As the 21st century gathers pace, the most advanced technologies are making their way into the widest range of fields, creating added value and opening up new opportunities. They are also replacing people with headsets, listening for hours to radio and television programs and typing the words they hear into text on a keyboard.
For some time now, Mediaskopas, the media monitoring and analysis company that was the first in Lithuania to carry out work of this kind, has been helped by artificial intelligence — an automatic Lithuanian speech recognition system created by Estonian scientists working at the Cybernetics Institute at Tallinn University of Technology, according to a press release.
This technology not only turns audio into text almost in real time, but also serves as an excellent search tool — when a word or phrase is entered, the system finds the exact places in television and radio programs where the searched text was spoken, giving users the opportunity to review video and audio material relevant to them.
“What matters is not only the verbal information conveyed in the news or other programs, but also how it is presented — the visuals, the voice, the intonation. Often a person wants to see and hear the exact place where they, their company, or facts important to them were mentioned. In addition, speech recognition technologies make it possible to cover practically the entire airtime. A person no longer has to watch or listen to the news themselves. They also have the opportunity to build a retrospective picture — to find out what was said about a particular topic earlier and what arguments were presented. And that is a huge advantage,” says Jūratė Stankuvienė, Director of Mediaskopas.
According to her, the first to come up with the idea of involving scientists and applying speech recognition technologies to monitor television and radio programs was Sven-Erik Heinsoo, CEO of the Balti Meediamonitooringu Grupp OÜ group of companies, which manages Mediaskopas in Lithuania. The system designed for the Estonian language, which launched earlier than the Lithuanian one, is currently used by more than 90% of the clients of the Estonian media monitoring and research company belonging to this group. The range of users in both countries is very broad: from policymakers and businesspeople to representatives of the Church.
The head of Mediaskopas emphasizes that the automatic speech recognition system, like the other technologies used in the company — text alerts as soon as relevant information appears, a fast and convenient search and analysis tool — makes it possible to monitor communication parameters in real time and respond to changes immediately.
“For our clients, we are like a drone above the media and social media landscape — if we spot something important for them, we can zoom in and highlight it. We also provide the opportunity to see how image, public opinion, crisis management, and many other parameters are being shaped. This is important and useful for reputation management, trend monitoring, business intelligence, marketing, and HR. Thanks to innovative technologies, we can now really help with many things, including gaining a competitive advantage,” says Jūratė Stankuvienė.
Mediaskopas is the largest media monitoring and analysis solutions provider in Lithuania. It began operations in 1998 and currently has more than 250 clients — business and public institutions in Lithuania and abroad. In 2014, after the Estonian company group Balti Meediamonitooringu Grupp OÜ acquired Mediaskopas, the company became part of this group, which operates the only media monitoring and analysis network of companies in the Baltic states. Mediaskopas provides media monitoring and analysis services in Lithuania and, together with partners, in Latvia and Estonia. Membership in the International Federation of Media Monitoring Companies (FIBEP) gives the company the opportunity to review media in other foreign countries.
