The Wrap has a piece out today on SnapStream, the television recording service that makes searching through thousands of clips for The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Last Week Tonight, and The Soup possible. Using closed captioning, SnapStream allows users to record hours of television and search for news stories through key words and phrases. From The Wrap:
Here’s how it works: A TV show, network, or campaign buys SnapStream servers and connects them to a TV feed. Clients can record whatever they want, strip out the closed captions and program guide information, and organize their finds into a library.
The Daily Show and Colbert have only been using the service since 2010 and 2011 respectively, but Daily Show senior producer Pat King estimates that SnapStream cuts their workload down by 60-70%.