Digital content has made key-word based searches for television & radio a reality. And the proliferation of digital content along with the ubiquitous Internet has made it possible to monitor television content (including commercials) within minutes of broadcast. How will this re-define the electronic media monitoring industry ?

Digital Media Technology
There already exists today, more than one service which can search Radio & TV content by key-word, topic or sentence. And they work just like a search engine for text, with audio replacing alphabets.

This technology is ideally suited for multiple languages and multiple media like television, radio & even podcasts.

And obviously, as more TV channels go digital, the number of channels monitored are bound to increase.

Real Time Radio & TV Monitoring
Today's technology can deliver real-time TV & radio searches across multiple languages - by indexing audio feeds which are used for searching radio & TV content by audio keywords - just as you would use a search engine for text.

Services can cover television, radio & Internet media including podcasts, audio visual blogs, streaming video/audio et al. Incidentally, these services find use for a wide range of users like corporate bodies, marketers & even Government enforcement agencies!

Being software driven, users can expect personalization & customization of features like complex queries, graphical analysis & instant alerts by email based on user-defined filters. But naturally.

Raising The Bar
In addition to real-time searches, archived broadcast video content are also being searched for audio/video information relevant to individual interests & activities. Interested groups include corporates & professionals.

With online databases offering (audio) keyword based search results coupled with personalized video libraries, large video galleries and instant alert features, one can expect TV Search Engines to affect the TV monitoring industry in more ways than one.