CASE STUDY

Real-Time Viewership Tracking for a Leading Media News Channel

Background

In a rapidly evolving media landscape, our client—a leading media news channel—sought a robust solution to:

Track real-time viewer interest in various news stories on YouTube.
Monitor competitors' content and performance.
Assess performance metrics for short-form videos, long-form videos, and live streams.
Identify engaging keywords for video titles.
Conduct comparative analysis on thumbnail changes.
Make informed editorial decisions based on viewership data.
Identify viewer interest trends over extended time frames.

Challenge

The dynamic nature of real-time news presented several challenges:

Rapid Viewer Shifts: Viewers frequently switched between stories, necessitating immediate tracking of these changes.
Extensive Competitor Universe: The client needed to monitor over 2,000 channels collectively posting more than 10,000 videos daily.
High Volume of Live Streams: At any given time, a minimum of 500 live streams were active, with content, titles, and thumbnails frequently changing.
YouTube Data API Limitations: The YouTube Data API's daily limit was insufficient for our needs.

Delayed Data Availability: The API occasionally failed to provide real-time data for newly posted videos and live streams.

Solution

To address these challenges, Xponentium implemented a multi-faceted solution combining various technologies and techniques:

Scraping and API Integration: Xponentium used a combination of web scraping and YouTube API integration to ensure comprehensive and timely data capture.
API Key Management: A system to manage multiple API keys was developed, enabling seamless switching when any key approached its daily limit.
Frequent Data Updates: Viewership data for videos and live streams was tracked every 5 minutes, with new videos being identified every 10 minutes.

2. Data Processing and Analysis:

Google BigQuery: Leveraged for its serverless architecture, BigQuery facilitated scalable analysis of massive data volumes. Partitioning and clustering were applied to optimize querying costs.
Google Cloud Functions and Scheduler: Used to automate data fetching and ingestion into BigQuery.

3. Data Presentation and Access

Google Cloud Run: Served as a serverless API gateway, providing APIs integrated into the client's dashboard.
Looker Studio and Firebase: Enabled real-time analytics and decision-making through a user-friendly dashboard, secured with Firebase authentication and hosted on Firebase.

Xponentium Impact

The implementation of this solution resulted in significant improvements for the media news channel:
Enhanced Real-Time Tracking: The ability to track and respond to viewer interest shifts in real time.
Comprehensive Competitor Analysis: Efficient monitoring of a vast competitor landscape, providing valuable insights.
Optimized Video Performance: Informed decisions on video titles and thumbnails leading to improved viewer engagement.
Data-Driven Editorial Decisions: Empowered editorial teams with actionable data for content strategy.
Scalable and Cost-Effective: Utilization of serverless technologies ensured scalability and reduced costs.