BXF: 3.0: Putting Relics of the 90s Out to Pasture

Christopher Lennon

In the paper's title, “relics” refers to faxes, e-mails, pagers, and other items still in daily use as data exchange methods in today's media organizations. How can that be? The 1990s were 20 years ago. Yet, the fact remains that standard exchange of traffic instructions between ad agencies and media outlets, telling broadcasters when, where, and how to air commercial advertising, remains fax and e-mail. SMPTE's Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF) Working Group set out to change this. Automating the flow of traffic instructions from ad agencies to broadcast media is perhaps the most anticipated BXF 3.0 enhancement. Key industry players have put in countless hours to create an XML schema for the exchange of these data that can be used in modern service-oriented architectures. This paper explores what has been completed and looks at the potential impact on media organizations in the coming years.

Print ISSN
Electronic ISSN
2160-2492
Published
2014-10
Content type
Original Research
DOI
10.5594/j18472