key to obtaining accurate insights on coverage that matters to your organisation. Get in touch today to learn how you can start taking advantage of Streem’s market-leading media monitoring and social listening platform.