Are you wondering what are media transcription services and how it can help your business? Global media and entertainment are multi-trillion-dollar industries and an ever-present part of our lives. Creative innovations aside, many would be hard-pressed to give any one way of improving the current state of media. I have one, though: the capability to read broadcast content instead of watching and listening. Welcome to the world of media transcription.
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- Media transcription converts audio and video into text to make content more accessible and discoverable. It also helps maximize reach and engagement.
- Transcription benefits media companies by aiding editing, translation, captions, search optimization, and preserving records. Many media companies like podcast producers, radio shows, documentary filmmakers, and video studios use professional transcription services.
- Choosing the right transcription method will save you time and money in the long run. Choose US-based human transcription services like Ditto Transcripts for the highest quality and accuracy rates.
What Are Media Transcription Services?
Media transcription is the process of converting audio or video into text documents so the audiences can read the content of the media productions. It applies to traditional media like TV and film and modern formats like podcasts and online videos from social media.
Transcription offers many benefits: Text transcripts can be scanned faster than audio runtimes, enhancing media through images, highlights, subtitles, and other features. This increases engagement and comprehension. Moreover, text generates metadata, allowing web searches to index media content, improving SEO and discoverability.
Additionally, transcription can save time for media creators crafting stories and viewpoints while spreading reach. Professional transcription providers can handle the intensive process of transcribing media into engaging, readable documents so you can focus on providing value to your audiences.
Types Of Media Productions Where Transcription Is Needed
Here are some notable examples of media productions that can be transcribed:
| Media Productions | Why Transcription is Relevant |
| Videos (interviews, tutorials, etc.) | Add captions and subtitles for broader accessibility and create transcripts for search engine optimization. |
| Podcasts | Generate textual transcripts, allowing podcast content to be searched and discovered more easily. |
| Speeches/Talks | Preserve important speeches and talks in text form for broader distribution and citation. |
| Films | Generate screenplays and scripts from recorded dialogue; to add multi-language subtitles. |
| Meeting Recordings | Keep textual records of critical decisions and discussions that took place. |
| Voiceovers | Aid in the translation and localization of voice overs into other languages. |
| YouTube Videos | Maximize reach through search engines by adding captions/subtitles in various languages. |
| Lectures | Increase accessibility for those who cannot attend in-person lectures or have difficulty processing speech. |
| Radio Shows | Create easily shareable written archives of spoken radio content. |
| Audiobooks | Aid in the translation and localization of voiceovers into other languages. |
| Telephone Recordings | Review key information communicated over phone calls. |
How Can The Media Benefit From Transcription Services?
Despite its seemingly simple premise, media transcription can be an excellent and affordable way to reap various benefits.
First, the people producing media content get the bulk of the value. They include media outlets, content creators, journalists, reporters, researchers, legal professionals, educators, corporations, and more. Transcription can provide a broader range of audio-visual content to attract audiences with different media preferences.
By extension, anybody consuming their content—whether through TV, social media, video-sharing sites, etc—also reap the benefits. Here’s a quick list of them:
- Allows media companies to edit closed captions for video files.
- Provide accessibility and inclusivity for audiences with hearing impairments.
- More efficient editing and sound-bite extraction.
- Provide precise documentation of show recordings for media companies.
- Makes translation and foreign-language distribution easier.
- Improve SEO by creating crawlable content.
- Support academic research related to show content.
- Enhance audience comprehension and engagement through subtitling and captioning. (Multiple sources indicate that as much as 85% of Facebook video viewers watch content without sounds.)
Types Of Media Companies That Can Benefit From Transcription
Here are some specific instances where media transcription can help different types of media organizations:
| Industry | Use of Transcription | Benefits |
| Podcast Production Companies | Employ transcription to make audio content accessible, improve SEO, and promote episodes. | Widens audience range, improves discoverability, enhances accessibility for the hard of hearing and English learners, drives more website traffic, and enables engaging quotes for marketing. |
| Radio Show Companies | Use transcription to convert unscripted interviews and segments into text for online content and social promotion. | Engages listeners across formats, provides value for current listeners and reaches new ones, extends programming into multimedia experiences, and builds station awareness, followers, and loyalty. |
| Documentary Companies | Turn to transcription to streamline post-production and document interviews. | Facilitates identification of usable soundbites, fact-checking, adds accurate subtitles, accelerates editing, and positions projects for success. |
| Film/Video Studio Companies | Utilize transcription to aid in post-production, translation, and improve content visibility. | Streamlines post-production, facilitates accurate captions/subtitles, enables smooth translation for global markets, improves SEO indexing, and drives more traffic. |
Where Should You Get Media Transcription?
Transcription can be done in one of three ways: in-house, automated, or outsourced. Let’s talk about them here:
In-house Transcription
Manual in-house transcription is when you hire transcribers for your production company. These professionals work directly under you and can provide you with transcripts of your recordings.
As you can rightly glean from that definition, in-house transcription has one big flaw: the cost.
Hiring, training, and retaining transcribers takes a lot of money and effort. High estimates that include salaries, benefits, equipment, and continuous training expenses reach around $100k per year per transcriptionist. And, With that kind of money, you can buy an industry-leading Arri Alexa 65 camera system and increase your production values to Hollywood levels.
Automated Transcription
Speaking of costs, wouldn’t it be better to go with automatic speech recognition or AI transcription? They’re cheap, fast, and can be found in every nook and cranny of the internet.
True enough, I admit. They are indeed cheap, fast, and easy to find. Oh, and one more thing: they’re also wildly inaccurate.
The best automated transcription platforms can only reach 86% accuracy without human intervention. Production companies will still have to allocate human resources to fix AI transcripts. That means more time spent proofreading and editing transcripts to some semblance of usability. Overall, it’s not an efficient option.
Outsourced Human Transcription
Outsourcing media transcription is your best choice. However, that doesn’t mean you should just outsource your transcription needs to the first service provider you find.
The gold standard of media transcription (or all transcription, for that matter) is outsourced, U.S.-based human transcription—the kind that Ditto Transcript provides.
With our outsourcing brand, production companies of various sizes can access professional human transcribers who know the language inside and out and can provide more than 99% accuracy. That’s not all, though.
What To Expect With Ditto Transcript’s Media Transcription Service
Getting the services of an experienced professional transcription provider like Ditto gives you more than just surface-level benefits. Here are some of our notable advantages over the competition:
- Experience And Expertise: Aside from media transcription, Ditto covers a broad range of industries, including academic, medical, law enforcement, legal, and business. That means that we take all kinds of media transcription jobs, no matter the complexity of the topic.
- 100% US-based Service: You can’t go wrong with home-grown talent. Our transcriptionists are all from the US and are all native English speakers. Further, they all have a strong command of the language, can understand different accents, colloquialisms, and figures of speech, and have an ear for nuance.
- 99% Accuracy All The Time: Our services come with a 99% accuracy guarantee, all the time, every time.
- Scalability: There’s no need to fret if you have enough transcriptionists on payroll to do the work. Send us your recordings, no matter how many or how long, and we’ll handle it.
- Fast Turnaround Times: We understand that time is money in the media industry, so we work to meet your deadlines. Or, do you need transcripts as soon as possible? We can deliver them in 24 hours or less.
- Affordability And Flexibility: We offer different turnaround times for different budgetary needs. Our standard pricing has a turnaround time of three to five business days. Rush pricing will have transcripts delivered within 24 to 48 hours. Also, we have extended and more economical turnaround times of six to ten business days.
- Security And Confidentiality: Here at Ditto, we don’t distinguish between a casual podcast and a hard-hitting journalism piece in terms of security. Every word will be kept as safe and confidential as possible through our rigorous security measures—the same ones that have passed FINRA, CJIS, and HIPAA guidelines.
Choose Ditto Transcripts For Your Media Transcription Needs
Reap the benefits of accurate, high-quality professional transcription through Ditto Transcripts.
And, hey, don’t just take our word for it. Call us during our office hours or sign up online for our free trial to experience the Ditto difference.
Ditto Transcripts is a HIPAA, FINRA, and CJIS-compliant Denver, Colorado-based transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial.
