The GDELT Project

Visual Explorer: 3.5 Million Broadcasts Totaling 7.7 Billion Seconds Of Airtime =1.9 Billion Analyzable Images Spanning 50 Countries

The TV News Visual Explorer now encompasses selections from 108 channels spanning 50 countries and territories in 35 languages and dialects over 20 years on 5 continents in collaboration with the Internet Archive's Television News Archive. For each broadcast, the Visual Explorer makes it "skimmable" by extracting one frame every 4 seconds at a fixed interval to represent the broadcast. These images are arrayed into a thumbnail grid in the Visual Explorer web interface. To enable at-scale non-consumptive visual analysis, each broadcast also makes available a ZIP file containing the full-resolution version of the images that make up the thumbnail grid, creating "ngrams for television news."

Every day we steadily load more and more of the Archive into the Visual Explorer, reaching 1.5 million broadcasts last month. As of today there are now 3.5 million broadcasts accessible in the Visual Explorer totaling 7.7 billion seconds of airtime (128.7 million minutes / 2.15 million hours). In all, the non-consumptive ZIP files now contain 1.93 billion images totaling 679.7 trillion pixels spanning 50 countries over portions of 20 years, yielding what is perhaps the richest non-consumptive analyzable archive of television news ever created.

For instructions on how to work with this vast archive, see last week's post on at-scale face detection for how to work with the underlying Visual Explorer inventory files.

We are immensely excited about the fundamentally new kinds of analyses never before imagined that become possible with this new collection!

You can see a per-channel breakdown in the table updated to late this afternoon below. Remember that this table represents just a snapshot in time, with the Visual Explorer continuing to grow both forward with the channels being actively monitored, and historically as we continue to load the Archive's historical backfile into it! So, these numbers will continue to grow!

Channel Shows Airtime (sec) Frames Pixels
1TV 5,080 16,397,216 4,099,304 3,776,976,459,808
ALALAM 17,559 32,159,000 8,039,750 2,469,811,200,000
ALETEJAHTV 11,366 28,122,604 7,030,651 2,159,815,987,200
ALFAYHAA 21,685 38,666,728 9,666,682 2,730,301,363,200
ALFORAT 1 1,808 452 138,854,400
ALIRAQUIA 146,826 275,697,672 68,924,418 21,155,299,714,088
ALJAZ 41,690 90,388,696 22,597,174 15,273,673,235,736
ALMAGHRIBIA 121,783 228,585,956 57,146,489 18,186,360,041,640
ANT1 189 335,752 83,938 25,785,753,600
ARD 2,074 3,726,740 931,685 214,660,224,000
ARTEDE 2,075 3,751,756 937,939 216,101,145,600
AZT 1 1,804 451 138,547,200
AZTV 37,914 100,203,088 25,050,772 6,805,195,392,000
BBCARABIC 1 2,484 621 190,771,200
BBCNEWS 102,925 251,409,408 62,852,352 22,165,758,842,016
BELARUSTV 3,665 6,802,100 1,700,525 1,283,098,980,204
BLOOMBERG 10,871 43,844,224 10,961,056 7,215,771,839,064
CANALALGERIE 38,881 83,235,912 20,808,978 6,463,591,596,356
CCTV3 364 647,216 161,804 49,706,188,800
CCTV4 15,017 27,003,044 6,750,761 2,073,833,779,200
CCTV9 33,391 59,808,188 14,952,047 4,593,268,838,400
CCTVNEWS 7,208 12,947,784 3,236,946 994,389,811,200
CNBC 9,518 43,207,112 10,801,778 7,249,679,850,248
CNN 9,725 44,728,344 11,182,086 3,435,136,819,200
CNNW 91,236 360,686,256 90,171,564 33,603,366,785,240
CUBA 31,833 57,078,452 14,269,613 4,383,625,113,600
DUBAI 1 3,588 897 275,558,400
DW 49,428 76,418,532 19,104,633 9,678,735,532,800
ESC1 14,933 26,714,388 6,678,597 1,887,409,843,200
ESPRESO 8,312 15,336,160 3,834,040 3,515,027,364,192
ETV 81,778 169,258,936 42,314,734 12,991,379,635,200
FBC 10,691 46,114,180 11,528,545 7,236,111,957,536
FOXNEWS 13,439 56,810,216 14,202,554 4,363,024,588,800
FOXNEWSW 83,400 356,167,924 89,041,981 32,624,849,978,736
FRANCE24 47,782 86,023,004 21,505,751 5,421,895,910,400
FUTURE 1 3,600 900 276,480,000
GALA 51 191,076 47,769 14,674,636,800
IRAQ 409 732,136 183,034 56,228,044,800
IRIB2 46,734 85,619,112 21,404,778 6,565,210,208,880
IRINN 56,358 104,112,204 26,028,051 7,984,967,496,480
JAMAHIRYA 691 1,232,180 308,045 94,631,424,000
JORDANTV 47,104 89,488,252 22,372,063 6,875,020,039,040
KBSWORLD 4,149 11,560,332 2,890,083 887,833,497,600
KDTV 6,514 21,563,588 5,390,897 3,727,770,021,520
KGO 6,296 14,090,764 3,522,691 2,080,287,660,720
KNTV 6,502 14,414,172 3,603,543 2,199,279,589,832
KPIX 6,412 13,352,772 3,338,193 1,890,892,010,640
KQED 14,351 38,249,488 9,562,372 2,833,363,425,600
KRON 3,648 11,560,236 2,890,059 909,614,175,960
KSTS 7,212 17,017,260 4,254,315 2,661,071,035,752
KTVU 3,988 15,205,684 3,801,421 3,167,457,876,936
KURDSAT 49,551 90,031,424 22,507,856 6,904,899,916,800
KUWAIT 31,101 55,549,604 13,887,401 4,266,209,587,200
LIBYA 9,955 17,784,932 4,446,233 1,365,882,777,600
M2MOROCCO 45,727 106,098,252 26,524,563 8,138,875,796,160
MBC 1 3,600 900 276,480,000
MKTV 2,899 5,230,864 1,307,716 401,730,355,200
MSNBC 11,516 41,605,940 10,401,485 3,195,336,192,000
MSNBCW 88,872 354,219,452 88,554,863 33,036,427,063,424
NDTV 1 1,800 450 138,240,000
NEWTV 1 3,476 869 266,956,800
NTA 128,432 258,100,512 64,525,128 19,742,973,030,656
NTV 6,176 17,026,356 4,256,589 3,189,839,343,840
OMAN 134,504 288,077,772 72,019,443 22,105,377,079,408
ORTM 118,031 217,605,276 54,401,319 16,704,645,011,520
PALESTINETV 19,881 37,063,464 9,265,866 2,900,163,796,872
PRESSTV 2 5,516 1,379 423,628,800
PSC 119,451 263,649,464 65,912,366 20,169,171,350,088
QATARTV 124,671 256,102,744 64,025,686 16,569,979,605,432
RAI 82 224,352 56,088 17,230,233,600
RAI1 1,751 3,825,204 956,301 235,572,096,000
RAINEWS 1,780 3,914,632 978,658 225,482,803,200
RT 46,793 87,587,952 21,896,988 15,067,207,056,896
RTPI 51,363 113,899,940 28,474,985 8,794,544,547,360
RTSDIASPORA 9,623 17,735,208 4,433,802 1,362,063,974,400
RTSSAT 100,602 186,229,940 46,557,485 13,826,349,710,520
RUSSIA1 5,191 16,160,548 4,040,137 3,260,196,761,120
RUSSIA24 7,532 13,905,428 3,476,357 2,066,344,291,104
SAMAYEAZADI 46,041 109,929,324 27,482,331 7,875,188,337,600
SAUDI 87,328 173,313,948 43,328,487 13,302,838,886,400
SCOLA 1 120 30 9,216,000
SCOLA2 1 3,232 808 248,217,600
SCOLA3 1 1,732 433 133,017,600
SCOLA5 1 1,840 460 141,312,000
SHARJAHTV 48,145 89,605,832 22,401,458 6,905,221,053,108
SKY 57,331 109,977,876 27,494,469 6,335,116,185,600
SOUTHERNSUDAN 48,159 89,596,916 22,399,229 6,946,837,521,576
SUDAN 30,140 56,131,132 14,032,783 4,324,104,969,680
SVT1 19,940 35,826,816 8,956,704 2,083,277,030,400
SYRIANTV 38,697 100,667,356 25,166,839 7,330,853,222,400
TELECONGO 48,095 89,439,200 22,359,800 6,868,930,560,000
TELEPADREPIO 678 1,305,492 326,373 100,261,785,600
TELESUR 62,979 130,140,360 32,535,090 9,984,860,697,600
TGN 118,128 217,732,404 54,433,101 16,712,359,659,360
TRT1 11,184 19,961,880 4,990,470 1,533,072,384,000
TRTTURK 11,522 20,582,496 5,145,624 1,580,735,692,800
TSR1 15,283 26,495,592 6,623,898 1,559,218,867,200
TV5MONDE 16,258 31,502,496 7,875,624 2,408,093,491,200
TV7TUNIS 43,532 79,282,492 19,820,623 6,079,128,960,000
TVRAIN 45,874 107,633,300 26,908,325 33,459,585,408,000
TVRAINENG 1 2,760 690 1,430,784,000
TVRI 59,953 135,695,120 33,923,780 10,356,171,855,256
VIETFACETV 63,763 116,460,140 29,115,035 6,702,616,079,040
VTV4 115,563 212,952,264 53,238,066 16,345,160,137,200
WDR 1 1,200 300 69,120,000
YEMENTV 53,306 128,173,212 32,043,303 9,836,155,929,600
ZEETV 27,612 65,193,180 16,298,295 5,006,836,224,000