Major television networks around the world are indeed hooked to major video distribution feeds that provide them with an ongoing stream of video material, clips and news that they can record and re-edit into any number of news or video stories. The quantity of such material is so vast, that only a tiny fraction of it makes it to each television channel daily programming.

In spite of all the best planning and scheduling, producers will occasionally find themselves up against an immovable deadline, frantically scrambling for those last few stock clips needed to complete a project. Recently Kate Raisz, a producer with Moore Huntley Productions in Sudbury, Massachusetts, found herself in such a spot while making a show for the National Geographic Channel on Alaska. The program dealt with Alaska's geology and weather, and how extremes in the Great North affect other places around the world. They had great footage from Alaska, but were coming up short on "the rest of the world"; things like geyser activity in Yellowstone Park, for instance.