tvbe july 2016
DESCRIPTION
Producing the Proms The impact of OTT Live sports streaming Sony Supplement: From Assets to insights; media operation today.TRANSCRIPT
www.tvbeurope.com
July 2016
Broadcasting the Olympics
Sport’s Rio Grande
Business, insight and intelligence for the media and entertainment industry
Producing the Proms
The impact of OTT
Live sports streaming
01 TVBE July16 FC_final.indd 1 17/06/2016 16:38
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TVBEurope 3July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
If you’re a fan of sport, or are in the business of
capturing and delivering it to the world in as
near to real time as we are able, then this is
quite a summer.
As we go to press, Uefa’s Euro 2016
tournament is about to enter its second
week with a signifi cant amount of coverage
unfortunately concentrated on events outside
of the stadia. On the other side of the world,
the Copa America is staging South America’s
equivalent continental footballing power
struggle, while the nations who will make up
next year’s British and Irish Lions are touring in
isolation to take on the southern hemisphere,
and world, rugby union powerhouses. And this
is before we even get to the rather grand things
that lie in wait on the horizon. The Olympic
Games will experience it’s fi rst ever Rio Grande
come August, as the eyes of the world focus
on Brazil for sport’s greatest spectacle. We
continue our coverage this issue by speaking to
Yiannis Exarchos CEO of Olympic Broadcasting
Services, as well as a collection of international
broadcasters who are preparing for the summer’s
main event. We also look at how the delivery of
sports content is changing with a feature on live
sports streaming from Adrian Pennington, after
which we gather the perspectives of a number
of industry players on the opportunities and
challenges of OTT. It’s important to remember
that live production isn’t the sole preserve of
athletic competition. Our leading production
feature focuses on a British institution that has
played on our screens and across our airwaves
for generations, as Philip Stevens gets the inside
story on this year’s BBC Proms.
It’s a really good read, this one, and I’d just
like to extend my appreciation to my section
editors, and my deputy editor and staff writer,
for continually raising the bar on the type and
quality of the content we’re able to deliver. It’s a
great team and I'm proud to be part of it. n
James McKeown Editor-in-Chief
Welcome
Untitled-1 1 13/06/2016 10:48
Rio GrandeEDITORIAL
Content Director and Editor-in-Chief: James [email protected]
Deputy Editor: Holly [email protected]
Staff Writer: James [email protected]
Group Managing Editor: Joanne [email protected]
Contributors: Michael Burns, David Davies, George Jarrett, Adrian Pennington, Philip Stevens, Catherine Wright
Sales Manager: Peter [email protected]+44 207 354 6025
Account Manager: Richard [email protected]+44 207 354 6000
Sales Executive: Nicola [email protected]+44 207 354 6026
Digital Director: Diane Oliver
Human Resources and Offi ce Manager: Lianne Davey
Head of Design, Hertford: Kelly Sambridge
Senior Production Executive: Alistair Taylor
Sales Director: Mark Rankine
Managing Director: Mark Burton
US Sales: Michael [email protected]+1 (631) 673 0072
Japan and Korea Sales: Sho [email protected]+81 6 4790 2222 CirculationFree [email protected] Tel +44 1580 883848
TVBEurope is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media, Emerson Building, 4-8 Emerson Street, London, SE1 9DU, England +44 207 354 6002
NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association
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Allow eight weeks for new subscriptions and change of address delivery. Send subscription inquiries to: Subscription Dept, NewBay Media, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough LE16 7BR, England. ISSN 1461-4197
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In a summer dominated by sporting spectacle, live production will be at its most cutting edge
Philip StevensProduction editor
Michael BurnsPost production editor
George Jarrett Business editor
David DaviesAudio editor
SECTION EDITORS
03 TVBE July16 Welcome_final4.indd 1 17/06/2016 12:27
In this issue4 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
The annual Proms concerts return to the BBC this month. Philip Stevens talks to those responsible for bringing music to a mass audience
xx
Feature
24Europe’s largest broadcast facilities provider, Euro Media Group shares its plans for the Olympic Games in August
Interview
32Holly Ashford talks to British Pathé managing director Roger Felber about company’s early origins and recent OTT launch
Production
28 TVBEverywhereOTT focus: a number of senior level � gures from across the industry o� er their views and news on over-the-top TV
10 OpinionJames Groves contributes to the discussion on live streaming with a look at how social media sites are looting sports content
12
Business
38George Jarrett reports from the tenth edition of the annual DTG Summit in London
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new tvbe template remade.indd 1 17/06/2016 12:48
Back in April, Twitter secured the $10 million
rights to broadcast ten Thursday night NFL
games online, free of charge. What made
the move so ground-breaking was the ease in
which a non-sports platform suddenly snapped
up the rights to air the biggest sport in the US.
Bearing in mind, of course, that the pinnacle of
the social media company’s sporting content
prior to this was Boring James Milner and the
occasional rant from Piers Morgan. Publicity
stunt, or statement of intent?
Fellow social media giant Facebook launched
Live in August last year, initially limited to
celebrities and other verified Facebook users,
such as journalists. By Christmas, however,
it had rolled out the feature to the general
public. Usage has been gathering pace ever
since, and, considering its interest in purchasing
the NFL rights before Twitter swooped, it
appears its video content is going only one way:
traditional broadcast.
But where has this sudden interest come from?
When did the crosshairs begin to focus on video?
Gareth Capon, CEO of Grabyo, announced as
an official live streaming partner of Facebook at
the F8 Conference in April, explains: “(With Live)
Facebook have found that they’re generating
more engagement, interactivity and sharing that
they have with other formats. They’ve doubled
down their efforts on providing the capabilities
for partners to go live stream into Facebook to
create new audiences and new engagement
and utilise the vast audience on that platform to
be able to distribute the content very quickly to
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.”
Football rights: worth every penny?The war for Premier League coverage rages
on, and, despite jumping from £2.79 million per
game in 1997 to a whopping £11.07 million per
game for the upcoming 2016-17 season, the
rising price tag shows no signs of slowing.
Despite this, Google secured a deal with BT in
May to broadcast the 2016 Europa League and
Champions League finals free via YouTube.
The digital giant has previously shown no signs
of wishing to partake in the live sports market, but
this move suggests a change in strategy.
However, speaking at the DTG Summit in
May, Stephen Nuttall, senior director of EMEA for
YouTube, moved to quash the idea of competing
in the sports market, stating, “We are not a
buyer of rights. We are very good at distributing
content to the largest possible audience. We
are a technology company, we do a great job
of creating tools that broadcasters can use to
tell their stories to the largest possible engaged
audience. That is what I expect we will continue
to focus on. Our whole model is about partnering
with people to allow them to make the greatest
possible success out of their content.”
Regardless of YouTube’s stance on competing
directly, it does pose the question: if Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube can generate the same kind
of audiences on their platforms as any pay-TV
channel (and they can), why bother investing in
much more expensive television broadcasts?
Securing global rights and monetisation, it would
seem, are two stumbling blocks.
Capon adds, “The challenge is that it needs to
be new, bespoke, rights unrestricted content.
The content goes out and it’s available for
free. There are no very clear monetisation
models around this yet, other than tagging
branded videos.”
Such deals, then, may be mere experiment:
probes to gauge popularity with viewers.
Capon explains, “It’s such an interesting
way of sharing live feeds. It’s promoted quite
heavily within the Facebook newsfeed, so the
opportunity for you to see that is quite high.
The chance of you joining the stream is greater;
Opinion and Analysis6 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
A war on two fronts?
“There are no clear monetisation models around this yet, other than tagging
branded videos”Gareth Capon, Grabyo
As major pay-TV players scramble to win back audiences falling victim to the OTT revolution, are social media sites taking advantage of the siege to loot sports content? James Groves reports
www.MultiDyne.com
6 7 TVBE july16 sportssocmed Opinion_final.indd 10 16/06/2016 10:20
that’s what’s different and what is not even
possible in the traditional OTT or TV environment.”
Euro 2016: the last TV-exclusive?With such large sporting events hitting the small
screen in 2016, it appears likely that the ongoing
European Championships in France will be the
last major international football tournament to
air exclusively on television. Dror Ginzberg, co-
founder and CEO of Wochit, says, “Despite BT
Sport paying a record £897 million for Champions
League and Europa League TV rights, it made
the unprecedented move to partner with
YouTube to air both finals for free.
“Combining traditional TV with online platforms
will give UEFA and FIFA, the powerbrokers of
football, an unprecedented opportunity to earn
much more revenue from rights selling, while
also opening the door to a host of new
commercial opportunities. It is really now only
a matter of time until we see future European
Championships and World Cups online.”
All in all, it’s safe to say that the digital revolution
has left TV fragmented, and rights deals in a
tangled mess. In the long term, however, viewers
have the power.
If Facebook continues to host billions of users
on a day-to-day basis, then it’s surely only a
matter of time before mainstream content,
whether in rivalry or collaboration, begins to
filter through onto social media. it would appear
we can arrive only at that frustrating, age-old
conclusion: time will tell. One thing is certain: as
long as these emerging platforms have a say on
the matter, Sky is most certainly not the limit. n
TVBEurope 7July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Opinion and Analysis
A war on two fronts?“It is really now only a matter of time until
we see future European Championships and World Cups online”
Dror Ginzberg, Wochit
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6 7 TVBE july16 sportssocmed Opinion_final.indd 11 16/06/2016 10:20
The cost of premium content is increasing,
and more companies - some with little
previous footprint in media - are expanding
their services into the TV space, further increasing
competition and offering up challenges for
traditional media organisations. As more viewers
turn towards mobile screens to access TV
content, OTT might just prove to be a solution for
these challenges.
The capability of some online video platforms
to manage live, linear and on-demand content
over various devices enables content owners to
develop and plan their content across screens
as one complete viewing experience instead
of looking at every delivery method individually.
Complex sports events such as the Olympics
are a good example of how content rights
owners can maximise the OTT opportunity. The
decision as to which sports will be broadcast
live on linear channels is no longer as difficult
to make as before. With the ability to show
content on a second and even third screen, the
main consideration becomes more a case of
establishing which screen will provide the best
possible viewer experience and engage with the
viewer in the most convenient way. For example,
the main linear channel might broadcast
team sports for the large TV screen where
image resolution and detail are key components
of the experience, while sports like athletics or
gymnastics might be available only over
mobile devices enhanced with relevant data
and commentary.
Reuse, repurposeWith the support of the OTT platform, it is possible
to create temporary channels, for example,
focusing on a particular sport and showcasing
live games and sports highlights, additional
interviews and even flashbacks to previous
Olympics. The reuse and repurposing of
content creates more and new monetisation
opportunities. Content owners can create
flexible, content packages, such as offering
subscription-based access to individual
Opinion and Analysis8 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
Making the most of OTTFierce competition for exclusive live sports rights means the challenge for media companies has never been clearer, writes Stan Dimitrov, product marketing manager, OTT, Ericsson: attract more viewers, deepen engagement, and extract more value from the content
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8 9 TVBE july16 Ericsson Opinion_final.indd 10 15/06/2016 16:56
sports or live events. To be able to execute all of
this, media companies need to ensure that their
OTT platforms will enable them to publish various
forms of content without significantly more effort,
and ensure that the content management
process is integrated with their product, customer
management and billing systems.
Harnessing OTTHaving the content available across all screens
may not be enough to guarantee that viewers
will tune in or tap in to watch. A new approach
is needed to attract attention and bring
audiences to the desired screens. With all
the content already available in an OTT
platform and managed from a single
screen, it is now easier than ever
before to create clips and teasers
that can be immediately shared
on social networks or published
to YouTube. This functionality can
become a powerful tool to make
highlights available to a larger or a
targeted audience and drive them
to the application showing the live
events as they are happening. However, this puts
an extra requirement on media companies: to
be able to create content clips as the events
unfold and monitor social media activity and
viewer preferences and behaviours in real time.
While the former depends largely on production
and editorial capabilities, the latter can be
facilitated to a larger extent by using the data
available in the OTT platform. The complexity of
the technology and implementation of an OTT
service might seem daunting, but with creativity
and an understanding of viewer behaviour,
OTT can offer a powerful tool to satisfy the
growing number of content-hungry mobile-
native audiences. n
TVBEurope 9July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Opinion and Analysis
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‘Complex sporting events such as the Olympics are an example of how content
rights owners can maximise the OTT opportunity’
8 9 TVBE july16 Ericsson Opinion_final.indd 11 15/06/2016 16:56
Opinion and Analysis10 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
The 2016-17 Premier League campaign is
tipped to be the most exciting one yet. With
Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho set to
renew their bitter rivalry in charge of Manchester
City and Manchester United respectively, the
likes of Sky and BT are licking their lips at the
prospect of more subscribers to their channels.
Yet while these two heavyweights finance their
operations by charging viewers a considerable
amount each month, there’s another player
gaining traction in this space, which doesn’t
require fans to part with any money whatsoever.
Meet Kod, a gratis open-source media player
software, which has unwittingly become a source
for parasite add-ons to feed from. So how does
it work? The football fan simply downloads the
Kodi software to a device like an Amazon Fire TV
Stick or Apple TV, provided it’s been jailbroken,
and the world is one’s oyster. Viewers can not
only access the televised matches on Saturday
mornings and Sunday afternoons, they can also
watch all the 3pm Saturday kick-offs, previously
only available to viewers overseas. That’s
because viewers can now watch coverage
provided by Fox, Canal+ and many other major
non-UK sports broadcasters.
Of course, live streaming of Premier League
matches isn’t new. Sites like First Row Sports, Roja
Directa and Atdhe have been providing links to
matches for years, but the quality has always
been questionable and the user often has to
navigate the pornographic adverts that help
fund the sites and often inflict viruses on their
computers. The difference with Kodi is the quality.
While it may not be HD, providing the internet
connection and speed are up to scratch, the
quality is as close to HD as you can get and it
rarely buffers. That’s where it becomes a problem
for the likes of Sky Sports and BT Sport in the UK.
They pay the Premier League an astronomical
amount of money to share the broadcast rights.
In early 2015, Sky and BT Sport coughed up a
record £5.136 billion for live Premier League TV
rights for three seasons from 2016-17. The figure
represented a 70 per cent increase on Sky and
BT’s previous £3 billion deal.
Sky was the only broadcaster to have rights
to screen Premier League football in the UK from
the division’s inception in 1992 up until 2007. It’s
stranglehold, some say monopoly, was broken by
Irish pay-TV firm Setanta. Yet while Setanta didn’t
have the financial muscle to keep up the fight,
Kodi has has not spent a penny on rights and
doesn’t need to make any money back.
The legal implicationss remain unclear. If a
UK-based viewer takes a Sky Sports or BT Sport
feed, then it’s clearly illegal. If, however, a user
in the UK streams a Premier League encounter
from French premium cable television channel
Canal+, with the commentary and punditry all
in French, is it illegal? It’s also important to point
out that neither Amazon, Apple or any other
conduit to the Kodi add-ons are complicit in
this. Amazon has spoken out against piracy in
the past. In 2015, its Fire TV Stick experienced a
stock shortage in the UK and at the time there
was speculation its association with Kodi was the
reason. Then in June last year, Amazon pulled
Kodi on the grounds it can be “used to facilitate
the piracy or illegal download of content”. In
other words, Amazon were onto it. Nevertheless,
it hasn’t been able to wash its hands of Kodi
altogether. Amazon still distributes Kodi with
pirated add-ons. There lies the problem.
Neither Sky nor BT wished to comment on Kodi,
but isn’t the onus on the Premier League to
protect its rights? A Premier League spokesman
said: “It is only through legitimate investment in
its broadcasting rights that it can put on a world
renowned football competition and support
and invest in the English football pyramid and
beyond.” The organisation said it’s aware that
“this model is threatened by piracy, whether
in the form of illegal internet streams showing
Premier League football, or unauthorised
broadcasts of our matches in UK pubs”.
The Premier League does a huge amount of
work to combat the threat of piracy, including
through partnerships with Net Result, Irdeto and
ID Inquiries. The spokesman also pointed to
the fact that last season, the Premier League
successfully blocked thousands of streams that
were illegally showing Premier League footage,
while it “successfully took legal action against
certain websites, both in the English and overseas
courts”. While that may be true, it’s nearly
impossible to stop streaming sites from popping
up, because when one is pulled down, another
surfaces. The Premier League can still take parties
to civil courts for copyright infringement, can it
really keep taking people to court non-stop?
Alex Haffner, managing associate at law firm
Dentons, said broadcasters who pay premiums
will expect the Premier League to be doing
all it can to protect against “unlawful use”. He
added: “Generally, the parties work closely
together given they have a common interest
here. However, these developments show just
how difficult it is for any rights holder to constantly
stay ahead of technological progress.”
Another lawyer from an international firm,
who wished to remain anonymous, argued
that there may even come a point when the
Premier League can’t justify hiking up the price
each time the bidding process begins. “Why will
Sky and whoever else bids pay top whack for
something you can get for free?” he said.
The Premier League, while not necessarily the
best league in the world, it is certainly the most
exciting, and that’s why the geeks are staying
one step ahead. n
Streaming: the end of subscription?
‘There’s another player gaining traction in this space and it’s one that doesn’t require fans to
part with any money whatsoever’
There are question marks over live streaming Premier League matches free of charge. Robert Shepherd looks at a new player who has entered an arena traditionally dominated by the major broadcasters
10 TVBE july16 football streaming Opinion_final.indd 10 15/06/2016 16:52
TVB-LYNX-GM-NEW-OL.pdf 1 6/3/2016 4:21:06 PM
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More than 90 concerts over eight weeks,
including four Last Night celebrations
around the UK, will make up the 122nd
season of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts
starting on 15 July. In the spirit of Wood’s
founding vision to make the best music available
to the widest audience, every Prom is broadcast
live on BBC Radio 3, and in 2016, BBC Radio 2
and Radio 6 Music each broadcast multiple
Proms. In addition, around 25 concerts will be
televised including, of course, the renowned
Last Night of the Proms. In 2015, the television
audience for this spectacular peaked at five
million viewers.
Francesca Kemp, who will serve as BBC TV
executive producer for the season, has worked
for the BBC for over 30 years, starting with Radio
3, before moving into music TV as a researcher,
producer and director.
“We start planning the season as soon as the
previous one ends,” Kemp explains. “The BBC
Proms director is responsible for planning each
season of concerts from the Royal Albert Hall
and other venues. Between the autumn and
early spring, as his plans firm up, we discuss with
the channel controllers and head of BBC music
commissioning, Jan Younghusband, which of
them we will cover for television, and confirm
when and where they will be shown.”
Many of the concert broadcasts are shown
on BBC Four, but some are seen across
BBC One, Two and online platforms. During
the Proms season, the BBC also produces
a weekly magazine show called Proms
Extra, shown on Saturday evenings on BBC
Two, featuring star guests from the season,
concert reviews, previews, short films and live
studio performances.
“This year we will have six producers working
across the season, some for many months,
others for a few weeks,” Kemp continues. “Four
of these producers are members of the music
TV department, while two others are joining us
Producing the BBC PromsPhilip Stevens talks to those responsible for bringing music to a mass audience
Productionwww.tvbeurope.com July 201612 TVBEurope
Production©
BBC
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12 14 15 16 TVBE july16 Production BBC Proms_final.indd 54 15/06/2016 17:27
Welcome to the NewSearch the World’s Most Powerful AV Product Database with
Over 440,000 Products from Hundreds of Manufacturers
AV-iQ is a comprehensive online resource for the pro-AV industry that includes a database of over 440,000 products from hundreds of manufacturers, all with richly detailed product information,
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ProductionProduction14 TVBEurope
from other parts of the BBC. The production and
editorial teams are usually on board by late May
and continue through to the end of the season in
mid-September. Our teams work very closely with
colleagues across the BBC, particularly with the
Proms concerts team, who plan and manage
the season, and with our colleagues in Radio 3,
who broadcast every Prom live.”
The demands of directingOne of the directors used by Kemp is Bridget
Caldwell. What does she see as the qualities
needed for a director on such a high profile
series? “A real understanding of music. I see
one of my roles as guiding the viewer through
the music. Each piece demands its own unique
response. I try to make sense of the music and
pick out the instruments with the tune, but then
also reflect the countermelodies and anything
interesting happening in the percussion.
Sometimes this is easy, especially with a well-
established piece of music, but it is much harder
with a new commission when, more often than
not, there’s no recording of the piece to hear.
Then you have to study the score and try and
work out how it sounds and what the composer’s
trying to say.”
Caldwell adds that resilience and a good
sense of humour are also essential qualities if a
director is to succeed. “You may have scripted
a concert and then, two days before the
performance, discover the conductor wants
to change the orchestra layout, which means
starting all over again. Or you turn up on the day
and discover that all the percussion shots you’ve
scripted are now masked by microphones or
other instruments. Or perhaps the soloist wants to
perform further upstage, so again your scripted
shots are all blocked, and you need to adapt,
and quickly.”
So, just how far in advance of a concert will
the director get to see the music? Caldwell
reports that the time frame can vary. “A
Beethoven symphony I’ll probably get four
to six weeks in advance, while a new commission
normally will get to me about a week before.
And encores have been known to turn up
on the day!”
Great operatorsNormally six cameras, including one on a jib, are
used for the concerts, although this number will
increase for the Last Night. “I work with the best
operators in the business. I’m always amazed
at what a brilliant job they do in such a short
amount of time. Plus, the first time they hear the
music is the day of the rehearsal, and yet they
respond as if they’ve been living with the pieces
for weeks on end.”
Although there may be a music rehearsal
scheduled for first thing in the morning, the stage
will be cleared for another a little later. Once
that is completed, the first orchestra will be set
back. “This means that players and microphones
will be in slightly different positions so all the shots
you’ve carefully planned for flutes or trumpets
need to be quickly checked.” Not that there is
always an opportunity for any rehearsals. That
luxury depends on the orchestra’s availability.
“I’ve gone on air not having seen an entire
symphony or only bits of a piece. And for the Last
Night of the Proms, you don’t always get to hear
everything because it’s such a long concert.”
Audio activitiesTelevision sound is produced by the Sound
Alliance, an independent specialist company
which won a TVBAward in 2015. “We provide
a sound mobile unit and crew, and pass on
the mixed audio to the OB provider, Visions,”
explains Andy Payne, TV sound supervisor and
a director of the Sound Alliance. “In the Visions
truck, presentation is added. However, on simpler
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Proms, we handle this element as well.”
He adds, “Our own mobile is equipped with
Stagetec Nexus and Cantus mixing along
with 128-track Pyramix recording and editing.
Monitoring is Bowers and Wilkins in fully Dolby
specified 5.1. Television and radio each have a
separate mobile facility connected together for
sharing with MADI.”
Payne reveals that the TV output is delivered
in Dolby 5.1 surround, with stereo derived from
this feed. “There are challenges in producing
stereo without compromise from 5.1, and TV uses
a somewhat different approach to microphone
coverage to Radio 3. For radio, the mix is
principally in stereo and can be expanded up to
a 4.0 surround feed, which is accessible online.
Although there are necessarily independent
approaches to microphone coverage, television
and radio share a good deal of what is rigged.
Schoeps, DPA and Sennheiser type microphones
make up the main coverage. Mostly, Schoeps
and Neumann are used for on-stage soloist and
spot mics, but others creep in from time to time.
On occasion, some vintage types can be seen,
but this is usually a visual design feature rather
than any audio consideration.”
Seeing the lightThe lighting design for the Proms has to cope
with the wide range of concerts and events
that happen over the two-month period, even
though not all the requirements are known at
the start of the season. “Together with the busy
festival schedule of at least one concert per day,
we have little or no time to make changes to the
rig, and so we have evolved a flexible design
which we know from experience should provide
what is needed,” says Bernie Davis, who has
been the Proms lighting designer since 1993.
“From the start it is important for us to understand the needs of this unique event, with the first priority being the comfort of the orchestras and choirs”
Bernie Davis, lighting designer
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Production
“From the start, it is important for us to understand
the needs of this unique event, with the fi rst
priority being the comfort of the orchestras and
choirs. They must be able to read the music
without lit music stands, they must be able to see
the conductor, and they must not be dazzled.
Beyond that, the concerts must look good in
the hall and, when necessary, on television. The
lighting rig must be silent to meet the demands of
Radio 3 and the Proms audience. Davis says that
people’s expectation of lighting has changed
over the years, and designers have managed to
push the boundaries of what is possible while still
working within the limits of each environment.
“It used to be just ‘white light’ for classical
music, but now we try to enhance the mood
with the careful use of colour around the hall,
and graphics on the LED display panels behind
the orchestra. These panels can show anything
from abstract and subtle patterns to moving
scenery. The important thing is to know when
to use which!” The lighting design for the Proms
now uses some of the latest lighting equipment
available, and that has actually helped to
reduce costs. “We now work with a much smaller
crew than when I started over 20 years ago,”
Davis continues. “The usual crew for the hall for
a TV Prom day is now just lighting designer and
two electricians, and a regular Radio 3 concert
would have just one electrician. The start of the
season takes more crew though, and we take
two days just to rig all the lighting and
make all the systems work. The following
day is a focus day when each of about a
thousand lights get set.”
After that is an opportunity to catch up
with other jobs in the background, leaving
the team ready to balance the lighting and
start rehearsing. Once the grid is set 10m
over the stage it cannot move again for
two months as a range of sound slings are
set underneath.
Davis states that the small pool of crew
are hand-picked for their skills, because they
don’t just have to be experienced lighting
technicians, but also be willing and able to climb
the overhead grid for necessary maintenance.
“In addition, they need to have the skills
and knowledge to deal with orchestras and
conductors on a day-to-day basis. But we all love
the Proms and look forward to it every season.” n
“I’ve gone on air not having seen an entire symphony or only bits of a piece”
Bridget Caldwell, director
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The energetic audience enjoying the Last Night
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Productionwww.tvbeurope.com July 201618 TVBEurope
As the host broadcaster, Olympic
Broadcasting Services (OBS) is
responsible for providing the images
and sound of the Olympic Games as a service
to all organisations, including the rights holding
broadcasters (RHBs), who have purchased
the television and radio rights. OBS will also
act as host broadcaster for the Rio 2016
Paralympic Games.
OBS produces and distributes unbiased live
radio and television coverage of every sport
from every venue and provides RHBs with
the international signals, also known as the
world feed.
In addition to developing a multilateral
production plan for the International
Signals, OBS provides additional services,
equipment, facilities and supplies to the RHBs
in order to help them produce their own
unilateral production coverage.
According to Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of
OBS, broadcasting the events represents an
innovative and exciting enterprise, with each
Games providing its own set of production
challenges. “This year, golf and Rugby Sevens
have taken OBS into new territories. OBS has
been working diligently to develop an efficient
broadcast plan to deliver live action as it
happens and engage audiences around the
world – from the core fans to the newcomers – in
the drama of the tournament.”
Exarchos says that OBS will rely on the
expertise of NBC and Sky TV New Zealand to
execute its production plan for golf and Rugby
Sevens respectively.
Overcoming obstaclesAlongside the challenges of developing the
production for the two new sports, OBS has found
it necessary to address a potentially difficult
situation which could have impacted production
in the sport of sailing. This event will take place
in Guanabara Bay, the most iconic inlet in Rio
de Janeiro. Unfortunately, this is also located
on the direct flight path to Santos Dumont
airport. “Modern broadcast coverage of the
sailing events requires extensive use of aerial
cameras. Rio 2016 managed to coordinate
with the federal and regional governments and
reschedule flights to and from Santos Dumont
airport during the competition, thus allowing
OBS’s helicopters and fixed wing aircraft to fly
over the courses and properly cover the event
during the Games.”
The hubOBS is also responsible for designing, building,
installing and operating the International
Broadcast Centre (IBC). Located in a new,
purpose-built structure in Barra Olympic Park, the
IBC is close to nine Olympic competition venues
and is adjacent to the Main Press Centre (MPC).
The 85,400sqm IBC houses the technical and
administrative facilities for both OBS and the
RHBs including edit suites, control rooms, studios
and offices. More than 100 RHB organisations
including sub-licensees will have a working space
inside the IBC, while in excess of 12,000 personnel
will be accredited to cover the Games. OBS itself
will have 7,100 personnel on site.
“The IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020 has
reinforced the idea of a more sustainable
Games plan,” says Exarchos. “OBS is continually
striving to reduce the impact on the host city
and country, while at the same time optimising
operations. For instance, by implementing
reusable IBC construction modules, OBS has
reduced waste by the equivalent of 2,800 trucks.
So good news for the environment.”
New technologyHe goes on, “As part of its mission, OBS
endeavours to make use of the latest state-of-
the-art broadcasting technology and services to
relay the most memorable celebration of sport
to billions of viewers around the world. While
tradition and precedent from previous Games
is a guiding principle for the host broadcaster’s
work, in its pursuit of excellence, OBS
also recognises the importance of emerging
digital media and the evolving requirements
of the RHBs.”
He cites two examples to prove
his point; the Olympic Video Player
(OVP) and the multi-channel
distribution service (MDS).
“The OVP offers RHBs their
own fully produced platform
containing one of the best live
video and on-demand players
for the internet, tablets and
mobiles, currently available.
Launched for Sochi 2014, the
OVP helped drive the record
digital offerings for those
Games. In Sochi, for the first time
in Olympic history, the amount
of digital coverage exceeded
traditional television broadcasts
with 60,000 hours available on
digital platforms, compared with
42,000 hours on television. We
expect the growth of digital will
continue in Rio.”
Currently, 11 rights holding
broadcasters, representing
more than 60 territories from
around the globe will be
subscribed to the OVP service for
the Rio Games. As a result of the
increased digital distribution and
together with traditional television
coverage, the Games in Rio will
reach more global territories than
ever before.
He continues, “The MDS has
become one of the prime ways
for the television coverage of the
Olympic Games to be distributed to
the world. In London, there were 13
subscribers distributing coverage from
the MDS. For Sochi 2014, that number
grew to 80 RHB companies from 70
different countries using the MDS to fully
produce their entire coverage of the
Inside the chief executive’s officePhilip Stevens talks to Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of the Olympic host broadcaster, about the upcoming spectacular in South America
“The IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020 has reinforced the idea of a more sustainable
Games plan”Yiannis Exarchos, OBS
18 19 TVBE July16 Olympics interview Production_final.indd 54 16/06/2016 13:14
Production TVBEurope 19July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Games with little or no
staff or facilities within
the host city. There
will be 52 takers
in Rio, broadcasting
the Games to
198 territories.”
Meanwhile, the
OBS archive team
will be responsible
for ingesting in the
Central Video
Archive
System all live venue feeds, multi clips feeds,
and all output broadcast on the Olympic News
Channel (ONC), as well as press conferences
produced by OBS. All content will be video
logged and tagged.
While this service will not be new, for the first
time all mixed zones interviews from the ONC
teams in the various venues will be ingested and
made available to RHBs and distributed to a
number of services. Another ‘first’ means
the entire archive operation will be tapeless
and completely file based. Dedicated lines
and file acceleration services will be used to
transfer content from Rio to the IOC Archive
in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Planning productionOBS has secured 52 mobile units for the
coverage of the Games, including four
units from Brazilian suppliers and 48 units
from others located in other countries.
Additionally, 12 flyaway systems and
seven independent audio production
units have been secured. There will
be another 31 support vans making
a total fleet of 83 vehicles and 19
production kits.
The venue coverage will be
transmitted to the IBC via the on-site
Technical Operations Centre (TOC).
“OBS will utilise an extensive fibre
optic contribution network that
connects the venues and the IBC; a
combination of dark fibre for venues
in the metropolitan area of Rio and
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)
for distant venues,” states Exarchos.
For the majority of installations
OBS will be using standard RF
communications at the venues, with
diverse reception points cabled from
the OB van. At specific venues such
as golf, OBS will install an in-depth
network that will support transmission
and reception of all of the various RF
sources including OBS RF cameras and the
communications network.
RHBs receive ‘dirty’ feeds from OBS
multilateral coverage. Specifically, the
International Television Signal includes the
live camera cut; all replays (including the
Olympic Replay Transition to open and
close the replay sequence), all start lists,
athlete IDs, scorecards and results, result lists,
crunch scoreboards without clocks, all timing
graphics and all production enhancements
including virtual graphics such as flags on the
field of play, world record lines, best throw/jump
lines, course maps and GPS positioning graphics.
Training for the futureFollowing its previous successes, OBS is continuing
with its training programme. “Forming an
integral part of OBS’s legacy strategy, the
Broadcast Training Programme (BTP) aims
to train the next generation of media and
television professionals,” explains Exarchos.
“In collaboration with selected universities in
the host city, the training programme gives
students practical experience in how the largest
broadcasting operation in the world will be
assembled and function. Approximately 1,200
successful students have been offered paid
roles during the Rio 2016 Games, such as audio
assistant, camera assistant, commentary system
operator and liaison officer and utility.”
Upping the qualityFollowing a lead from London, OBS and NHK will
be working together to produce some coverage
in UHD. Beyond that, 8K will be used for the
opening and closing ceremonies and some
selected sports with the output being made
available to interested RHBs. The 8K experience
will also include an immersive 3-D 22.2 multi-
channel surround system.
“We will also be looking closely at another
first in Olympic Broadcasting history,” declares
Exarchos. “Viewers from around the world will be
able to enjoy a truly unique viewing experience
with high definition virtual reality (VR). This
follows a first successful test of a 180-degree VR
experience at the Lillehammer 2016 Winter Youth
Olympic Games.”
Using a compatible headset, viewers will be
virtually transported to the heart of the Olympic
action with VR coverage including the opening
and closing ceremonies and one key event
per day. Olympic content will be available live
through VR technologies, but also as video on-
demand. Highlights of 360-degree video content
will also be available, without the need for VR
headsets. OBS is also exploring the possibility of
a limited experimental production in WCG/HDR
(wide colour gamut/high dynamic range).
Exarchos concludes, “As in every aspect of
the Olympic Games, it is about excellence,
but the Games in Rio provide us with two
unique opportunities. First, on the digital front,
to showcase to the world the first Games in
South America, taking place in one of the most
spectacular cities of the world; and second, to
align the broadcast of these Games with the
ongoing revolution in digital media.” n
18 19 TVBE July16 Olympics interview Production_final.indd 55 16/06/2016 13:14
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July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
F or Jonny Bramley, executive producer
of major events at the BBC, this summer
marks his 13th Olympic Games, and sixth as
executive producer. “As we did for London 2012,
we will be broadcasting live streams of every
sport on the web, mobile, connected TV and
games consoles. There will also be up to eight
red button channels, and we are on air every
day on BBC One and BBC Four. The network
transmissions will focus on the mainstream
sports such as athletics, swimming, cycling and
gymnastics, and also where Team GB athletes
and teams are competing.”
The corporation will send 455 accredited staff
to Brazil. This is around 40 per cent below the
number of accreditations for London 2012, but
with the broadcaster delivering around the same
amount of output. The operation will be based
in the IBC and as well as office space, it will
install production and sound galleries, a central
technical area, operations room, edit suites, off
tube booths, a graphics area and separate office
for radio, news, nations and regions.
Bramley continues, “Our studio is in between
the triathlon and beach volleyball venues. We
will have radio steadicams operating in the
Olympic Park and on Copacabana beach. The
studio itself is provided by OBS as part of a pre-
fabricated structure. We will transport and install
the set, designed by Pico, and source the lighting
in the UK, as it was the most cost-effective option,
and our system integrator Dega Broadcast
Systems will deliver the broadcast equipment.”
In addition, there will be one OB unit provided
by Arena TV at the athletics location, plus
three ENG crews who will focus on filming
features and another 13 who will be operating
live at venues on mixed zones and announce
positions. “Perhaps the biggest challenges are
the unknowns around transport and logistics. No
matter how much planning we do before an
Olympics, travel times are always an estimate
until the Games actually start,” says Bramley.
Philip Stevens asked several European broadcasters about their plans for the Olympics
Production TVBEurope 21
Clare Balding and Ade Adepitan presented peak time coverage of the 2012 Paralympic Games for Channel 4
Ready for Rio
Remotely RioSwitzerland’s SRG will be producing programmes
in different languages for the four regions in
the country; German, Italian, French, and
Romansh. “Our total personnel commitment to
the Games will be approximately 140 people
including technical staff, editors, journalists and
producers,” states Sven Sarbach, head of major
events, SRG SSR. “We will have an office at the
IBC which will include work stations, a master
control room, edit suites, off-tubes, a radio studio
and meeting room.” SRG’s presentations will
originate in the Ipanema View TV Studio in Rio
de Janeiro. “The studio is located in a marvellous
place called Arpoador Rock between the
legendary Copacabana and Ipanema beach.”
Sarbach goes on to reveal that all
programmes from that Ipanema studio will be
operated as a remote production, with the
directors and their staff based in Zurich, Lugano
and Geneva. “The cameras will be directed from
there, with only a small crew on location: two
or three camera operators, the technical staff
and the floor manager. The remote production
arrangement means that we will not need any
outside broadcast units on site. We will, however,
have eight ENG crews in Rio to collect stories
and other colour material.” That material will be
edited in the six edit suites within the IBC using
SRG’s Sony Sonap system.
“We have set a number of strategic goals
for our Olympic coverage,” declares Sarbach.
“These include high level production on TV, radio
and the internet, outstanding programming for
all regions of Switzerland, 24-hour coverage of all
the different sport disciplines and the variety of
the games with Swiss focus.”
German game planAccording to Dieter Gruschwitz, ZDF head of
sports, for the German broadcaster the biggest
initial challenge will be the transportation of the
technical equipment. “The Olympics start not
long after the Euro 2016 football finals in France
and we have to ensure everything arrives in Rio
in good time.”
“We will have around 140 technical
and production personnel, and some 90
commentators, presenters, story makers and
editors on site in Rio. And because it makes
economic sense, we are sharing 2,400sqm of
space in the IBC with our colleagues from ARD.”
Those IBC facilities will include offices, Avid edit
suites, and technical areas. “In addition, we
will be building a studio at the Olympic Park for
interviews and presentations, and will be using
our own outside broadcast van for the track and
field events. For all of these productions, we will
be using our own directors and other technical
and production personnel. We are also planning
to use some remote technical equipment which
will be operated from our facilities within the IBC.”
Slovenian solutionMile Jovanovic, team leader for TV Slovenia,
reveals that planning for Rio 2016 started in
September 2014. “We are sending two on-
location commentators to Brazil, alongside 12
technical and production personnel. They will
be utilising our own equipment, although we will
make use of the facilities at the IBC for some off-
tube commentaries.” The crew will include five
ENG cameramen for collecting background and
colour material. “Editing for this content will be
carried out by our own editors using our Quantel
suite,” says Jovanovic. “Although we will be
using some recorded material, our main aim is to
broadcast live all the events in which Slovenian
athletes are taking part.”
Croatian coverageCroatian national broadcaster HRT is planning to
send 40 personnel to Rio, with a further 20 being
involved with Olympic production in Zagreb.
Stjepan Balog, HRT Rio 2016 project director, says,
“In order to provide stories particularly related
to the Croatian athletes we will be deploying
three ENG crews to collect material from around
Brazil. All of this equipment, including an Avid
edit suite, will be brought in from Zagreb.” HRT
has booked an office of around 130sqm in the
IBC. “We have taken advantage of the video
and audio package and other connectivity for
various circuits back to Croatia,” states Balog.
So what does he see as the biggest challenges?
“To cover all the appearances of Croatian
sportsmen with fairly limited resources, to prepare
the multimedia project, while increasing TV,
radio, and social network coverage. And, of
course, working on another continent with
completely different time zones. But we will
meet those challenges!”
Paralympics, tooChannel 4 viewers in the UK will be able to watch
live events in the Paralympic Games in Rio. This
follows the broadcaster’s acclaimed coverage
of the Paralympics in London in 2012. “We
learned some valuable lessons from 2012 and
are looking to improve on most aspects of our
coverage,” states Stephen Lyle, commissioning
editor for sport at Channel 4. “Any ‘good grace’
from being new to the games last time will have
gone now and any faults will be seized upon. We
are aware of that so we are looking to go event
further in terms of research. Finally, we have
always set a goal to increase the number of
disabled talent on screen.”
“Olympic Broadcasting Services will provide
the majority of the coverage. Sunset+Vine is
producing our output, and will provide two
add-on OBs at the athletics and swimming for
our dedicated coverage.” In addition, Channel
4 will have its own studio in the IBC at the
Olympic Park.
Lyle says that the ability to tell stories – so
key to the Paralympics – will be enhanced by
the massive innovations in camera and edit
technology during the last four years. “Improved
connectivity, infrastructure and facilities around
the Paralympics has made it more possible to
achieve our dream and broadcast the entire
event live from Rio back to the UK. It will be
the most comprehensive coverage ever of a
Paralympic Games.”
That coverage means Channel 4 will provide
more than 120 hours of live sport on television,
plus more than 500 hours of online streaming.
Lyle concludes, “It is a huge challenge to
build an operation of this kind so far away in
Brazil, but our coverage will reaffirm Channel 4’s
commitment to changing public perceptions of
disability and disability sport.” n
Productionwww.tvbeurope.com July 201622 TVBEurope
From left to right; Dieter Gruschwitz, ZDF; Jonny Bramley, BBC; Stjepan Balog, HRT; Sven Sarbach, SRG SSR
21 22 TVBE june16 Production Olympic broadcasters_final.indd 55 15/06/2016 17:27
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Europe’s largest broadcast facilities provider,
EMG (Euro Media Group) has been gearing
up for the Olympic Games in August. The
group was already one of the key outfits on the
Tour de France in July, the Euro 2016 in June and
the Roland-Garros tennis tournament at the end
of May, through French subsidiary Euromedia.
Over the past ten years, the group has
morphed from being essentially a French-based
audiovisual service provider into a European
giant, a transformation kicked off by the 2007
merger of France’s Euro Media Télévison and
Holland’s UBF Media group. As it stands today,
EMG has seven subsidiaries spread across
the continent, including CTV and ACS (Aerial
Camera Systems) in the UK, Nobeo in Germany,
United in the Netherlands, Video House in
Belgium, 3zero2 in Italy as well as Euromedia and
Netco Sports in France.
For the Olympic Games in Brazil, EMG will
be pushing the boat out: it will have no less
than 14 OB vans on site, (including four from
Euromedia), two planes, five helicopters and
seven motorbikes. It will also send around 60
technicians from the group. Because of tight
disclosure rules agreed with the International
Olympic Committee, it cannot go into much
more detail about its setup. Suffice to say that
it will be the huge cherry on the cake of an
incredibly busy year for the group as whole, and
particularly for French subsidiary Euromedia.
Very much the historical and central plank of
the group, the Saint-Denis-based company,
according to its president Lionel Vialaneix,
accounts for around a third of EMG’s turnover
and has subsidiaries of its own; Aix-en Provence-
based slow-motion specialist DVS (Digital Vidéo
Sud), audiovisual service provider S-TV and
HF transmission specialist Livetools Technology,
based in Switzerland.
“We aim to provide high-end services to our
clients, especially in the area of HF transmission.
Our know-how lies in covering very large sporting
events in France, which have a big international
reach, such as Le Tour de France or Roland–
Garros. Through DVS, we also provide our
unique slow-mo and ultra slow-mo expertise on
national and international competitions. And
lately we have started providing 360-degree
cameras for sport and entertainment events,
responding to an important new market trend,”
Vialaneix describes.
On an expansion spreeEuromedia recently renewed its historical
contract with Gaul pubcaster France Télévisions
for another five years, giving it medium-term
stability and perspective. The company at a
Feature24 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
“Not only are the number of rights holders constantly increasing, so are the
sports we cover”Lionel Vialaneix,
Euromedia
Euromedia in goodshape for the Olympics
EMG and its French subsidiary have been upgrading their broadcast technology offering in time for the Olympic Games in Rio. Catherine Wright reports
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TVBEurope 25July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Feature
local level, very much like the group at a larger
level, is looking to expand. “We are studying
a number of possibilities. We are looking to
acquire companies that are complementary,
they could either be innovative start-ups or more
established and well-known outfits, all options are
conceivable,” Vialaneix admits. The strategy is to
become a one-stop shop for broadcasters, both
in France and beyond.
At a group level, the drive is probably to sign
a global contract with a large international rights
holder, in the Bertelsmann-owned RTL mould, for
instance. Areas where Euromedia is looking to
increase its customer base are live performing
arts and entertainment, as well as services for
corporate clients. “We have recently recruited
an account manager, Benoît Baudelet, assigned
to clients who produce live performing arts,”
Vialaneix continues. “We have already worked
on the Printemps de Bourges music festival and
the Download heavy metal music festival, which
takes place in the UK in June. We have covered
a Pavarotti-inspired concert in Monte Carlo
as well as an event with pop star Mika, but
there is a lot of scope to expand and do much
more in this area.”
Sport, however, remains the company’s bread
and butter, and as Vialaneix is keen to stress, this
is a golden age for companies working in that
area. “Not only are the number of rights holders
constantly increasing, so are the sports we cover:
more and more female competitions are being
broadcast, from football to rugby.”
Extreme sports of all kinds are also becoming
more popular and the number of broadcasters
involved in sports coverage is sky-rocketing. In
France, for instance, BeIn is a fairly recent rights
holder, but even newer is the Altice Group,
owner of SFR-Numéricable.
OB and camera fleet in full renewalIn order to meet that rocketing demand,
Euromedia is in the process of renewing its OB
fleet. At the end of last year it renewed the B40,
a smaller, double expander version of the triple
expander A21 van. The B40 is now equipped with
a Grass Valley mixer and a SAM Sirius router frame
that includes a dual production space with two
separate panels. A Telex matrix will still be used
for the intercom system, but the company has
upgraded to a Studer Vista 9 console for audio.
Most of the monitors are Sony Oled, apart from
the remote workstation monitors, which are
made by Eizo. The Erica fibre transport system is
used for fibre optic transmission to outside units.
A couple of months ago, the company also
launched a new, lower-cost OB van called
Nomad, a multi-functional and adaptable
OB, and therefore less expensive to use for
broadcasters. “It’s a four-in-one van which
can have up to nine cameras, it is HD and 4K
compatible and can be used on smaller sports
events as well as on live performances and
concerts. Our nickname for it in the company is
the Swiss army knife,” says Vialaneix.
The company also recently commissioned
three new hybrid 4K vans (one large and two
smaller vehicles), which will be equipped with
SAM Kahuna and Sirius technology. The Kahuna
9600 production switcher’s great strength is that
it supports any combination of SD, HD, 1O80p
and 4K environments. On the router front, the
Sirius 800 was chosen for its processing capability
on every input and output (IP), thereby saving
space due to less cable.
At a wider level, EMG is in the process of
upgrading its broadcast camera fleet and has
opted for Sony HD 2500 and HDC 4300s, after a
long selection process involving a tender with
multiple broadcast companies. The cameras
enable the group to make the gradual upgrade
to 4K, HDR and High Frame Rate shooting.
Both EMG and Euromedia are investing in
R&D, as it is an essential way to remain
competitive. “Technology is changing so fast,
you can’t afford not to prepare for the future
to meet customer demands,” Vialanex adds.
Euromedia recently set up a new department,
innovations et technologie, headed by Mathieu
Skrzypniak, precisely with that goal in mind.
Areas of interest are of course VR, HDR and
4K, but also remote production developments,
aerial shots and cameras, as well as mini-cams.
Last but not least, Euromedia is also
streamlining its historical studio and TV
set business. “There is too much supply and
not enough demand, so we are planning to
go on rationalising that side of the business,”
Vialaneix concludes. n
‘EMG ‘s main shareholder is private equity fund PAI Partners,
which holds 58 per cent of the company’s shares, worth €170 million. In 2013, it made sales worth €302 million, around a
third of which can be attributed to Euromedia’
Lionel Vialaneix, Euromedia
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24 25 TVBE july16 Euromedia olympics Feature_final.indd 55 15/06/2016 17:33
Sports rights are now a target of social
media players just as much as extending
the reach of sports properties onto OTT
platforms is a strategy of sport franchises and
broadcasters. Broadly, traditional players need
to expand into social and online to reach
millennials who are deserting studio-bound linear
presentations for interactive, informal, and mostly
free TV anywhere experiences.
Social giants, on the other hand, are
increasingly moving into premium sports because
the audience and profile of these businesses rely
on scale, suggests Richard Broughton, research
director for Ampere Analysis. “Sports are a mass
market form of entertainment and capable of
attracting large audiences with a high value to
sponsors and advertisers.”
Examples of the former include BT’s live
coverage of the UEFA Champions League on
YouTube; Discovery’s deal with Snapchat to
create a dedicated mobile channel around the
Olympics (with content supplied by BuzzFeed);
and Sky’s investment in online sports network
Whistle Sports.
All sides are dovetailing on internet delivery,
which begs the question as to whether the
quality of service between linear (satellite, cable)
TV and broadband is indistinguishable.
“It can be equivalent, and in all honesty I think
OTT can be better in some cases; for example,
OTT can do 4K now,” says Shawn Carnahan,
CTO, Telestream. “The big question is what
device is the viewer using and is their prime
concern quality or convenience?”
He adds, though, that OTT may not ever
be able to achieve the very low latency of
broadcast from a technical perspective. “In
broadcast, each viewer has the exact same
bandwidth and very low latency. I’m not sure
OTT could ever achieve that same level.”
Telestream has introduced Lightspeed Live
Stream to bring broadcasts and OTT together in
the live space. The solution is designed to provide
high quality encoding and control the amount
of bandwidth available between production
and distribution, as well as the amount available
between distribution and the end user.
NeuLion’s EVP and co-founder Chris Wagner
is in no doubt. “Online is better. Satellite and
cable deliver at 30fps. We deliver at 4K at 60fps
[NeuLion streamed El Clásico’ Barcelona Real
Madrid match live in 4K 60fps over the NeuLion
Digital Platform to Sony 4K TVs in April].”
NeuLion was signed by Eleven Sports Network
to stream live (and VoD) coverage of La Liga,
UEFA Euro 2016, Formula One and the FA Cup
Final to subscribers in Belgium, Luxembourg,
Poland, Singapore and Taiwan. “Digital delivery
of live video is better and looks better than
cable,” says Wagner. “Satellite and cable
platforms are being replaced by digitally
delivered video.”
Ian Munford, director of product marketing,
media solutions for Akamai, says the industry
has reached the point where good HD quality
live streams can be delivered with reliability.
“We have the luxury in the UK of a great HD TV
service. We can easily surpass that.”
For Superbowl 50, Akamai saw a “dramatic
increase in every single viewing metric” says
Munford. In 2015, it counted 2.5 million viewers
concurrently streaming the event live. This year,
it peaked at four million. “The average viewing
time increased from 84 to 101 minutes and we
saw a big jump in bit rate from a 3.5Mb average
to 4.5Mb average. This tells us that there’s a
Feature26 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
Does the screen matter for live sports?
As live sports pour online, Adrian Pennington asks whether OTT streams are as good as, or better than, the cable and satellite delivered TV experience
26 27 TVBE july16 live sports streaming Feature_final3.indd 54 17/06/2016 16:22
TVBEurope 27July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Feature
shift toward watching major sports using an
OTT service and away from snacking to long
form viewing.” There were reports, though, that
online viewers of SB50 did not receive a buffer-
free experience (not necessarily to do with
any of Akamai’s involvement). The transition to
HTTP-based streaming may have enabled OTT
delivery, but it inherently introduces latency.
A study by network performance analytics firm
IneoQuest (conducted before SB50) found that
that sports buffering inflicted rage in viewers, with
two out of five consumers likely to will wait only
ten seconds or less for the video to resume, or
they leave the stream.
“When you’re using HTTP streaming
technology, there can be a challenge from
the camera through to the playing device,”
says Munford. “Some things are not in the rights
owner’s control.”
One issue is the shift in bit rate, where the
live stream pixelates or blurs on account of
ABR. “Dramatic shifts do impact the viewer
experience,” says Munford. “We’re seeing quite
high abandonment rates as a result.”
The content delivery network (CDN) has
a number of Media Services Live delivery
technologies designed to reduce latency. Its
accelerated ingest capabilities minimise the
amount of time live video streams take to reach
the CDN from their origination point. It uses
HTTP/UDP to prevent packet loss and speed the
transit of content, and make it easier to handle
unpredictable peaks. It will also use multicasting
and peer-assisted delivery using WebRTC.
It also opened a Broadcast Operations
Control Center at its Cambridge, Massachusetts
headquarters to monitor the reliability of OTT
streams around major events like the Rio
Olympics. “During London 2012, online traffic
peaked at about a [one] Terabit per second
[Tbps],” reveals Munford. “We expect peaks
globally of between 15-18Tbps during Rio to
set new global records in terms of online
streaming traffic.”
Akamai forecasts that 500 million viewers
will soon be watching prime time live sports
online. “With 500 million online viewers, we need
1,500Tbps. Today we do 32Tbps [at peak], so
you can see the huge gap we have to bridge,”
says Munford.
“Any organisation looking to deliver high
quality scaled events needs to plan how to deal
with very large peaks of audience,” he says. “It’s
a bit like a power surge. Peaks can
be unpredictable.”
Carnahan points out that no one would
ever know about latency if it wasn’t for ‘back
channels’ such as Twitter providing information
about a live sporting event. “Tweets from my
friends may be talking about something I haven’t
seen yet, due to latency on my OTT feed to my
device. However, it can be down as low as under
30 seconds, possibly under 15 seconds.”
Wagner counters, “You can’t compare video
streaming to texting. It’s like watching a match
live but listening to the radio commentary. Video
quality and latency go hand in glove. If you want
no latency then you’ll get video quality
at 800kbps.”
With 4K in particular, the caveat is the last
mile to the home. “When we deliver 4K, we are
reliant on end user bandwidth,” says Munford.
“We are seeing an average 13Mbps [for 4K] and
for that we need good fibre in the home. The
technology is there, we can surpass [this speed]
and we’re confident we will continue to push
those boundaries.”
Verizon claims to have reduced latency on
live 4K online delivery to four milliseconds, for
delivery of content including San Francisco 49ers
pre-game coverage over the UltraFlix network.
However, the industry norm for streaming HD
content is still only 720p.
Beyond the TV experienceViewers will accept buffering and some
pixelation due to ABR for the trade off of
interactivity and anywhere viewing. “It’s a bit like
the transition of music from CDs to streams; the
quality is down but the fact that I can listen to it
wherever I am is a bonus,” says Carlo De Marchis,
chief product and marketing officer at online
video sports specialist Deltatre.
Beyond a simple simulcast of the live video
is the opportunity with OTT to create what De
Marchis calls the “beyond TV experience”.
“In Diva [deltatre’s online platform] you
can multi-angle synchronised feeds of up to
12 cameras available for review after a few
seconds. We have timeline markers for pausing
the live stream and playback of key incidents.
There is social media interaction. There will be
greater levels of audio choice and, in future, we
will take the clean feed with no graphics and
send it to a device where the user will define
what graphics makes sense to them.”
For live events, one of the immediate
opportunities is to stream additional content
(such as alternate camera angles, secondary
audio, etc) in addition to the broadcast feed.
“Eventually, there will be an opportunity to
stream additional content that is intended for a
VR environment,” says Carnahan, adding that
Telestream is investigating this. “An interesting
case is to imagine a crowd-sourced production
where a central location could be getting feeds
from mobile users. Multi-camera production
sourced from the crowd, perfect for sports.”
Armed with its ten-match (non-exclusive)
Thursday night NFL deal, Twitter is trying to turn
a second screen experience into a first screen
experience, suggests Carnahan. “Instead of
watching TV and tweeting about it, it will all
be on Twitter. It remains to be seen how many
people will turn to Twitter to ‘watch TV.’ It’s an
experiment. The issue is the trade-off between
image quality for an enhanced user experience.
Twitter is betting that the enhanced social
experience of watching NFL football on their
platform will, for some, outweigh the benefits
of a traditional TV viewing experience. Twitter is
not aiming to be just a second screen; they are
changing the viewing experience. For some, this
may be worth it.” n
“Digital delivery of live video is better and looks better than cable. Satellite and cable
platforms are being replaced by digitally delivered video”
Chris Wagner, NeuLion
Shawn Carnahan, Telestream
Ian Munford,Akamai
27 TVBE july16 live sports streaming Feature_final.indd 55 16/06/2016 13:26
The UK telecoms market is more
competitive than ever before, with new
service providers challenging the
traditional telcos by offering enhanced
entertainment services through OTT. Research
indicates that 64 per cent of telcos highlight
competitive pressures as the biggest challenge
they expect to face over the next five years.
But what if this increased competition could be
turned into an advantage?
Partnerships save money and time A common strategy adopted by some telcos
is to approach OTT providers directly to secure
individual content partnerships. However,
operators are discovering that many of these
content partners come from a pay-TV world, for
example the WWE and UFC, and they want a
minimum guarantee of revenue in order to add
their content.
There is an alternative. A successful strategy is
to approach these content owners on behalf of
the telcos, because although they will receive
less revenue upfront, they will get to keep the
majority of the revenue generated and be able
to push content on the platform.
The main expenditure for telcos that deal
directly with OTT providers is the integration
of services to the platform. Working with an
established partner that has already developed
the solution to host, package and deliver a
service cuts out this cost.
As well as being expensive, establishing
partnerships directly between content owners
and telcos can be time consuming and, with
the number of new content services coming
on-stream, can prove a huge drain on resources.
Partnering with a service provider can give telcos
the access to the wide range of channels that
they need to supplement traditional linear feeds.
Partnerships help you keep upOnce a partnership is in place and the service
has been launched, the next step for telcos is to
keep track of developments and innovations in
the industry and to make sure their services are
kept updated. The nature of OTT means that
there are always new services launching or old
ones disappearing, and that means having to
effectively maintain the service in order to adjust
to the changing demands. Having a partner
takes the load off the telco.
One thing I have seen time and again is
that the biggest pain point among viewers
is spending too much time looking for
programming to watch. While this is hardly a new
issue, the is increasingly a problem with those
services that require the viewer to go into each
player individually.
To combat such usability issues, one effective
method is to install tools that recommend and
push programmes to the viewer straight out
of the platform and combine these functions
with content search. The industry is constantly
evolving and companies are
finding new ways to improve the viewing
experience, and telcos need to adapt and
keep up as a result.
The best way to ensure a single consistent
viewing experience that combines different OTT
programming is through a partnership. This can
include surfacing live programmes delivered
via OTT to the main TV service. By working with
a partner to help surface content and use
metadata effectively on the channel list and
EPG, operators can remove the app from the
viewer’s television UI and so they just see the
content as another channel, which can help to
create a market differentiator for the operator.
The technology itself is also a differentiator for
the telco service. Integrating OTT by working with
a partner puts telcos in a much stronger position
by providing enhanced features, for example
integrating OTT services that go beyond just
having these delivered through an app.
Partnerships improve marketingAn often overlooked element of these
partnerships is content marketing. One of the
main reasons to integrate OTT services is to
be able to offer a variety of programmes that
appeal to the widest range of consumers. By
establishing partnerships with new content
providers, telcos are able to market their services
through the provider’s shows.
The boom in OTT makes keeping up with the
pace of the industry a daunting prospect. With
the rise in the number of OTT service providers,
it is understandable that so many telcos fear
growing competitive pressures, but choosing a
partner wisely can bring a number of benefits,
and allow a company to survive and thrive in a
crowded markeplace. n
Telcos need partners to launch OTT servicesTo open our feature taking in various perspectives on OTT, Sylvain Thevenot, managing director, Netgem explains how adding OTT services can help telcos keep up with the competition
‘The industry is constantly evolving and finding new ways to improve the viewing
experience, and telcos need to adapt’
TVBEverywhere28 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
28 29 30 31 TVBE16 TVBEverywhere_final2.indd 32 16/06/2016 13:33
TVBEurope 29July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
TVBEverywhere
W hat exactly is dynamic ad insertion
(DAI)? A couple of years ago, this was
a question I was asked an awful lot at
our stand at IBC. My reply tended to generate
one of two responses: glazed-over looks of
detachment, followed by a handshake and
swift exit; or wide-eyed enthusiasm as the dollar
signs flashed up, but without much in the way of
detailed follow up after that.
Lately, though, the ‘what’ has been replaced
by ‘how’. It’s a sign of how far broadcasters
have come in the OTT world that most people I
meet now are well aware of what DAI means.
The next question, inevitably, contains the phrase
‘business case.’ The response to which is easy, as
we shall see.
The OTT market is now showing signs of
maturity, and many broadcasters are on their
second or third generation of TV everywhere
services. Those who have relaunched in the last
12 months or so have almost certainly promoted
live simulcast to a prominent position. The
reasons are, for the most part, two-fold: they’ve
uncovered a huge appetite for live streaming;
they’ve deployed DAI and realised its value.
I’ll come on to the value of DAI for live
streaming in a moment, but first let me explain
exactly what I mean by that phrase. I’m talking
about a user experience that is equal to, or
greater than, that of traditional linear television.
The viewer reaches an ad break, the viewer
sees an ad break, the viewer is returned to the
programme. There’s no disruption in that process
that the user can see, such as buffering, stream
stalling or added latency. I’m also talking about
ads tailored specifically to the interests of the
viewer. The nature of OTT streaming, where
viewers tend to have a screen each, means that
targeting can be personalised, adding significant
value. This is increased further with a call-to-
action that encourages interactivity, such as a
button on the screen that opens up a browser
window associated with the ad being viewed.
I’m assuming three elements are in place:
excellent user experience; full personalisation;
interactivity. The resulting experience is one that
the user is very comfortable with because it
reflects one they are already used to; that
of traditional linear TV viewing. They simply
press play and then sit back and enjoy being
fed premium content. Every now and then
there’s an ad break, in the same way there has
always been with linear, and that ad break is
now much more relevant and, in turn, valuable,
than it was before.
We consistently see customer view-through
rates topping 98 per cent for personalised ad
breaks in simulcast. That figure is higher than
commonly seen in traditional linear television,
and is the biggest reason why an ad spot
created by DAI in live OTT streams, with full
personalisation enabled, is worth significantly
more than its equivalent on linear. Just how much
value is added is hard to say. CPM rates don’t
tend to be publicly available, but there have
been a number of indicators published over the
last few years that will give you a general idea.
In one article in Campaign, the CPM for major
linear television was quoted at around £5-6,
compared to around £25-30 for OTT; the increase
is not just substantial: it’s huge.
From the broadcaster’s perspective, the
business logic is a no-brainer. The average
viewing session for a live stream is around 30
minutes, more in the case of a live sports event.
That equates to around a million new ad spots
being opened up per 100,000 viewers. That’s
an incredibly impressive return, especially
considering it represents a brand new revenue
stream. When scaled to major audiences that
are counted in millions, the revenue potential
is enormous.
It’s easy to understand why so many
broadcasters are keen to promote live channels
in their TV everywhere services. It is also an area
that is so far untouched by the giants of the
SVoD world, though probably not for long. It is
crucial for broadcasters to stake their claim in the
simulcast space now. They need to protect their
long term ad revenues as audiences continue
to migrate online. There is also an opportunity to
gain a foothold in a lucrative new market in a
way they were unable to do with VoD.
As the sun shines on a summer full of sporting
action, in which online streaming records are
broken again and again, it also promises a
record-breaking gold medal for broadcasters. n
The gold rush: Explaining the value in dynamic ad insertionDynamic ad insertion has transformed the way broadcasters monetise OTT content, especially where live simulcast is concerned. Paul Davies, manager of communications, marketing and commercial at Yospace, looks at the revenues being generated and what they mean for the future of broadcasting
‘The nature of OTT streaming means that targeting can be personalised, adding
significant value’
28 29 30 31 TVBE16 TVBEverywhere_final2.indd 33 16/06/2016 13:33
As more TV sets become internet-enabled,
online content is moving from computer
and mobile to the TV screens of our
living rooms. Media consumption is increasingly
personal, and ‘watching TV’ is now less about the
TV set and more about engaging with content
across multiple screens. We are now watching
more catch-up and SVoD content than ever, so
how is this all going to affect broadcast TV? Are
pay-TV providers an endangered species, or will
they be able to thrive in this digital era?
Since the launch of OTT streaming, the pay-TV
industry has undergone a seismic shift. According
to a recent Thinkbox report on the UK market,
broadcast TV viewing has stayed relatively stable
over the past decade, accounting for 76 per
cent of all video consumed. Yet online video
has grown steadily during that period and SVoD
services now account for four per cent of total
video (including TV and online video) consumed
in 2015, up from 2.3 per cent in 2014.
This rapid shift is being driven in part by the
growing number of connected consumers.
Young people (aged 16-24 years), are now
spending 58 per cent of their time watching
television. Five to 16 year olds, on average, now
spend three hours a day online compared with
2.1 hours watching TV, according to Childwise.
Will we still pay for TV?But for all the anticipation of a digital future,
traditional TV is not in decline, and pay-TV
providers remain a significant part of the
television landscape. Most OTT providers lack
substantial TV programming experience.
Although some now produce content, the
majority of streaming services remain device-
oriented. The internet video field moves fast,
but it takes a long time to become an expert at
creating and developing the TV experience. This
means not only providing the navigation tools
but also developing the overall user experience.
By expanding into online subscription services
and investing into smart user experience
applications, pay-TV operators are arguably
better placed than pure-play players to benefit
from the consumer demand for quality content.
The mad men of digitalDespite the rise of digital, we should not forget
that traditional TV still brings in the largest
advertising share at a projected 38.7 per cent
of advertising spend worldwide, according to
McKinsey & Company. But as the digital share of
the advertising wallet expands, the new media
landscape requires pay-TV providers to adopt
the right strategy. Data showing who’s watching
what will also play a big role in the future.
Offering advertisers the opportunity to target
specific audiences is becoming increasingly
important for broadcasters, and those that can
supply the most precise data will put themselves
in the best position to offer advertisers the most
cost-efficient path to the consumer.
However, the ad industry isn’t rushing to entirely
replicate the digital model. Rich Lehrfeld, SVP
of global brand marketing at American Express,
recently highlighted the continued importance
of TV advertising, saying: “We need to run two
weeks of digital [advertising] to get the reach of
one day of broadcast.”
In an environment where consumers are no
longer all watching the same programmes at the
same time, large-scale live events like the World
Cup, Super Bowl and Olympics have become
even more valuable. This is just one of many
examples where traditional pay-TV providers
have the opportunity to use their highly valuable
live content to stay relevant with advertisers and
rights owners.
A future-ready model The challenge for pay-TV providers is how to
respond with the right platform and business
model. A recent study found that 22 per cent
of consumers who have never had a pay-TV
subscription are already paying for OTT content
services, indicating a willingness to pay for
subscription television provided they are offered
a package that’s right for them. We are also
seeing a growing move towards self-service
bundling. Some leading pay-TV providers have
responded by introducing innovative ‘skinny’
bundles that offer the consumer more flexibility.
At the same time, providers need to incorporate
the most attractive aspects of OTT services, such
as shorter commitment periods, lower entry
costs and simpler installation requirements. By
extending their reach while offering subscribers
more options, providers can turn challenges,
such as the rising popularity of streaming,
into opportunities.
It’s no longer a debate between TV and
digital. However disruptive OTT may be,
large pay-TV providers continue to hold a
major advantage through their established
infrastructures and programming expertise. n
Are pay-TV providers an endangered species?By Simon Trudelle, senior product marketing director, NAGRA
TVBEverywhere30 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
28 29 30 31 TVBE16 TVBEverywhere_final2.indd 34 16/06/2016 13:33
TVBEurope 31July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
TVBEverywhere
IIt’s an exciting time to be in the TV industry.
While viewing of linear TV still accounts for the
vast majority of consumption in the UK, OTT
services are beginning to have an impact. One
approach to embrace such services is to partner
with them, giving viewers access to a range of
OTT players alongside linear TV.
Keep it on the STBResearch by IHS has shown that Apple TV is
now the third largest set-top box manufacturer
in the world, an incredible feat given its status
as a strictly OTT platform. This demonstrates the
demand for OTT players, and that consumers
will turn to dedicated OTT devices to access
them if necessary. There is an opportunity for
traditional TV operators to meet this demand by
incorporating these OTT players directly within
their set-top boxes. This approach reduces the
risk of viewers switching viewing to a dedicated
OTT device and not returning to linear TV.
Give the viewer choiceViewers are turning to OTT players to gain
greater control over their viewing and to watch
programmes that are exclusive to those players.
Netflix, for example, is currently the only way
to watch a host of shows including Orange is
the New Black. By combining OTT players with
traditional linear TV, operators can provide
consumers with the choice as well as the specific
programmes they are looking for.
Such partnerships can be mutually beneficial
to traditional operators and OTT providers, and
allows providers to market themselves to a wider
audience, while the TV operator can offer a
wider choice to the customer, all in one place.
Make the experience seamlessKey to the success of such a hybrid service is
a seamless experience, making it easy for the
viewer to move between linear TV and OTT
players. Ultimately, a seamless experience
will require even tighter integration between
services, such as federated logins enabling
viewers to share credentials and preferences
across players and services.
True alternative to pay-TVResearch has shown that while free-to-air
television platform viewers have rejected pay-TV
subscriptions, they are interested in topping up
their viewing choices with both subscription and
transactional OTT services.
Instead of focusing on competing against OTT
players, traditional TV operators need to look at
how they can integrate them into their existing
platforms to give viewers the experience and
choice they’re looking for. n
The rise of the hybridMatthew Huntington, chief technology officer, Freesat, looks at how traditional TV operators and platforms can embrace disruptive new services
‘Key to the success of a hybrid service is a seamless experience for viewers’
28 29 30 31 TVBE16 TVBEverywhere_final2.indd 35 16/06/2016 13:33
It dominated the world in newsreel, its visual
archives chart more than a century of history,
and it established a benchmark for cinematic
journalism. Now, British Pathé is returning to
screens for the fi rst time in over 40 years, with the
launch of subscription video on-demand service,
British Pathé TV. Available for Chromecast users
and Amazon Prime customers, and through iOS
and Android apps, the offering will provide a rich
library of content for a global audience.
Roger Felber bought British Pathé with his
business partner in 2008 from its then owner, the
Daily Mail and General Trust. “It took a lot of
revitalisation,” says Felber, to turn it back into a
“highly mechanised business”. British Pathé’s last
golden era ended in the mid-1970s, when “pretty
well everyone had a television, and they didn’t
want to or need to see newsreel in the cinema.”
The company relied on the big screen in the
early years for its success, screening footage to
audiences across the UK. Going back further
though, British Pathé’s roots are actually across
the channel, hence its slightly oxymoronic name.
The three Pathé brothers founded Société
Pathé Frères in Paris in 1896. One stayed in
France, while the other two left for New York and
London, and soon established “a world network
of newsreel” says Felber. Despite cinemas not
being around in the early days, the brothers
began fi lming, amassing hours of footage and
capturing “everything they could plan for”. This
included fi lm of Queen Victoria at a garden
party, her Diamond Jubilee, and her funeral.
In 1908 the newsreel was conceived, and two
years later the company launched an American
newsreel arm to produce Pathé News, as well
as opening a newsreel production offi ce on
Wardour street in London’s Soho.
Building a businessFast-forward one hundred years and enter Felber,
who bought the company after “it had passed
from pillar to post”, he explains, and “no one
knew what to do with it.” Felber wasn’t in the
broadcast industry, having worked as chairman
of a manufacturing and distributing company.
However, he talks animatedly about the
opportunity; “I heard it was for sale and thought
‘this is an incredible archive!’ And bought it.”
Felber took the company “out of cold storage”
and “turned it into a business.” Despite Felber
lifting British Pathé from relative obscurity, its
previous owners had made one signifi cant move:
obtaining National Lottery funding to digitise the
archive, which paved the way for British Pathé
TV. Before embarking on this project though,
there was money to be made elsewhere. “Every
day dozens of licenses [for British Pathé content]
will be issued electronically”, says Felber. “Most
of our customers are regular customers. They
have access to our content, they can download
the content, and they are invoiced digitally
or pay the subscription.” Customers include
broadcasters, producers, and museums, which
“we do a lot of business with.” On the morning I
met Felber, a museum in Poland had just spent
£15,000 on British Pathé footage.
It is expensive to license footage, Felber
admits, so in his early days as MD, he started
arranging joint deals and co-productions with
other companies; “I decided there were some
programmes that would never be made if
we charged our normal prices.” Footage was
provided either at a low price point, or for
nothing. It would be shown in TV in one country,
but rights for the rest of the world would be
retained by British Pathé, or else TV rights would
be granted for a certain time period, before
reverting to the parent company. These deals
have helped build relationships in the industry
and allowed viewers across the globe to witness
fascinating fi lm of events and eras which have
shaped our lives today.
Revolution in Colour is an example of this;
a feature documentary fi lm produced in
association with Irish indie Zampano Productions,
which will be part of the British Pathé TV library.
Ninety-fi ve per cent of the footage is from the
company’s archive and “would never have seen
the light of day”, according to Felber, if it wasn’t
for the joint venture. The footage tells the story of
the Easter Uprising in Dublin, Ireland, in April 1916,
Feature32 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
A century of history on demand: British Pathé goes OTT
Holly Ashford talks to British Pathé managing director Roger Felber, and OwnZones CEO Dan Gorman, about a new VoD service from one of the oldest content providers
“I heard it was for sale and thought ‘this is an incredible archive!’ And bought it”
Roger Felber, British Pathé
British Pathé has a presence on Amazon Prime in north America
32 33 TVBE July16 Pathe Feature_final2.indd 54 17/06/2016 14:31
and has been restored in full colour which offers
an engaging and surreal viewing experience. It
is ‘forgotten’ footage like this which left Felber
questioning “what are we going to do with these
things?” and concluding “why don’t we start
our own television channel”, with collaborative
works, British Pathé material and content which
otherwise would sit “gathering dust”.
Sweet, simple and good valueAnd so, more than a century after the Pathé
brothers began their visual documentation,
British Pathé TV was born. The online on-demand
channel will feature the company’s own
historical archive, as well as documentaries, fi lm
and custom made productions, divided into
four strands: royalty, British Pathé history, cinema
history, classic movies, and railway history, and
for £5 a month “subscribers will have access to
the whole lot”, says Felber. The project has been
realised with the help of US-based OwnZones,
a company which aggregates and distributes
bundled subscription-based digital content.
The two companies were introduced about
eight months ago, OwnZones CEO Dan Goman
tells me. At this stage, Felber says, the team
at British Pathé “thought that we had the
foundations of content in order to create a
channel, and the people to work with and
license footage to, and we knew how to get
the content that we wanted.” But, he continues,
“we did not have the know-how, were not a
technical company and we never would have
been able to do it alone.” Enter Goman et al
at OwnZones. “Originally we were thinking
of placing the content on OwnZones.com”,
explains Goman. Instead the company has
utilised OwnZones’ services, including design,
content ingestion, data migration and tagging,
subscription service, and payment gateway, on
a bespoke site and native iOS and Android app.
The company also programmed British Pathé
content under a deal with Amazon Video add-
on subscription. OwnZones’ “massive software
platform” has been developed over the course
of six years, and over the last year or so, “we’ve
seen tremendous improvements in integrations
with other platforms to the point where we now
have a media network that stretches globally”,
says Goman.
As a result of OwnZones’ experience, the
main challenge was not technical, but “the look
and feel on the front-end” explains Goman.
“British Pathé has a very rich history and the look
and feel has to convey what the organisation
is about.” Felber also admits to taking time
to perfect this: the project could have been
completed in March, but “we kept on wanting
to change this, or we thought, ‘hey, lets add
that’, or ‘what a shame not to put this in’, and
so forth.” When we spoke in May though, Felber
assured me he was “pretty resolute that we’re
adding nothing and changing nothing” in terms
of design. Both Felber and Goman are confi dent
that British Pathé TV will grow “in scope and
size”, says Felber, with Goman calling the project
“an ongoing enhancement and improvement
process.” Enhancements and improvements will
be made based on audience behaviour data,
with OwnZones providing analytics services.
One thing that won’t be changing any time
soon is the subscription fee: “if we’re successful
at this level, there’ll be no reason to change”,
says Felber. “I think I’d like to keep it sweet,
simple and good value.” This is a strong, honest
mantra, and one that has been well received by
audiences. In pre-launch tests, Goman explains,
“the feedback has been very positive in terms of
the overall value: the volume of content versus
the cost.” Goman describes this winning matrix as
“a no-brainer”; having exclusive content at great
value equals success in the OTT world.
An education in philanthropyThe availability of such a fascinating range of
content at a low cost will also, Felber believes, be
attractive to students. Not only is the managing
director launching an OTT service to the ordinary
content consumer, he also harbours a much
grander ambition.
Felber would ultimately like to make British
Pathé content available to “all fi lm students
throughout the world, who are somehow or
other affi liated to a school or a college or an
organisation”, allowing them not only to see
“the great fi lm directors, cinematographers,
fi lms and actors” but also to access “some real
material to work with on the editing front”. He
sees this approach as “combining business with
a little bit of philanthropy”, stating grandly that
the “three and a half thousand hours of footage”
British Pathé TV can offer “should cost [students]
£50,000”. Yet his aspiration goes further: “we’ll
probably run four competitions a year, and you
can submit your fi lms and the winners’ fi lms will
go onto our website and will stay there forever.”
Quite a coup for a fi lm student.
Felber continues to describe further plans for
British Pathé TV – at this stage, weeks before
launch – including going to “Peru, Chile, Brazil,
Argentina, Ecuador” to market the service,
and attracting a portion of the 52 million
Amazon Prime members in north America
to subscribe. British Pathé has had over one
hundred years to evolve from fi lm gathering
pioneer to digital content outlet, and with
Felber’s ideas and hopes for British Pathé TV and
its “ongoing evolution”, I expect it will be around
for some time yet. n
TVBEurope 33July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Feature
“British Pathé has a very rich history and the look and feel has to convey what the
organisation is about” Dan Goman, OwnZones
32 33 TVBE July16 Pathe Feature_final2.indd 55 17/06/2016 14:31
Post Production
High-end drama usually commands the
biggest budgets for broadcast CG
animation and VFX in the UK, and tends
to be from a clutch of London-based studios.
However, there’s long been a healthy trade in
creating CG content for documentaries, where
budgets tend to be lower, except on the odd
occasion which usually involves dinosaurs. Two
recent examples of the genre are particularly
eye-catching for very different reasons, but
neither of the studios responsible are part of the
traditional Soho VFX community.
Bournemouth-based Outpost VFX recently
completed 110 VFX shots for My Beautiful Broken
Brain. This Netflix documentary follows the story
of Lotje Sodderl, who survives a haemorrhagic
stroke and finds herself starting again in an alien
world, bereft of language and logic.
The film by Sodderland and director Sophie
Robinson is executive produced by David
Lynch and contains footage captured by
Sodderland in the weeks after she woke up
from an induced coma. The VFX by Outpost
are used to support the representation of
Sodderland’s vision of the world.
The project included a lot of footage shot on
a handheld iPhone, so the team had some
technical challenges with low quality footage
when delivering highly creative treatments.
However, supervised by Elena Estevez Santos,
they were able to embrace such ‘reportage’
footage and construct a stunning range of
effects from surreal beauty to dark imaginings.
The team developed two different looks, one for
the POV after the stroke, which was colourful,
timeless and surreal, and another, nightmarish,
ghostly and unsettling, for the POV after the
seizure. Both looks were applied across several
shots to recreate Sodderland’s sight from her
right eye. Every shot was individually crafted
to make the most of each scene, with a lot of
surreal or fantastic elements on show, such as
melting clocks, morphing shadows or drawings
that come alive. Sophie Robinson described
the visuals as lifting the film to ‘a whole new
level’, while Sodderland called the film ‘a
sensational visual story’.
Outpost VFX CEO Duncan McWilliam said the
work proved that studios don’t have to be in
Soho to be a VFX hit. The facility was growing
steadily, added McWilliam, recently drawing
Geraint Hixson (ex-MPC and Rushes) down to
Bournemouth as a new VFX producer.
More nightmarish visions are on offer in
National Geographic’s Map Of Hell, with
vivid, heavily stylised sequences by Peepshow
Collective. Based in London’s Shoreditch,
Peepshow is a multidisciplinary studio comprising
artists whose talents include illustration,
animation, set design, textiles and art direction.
The collective has form in the broadcast world,
winning Outstanding Motion Design at the
67th Primetime Emmy awards in 2015 for the
documentary series How We Got To Now, co-
produced by PBS and Nutopia.
In the 90-minute documentary, actor Danny
Trejo takes viewers on a journey into the afterlife
to map out where the idea of hell came from.
The documentary travels through ‘3,000 years
of ideas’, moving from Ancient Greece through
the birth of Christianity to medieval Europe
Post Production34 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
Surreal VFX makes an impact in two very different docs
Michael Burns reports on the work of the VFX teams behind two recent feature-length documentaries
“We created all the VFX sequences and treatments of archive material, adding
atmospherics to make the historical photography and etchings feel part of
our world” Miles Donovan,
Peepshow Collective
34 35 TVBE July16 VFX Post Production_final.indd 54 16/06/2016 13:32
Post Production TVBEurope 35July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
and modern America. Keen to do something
completely different to previous TV work
when interpreting the ideas, landscapes and
denizens of the underworld, the team, with Miles
Donovan and Luke Best as art directors, turned
to graphic novels, artist Jack Kirby and film poster
compositions to create the heavily
stylised sequences.
“The main aspect of broadcast documentaries
that differs from our other more commercial work
is in the ‘read time’ for the sequences you are
presenting to the audience,” said Donovan.
“You are not vying for their attention alongside
other work,” he explained. “You have an
audience who is engaged and prepared to
watch and listen. This allows for sequences to
evolve more slowly and for the hard work that we
put into the sequences to be fully appreciated
by the audience.”
“We worked very closely with the writer/
director Julian Jones, as with all documentaries
the script is a very moveable feast and is
constantly in a state of flux,” said Donovan.
“Once we had a script that was as close to the
final version as possible, we heavily storyboarded
the sequence and created an animatic with a
temporary voiceover. This animatic was handed
over to the editor, Leigh Brzeski, to drop into the
cut. He and Julian would do some re-timing if
they wanted more or less time on a particular
section. We then faithfully shot the animatic
and began the long process of styling and
compositing the elements together. Obviously
there were work in progress and approval stages
along the way, but we were pretty much left
alone to complete the sequences. Then they
were dropped into the edit during the online.
Some shots might get cut by Julian and the
editor for the sake of screen time, but on the
whole, the sequences appear in the show
exactly as we planned and made them.”
Peepshow’s list of deliverables included
‘visions of hell’ which illustrated the ideas and
development of hell itself, and ‘narratives’ which
told the story of the people and the time in which
these versions of hell were being conceived.
“We created all the VFX sequences and
treatments of archive material, adding
atmospherics to make the historical photography
and etchings feel part of our world,” Donovan
said. “We also supplied a title sequence, caption
treatments and map sections which bookend
the different chapters of the special.
Everything was supplied as ProRes HD
QuickTime movies in 16:9 aspect ratio.
“We use a very simple combination of
Photoshop, After Effects and a bit of Cinema
4D when it’s called for,” added Donovan. “We
filmed actors and dancers on green screen to be
used as part of the collage, which then allowed
for more subtle movement from the actors. As we
come from a design and illustration background,
the compositions are very important.”
Accordingly almost every shot was styled and
art-directed by either Donovan or Luke Best,
who were also present when the work was being
composited in After Effects.
“Sequences like the apocalypse of Peter − the
brief for which was to show fire without light −
were great fun because they relied heavily on
getting a great performance from the dancers
on the shoot,” Donovan said. “That element of
chance was very different to more traditional
animation, where everything is so heavily
planned out.” n
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34 35 TVBE July16 VFX Post Production_final.indd 55 16/06/2016 13:32
36 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
Audio
The three-month period from June to August
is traditionally the one in which broadcast
audio teams are put to their greatest tests
of the year. An array of sports and entertainment
events, not least the coverage of global-appeal
music festivals such as Glastonbury, oblige audio
personnel to confront demanding deadlines and
guarantee absolute efficiency and effectiveness
of their operations.
With UEFA Euro 2016 just getting underway at
the time of writing, and the Olympics scheduled
to begin on 5 August, the summer of 2016 is
destined to be an especially frenetic one. With
more platforms and distribution outlets involved
than ever before, audio workflows are likely to be
under even greater scrutiny than normal.
Ahead of future issues of TVBEurope, in which
the audio production at some of the these
events will be examined in greater detail, it
seemed like a timely moment to look back at
some of the major developments to take place
during the first half of 2016, many of which
revolve around the issue of IP-based production
and distribution.
Setting standardsIt is intriguing to recall that it was only in
January 2016 that the ATSC announced the
conclusion and publication of all the various
parts of ATSC 2.0, the name given to a set of
backwards-compatible tools and features that
can be carried over the ATSC 1.0 RF layer and
MPEG-TS Transport Stream without negatively
impacting fielded receivers. Simultaneously, the
organisation was continuing to advance the
‘next-generation’ broadcast standard ATSC 3.0,
for which many elements of the next ATSC 2.0
were perceived as a “solid foundation”. On the
audio side, attention was inevitably given to
the question of which audio subsystem would
be included in ATSC 3.0, the end-result being
the world’s first digital broadcast standard to
support high spatial resolution in sound source
localisation, as well as personalisation, (including
enhancements to the control of dialogue, use
of alternate audio tracks and other-language
dialogue), and the normalisation of content
loudness and contouring of dynamic range. An
announcement about the proposed standard
was expected in advance of NAB 2016, but
it might not surprise anyone familiar with the
world of standards that it actually took a little
longer than that. On 2 May, members of the
ATSC’s TG3 Technology Group voted to elevate
both the AC-4 and MPEG-H AA audio systems
to Candidate Standard status. Voting for the
A/322 Physical Layer Candidate Standard to
be elevated to Proposed Standard was taking
place at the time of writing, with the next stage
set to involve the full ATSC membership approval
of A/322 as a Final ATSC 3.0 standard. The A/321
System Discovering and Signaling standard,
which is described as the ‘Bootstrap’ part of
the Physical Layer, reached final approval
back in March.
Meanwhile, the AES announced a significant
further development in its work around audio
networking standards. This had previously
entered a new phase in September 2013,
with the publication of AES67, which enables
interoperability between existing IP-based audio
networking systems. This was followed in January
this year when the organisation published AES70,
which defines a scalable control-protocol
architecture for professional media networks.
Perceived in some quarters as a
complementary standard to AES67, the new
standard makes it possible to control and monitor
all parameters of a network device, such as the
‘While the development of new standards can be said to have encouraged the growth of AoIP per se, individual networked audio
solutions have also continued to make significant progress’
As the broadcast audio community prepares for another busy summer of major sports and entertainment events, David Davies looks back on the first half of a year that has seen exciting activity around standards, networking solutions and more
Broadcast audio: a half-year report
36 37 TVBE July16 BroadcastAudio_final2.indd 54 17/06/2016 16:29
AudioAudio TVBEurope 37July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
creation and deletion of signal paths, access
control, control of processing and firmware
updates. With these two documents now in the
public domain, focus is expected to shift to the
creation of a discovery (or directory) standard.
Networking nirvanaWhile the development of new standards can be
said to have encouraged the growth of Audio
over IP (AoIP) per se, individual networked audio
solutions have also continued to make significant
progress. As the world’s fastest growing AoIP
solution, Dante’s evolution has been particularly
pronounced. The late 2015 availability of the
Dante Via software product added further to
Dante’s momentum, whilst in late May this year
Dante developer Audinate announced that 300
manufacturers had now adopted Dante. It also
confirmed that more than 750 Dante-enabled
products had been made available worldwide,
an increase of 145 per cent on the total at the
time of the ISE 2015 trade show.
Like Dante, ALC NetworX’s Ravenna, which
has specifically placed its greatest emphasis
on the broadcast market to date, also supports
AES67 and has made a number of major
announcements during the first half of the year.
These include the launch of Genelec’s 8430,
billed as the world’s first IP studio monitor and
using Ravenna technology for audio transport,
and the introduction of a Ravenna/AES67
interface from Calrec that can transport 256
channels of audio on a single connection.
Their AIMS are trueThe discussion around the implementation of IP
technology in broadcast environments is some
distance away from reaching a conclusion,
but the rapid rise of AIMS (Alliance for IP Media
Solutions) since its formation at the end of 2015
does appear to have given the debate a greater
focus. Established to foster the adoption of
existing standards, and encourage the creation
of new ones, AIMS’ initial focus is on VSF TR-03 and
TR-04, SMPTE 2022-6 and AES67, the last-named
standard described as being “written in stone in
our roadmap” by AIMS chairman Michael Cronk
in last month’s Audio feature.
In the wake of a high-profile showcase at
NAB 2016, new AIMS member announcements
have continued to arrive on a frequent basis,
with Broadcast Solutions, Euro Media Group and
Mediaproxy all confirming their participation
during May.
With this summer set to involve more remote,
IP-based production at major events than
ever before, this newfound sense of cohesion
to the IP debate is surely to be welcomed. But it
may not be until the summer of 2017 or 2018 that
the work of the Alliance and other organisations
in the field truly comes into fruition as IP-based
workflows start to become not just ‘a choice’, but
rather, a daily default. n
2016 will see an even greater commitment from TVBEurope to cover more of the pressing areas of concern, challenge, and opportunity within our burgeoning marketplace. The biggest change for this year will be the introduction of new sections to enable us to provide greater coverage to specific business areas. Our Workflow section will now be divided into two new sections: Production, and Post Production. We will also be introducing a new Business section to follow the increasing acquisition and investment activity permeating the sector, and are also introducing a dedicated Audio section to bring regular insights and updates from an often overlooked strand of our industry. These new sections will be manned by a team of section editors.
Issue Exhibitions present at Feature Editorial Close date Advertising close date
August • IBC thought leadership insight and 12th July 5th July
product preview
September • IBC • IBC 2016 Show issue: thought leadership 19th August 12th August insight and product showcase
October •TVBAwards • Audio for broadcast 23rd September 16th September • IBC Best of Show Winners • IP technology
November • Post-IBC acquisition focus 21st October 13th October • Remote production
December • Media Asset Management 11th November 4th December • M&A business review
EDITORIAL PLANNER 2016
Europe Peter McCarthy: +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 [email protected]
Richard Carr: +44 (0) 20 7354 [email protected]
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TVBE Editorial Planner 2016 half page.indd 1 16/06/2016 12:26
‘In the wake of a high-profile showcase at NAB 2016, new AIMS member
announcements have continued to arrive on a frequent basis’
36 37 TVBE July16 BroadcastAudio_final.indd 55 17/06/2016 11:10
Had Alice Cooper sat through the DTG
Summit on ‘re-engineering for tomorrow’s
TV consumer’, he would surely have
spotted the potential for re-versioning his hit
Elected with the new chorus line, “I wanna
be connected”.
It may not be the only trade body working to
demystify and hone new enabling technologies
aimed at driving next generation consumer
media habits, but the DTG is one of the best, in
no small part down to its ability to bring so many
industry strands together.
Opening the session with a look at the ‘tipping
points’ of TV, DTG CEO Richard Lindsay-Davies
said, “It is not a big leap to imagine services
becoming must have or only have. The BBC
has led the way on this by moving BBC Three
to on-demand.
“The more on-demand we give them, the
more demanding consumers are getting,” he
added. “We have got to find a way to blend the
success of today into tomorrow. We have got to
find a way to blend the scale, the certainty, the
order, the well understood requirements, and the
democracy we have seen in DTV into this highly
innovative world. If we don’t do that with critical
mass and as an entire industry, we risk losing all
the benefits of the market we have today. We
now have the likes of Vodafone and Google as
DTG members and we know that, increasingly, it
is even more important for the widening group of
players to come together.”
To focus on the business aspects of an event
that mixed technology developments and
barriers with future content aspirations, two of
the sessions were chosen for the implications
of research findings, and for the power of
psychological principles when creating content
for platforms rather than channels.
Conversation the key to seamless discoveryCharles Dawes, senior director of international
marketing with Rovi, looked at consumer
behaviour as depicted by a research
programme his company conducted across
seven of the markets it operates in: the UK, US,
France, Germany, Japan, China and India. First
up, only three per cent of the 4,000 respondents
had cut the linear TV cord (US seven per cent
and UK five per cent). “Little things are changing.
In Q1 this year, Comcast reported its best
video quarter in nine years and Sky reported its
strongest consumer growth for ten years. Many
operators around the world are starting to see
that uptake in video subscribers again.”
This might be down to traditional providers
deploying the right countering strategies to new
entrants. His next stats identified that 68 per cent
of US broadband customers now subscribe to
an online streaming service, up 21 per cent in a
year. In the UK, SVoD penetration jumped 70 per
cent between Q1 14 and Q4 15.
On the subject of cord cutting, he said, “When
we dug deeper, there is a consistent theme:
people are frustrated because they cannot
get the content they want. The search is on.
People spend 19 minutes a day looking for
something to watch.” There is high search tool
awareness (79 per cent in the UK) and 18 per
cent say they search every time they watch
TV. However, 23 per cent in the UK felt that the
search function was too difficult to use. It would
seem, then, that improved functionality
is required.
“We saw that 67 per cent would be willing to
upgrade their contract with the pay-TV provider
if they could get better search functionality,”
said Dawes. “We asked about newer forms of
search like voice and conversation. Rovi takes
a step beyond the voice input and really allows
you to have that flow from one query to the next,
as you would in conversation. Forty three per
cent said they would frequently use this type of
service; over 50 per cent said they would pay
extra to have access to this functionality.” Over
20 per cent of smartphone users have used voice
search within the last month, and 50 per cent of
all searches will be voice-based by 2020.
How much time do people spend consuming
entertainment? Looking at ‘work, sleep, stream’
Dawes said, “The consumer relationship with
entertainment is almost as time consuming as
working and sleeping. On average, people
spend about four hours a day watching video
content (in the US seven hours, and in the UK
five). When we talked about how entertainment
choices affect their lives, 43 per cent said it has a
major effect on their overall mood.”
Stat attack: Some 50 per cent of consumers
plan their day around favourite content and 19
per cent make that content part of their day
George Jarrett reports from the DTG’s annual conference, now in its tenth year, which is dedicated to driving the TV and digital media industry forward
DTG remains at the SummitBusiness
www.tvbeurope.com July 201638 TVBEurope
“We need to focus on making our content discoverable in a simple, seamless fashion”
Charles Dawes, Rovi
38 39 41TVBE July16 DTG Business_final.indd 38 17/06/2016 16:37
Business TVBEurope 39July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
every single day. About 44 per cent admit to
staying up too late. Some 30 per cent prefer
to watch something friends or family have
recommended, whilst 70 per cent prefer other
sources. The social media buzz factor persuaded
71 per cent to say it had at least some influence
on what they watched.
Where do people consume their content?
“Around 80 per cent of respondents on all
markets said they frequently stream content at
home. About 60 per cent say they frequently
stream their content on the go, and 28 per cent
stream content at work,” said Dawes.
In summary, he stated, “We need to focus
on making content discoverable in a simple
seamless fashion by using voice or conversation,
or recommendation.”
It is not that TV is deadWeb psychologist Nathalie Nahai focused on
what it is that consumers want from media
creators. “The way that we are consuming video,
TV and media is dramatically changing, and at
a very fast pace. The main reason for this is it
has become increasingly consumer controlled,”
she said. “As distributors and broadcasters, you
now gain a huge amount of feedback that you
weren’t able to get before, but it is not so good
when it comes to the way that people consume
your content,” she added. “For instance, fast
forwarding through commercials. Ad blocking
software is costing the advertising industry an
extraordinary amount of money.”
The binge watching trend and shared social
experiences are two elements behind consumers
becoming increasingly device agnostic.
“It is not that TV is dead, it’s just that we are
becoming much more fluid about how and
where we consume content, and on which
devices. There are various different platforms
that we use now – Premiere, Instagram, Vine,
Periscope and Meercat – and the point is that
these are now all TV platforms,” said Nahai.
“Young viewers are not discriminating between
one screen and what they see on the next.”
Moving away from specific platforms, she
looked at one of the truisms. “The kind of content
that we create might well have changed in the
way that we present it, but it is still all about the
way we tell the story. We are still telling them,
just in different ways in terms of delivery and
functionality,” she said. We are moving from an
old model with channel schedules and pre- and
post watershed to extra variables. Beyond the
‘what’ factor of the content come the why and
how. “This is where the psychology comes in. You
still have to think about the content you create,
but not just the channel. Which platform are you
going to use? If you are creating social content,
how are you going to distribute that across new
online platforms? You then have to give people
an incentive for why they should watch your
content and understand how they are going to
watch it, so you can optimise for that behaviour,”
said Nahai.
The very different ways that we behave
online to specific content introduces underlying
psychological reasoning. She looked at the
phenomenon of quirky viral stuff that has
little reason behind it, but sometimes records
millions of hits. “How does this work? We don’t
necessarily know, but for some reason it reaches
critical mass and then propagates,” said Nahai.
“The other reason we like to watch and consume
content is to have our patterns disrupted. This
is basically the idea that when you have an
expectation of the way that the story is going, if
there is a twist you are much more likely to find it
engaging and exciting. There is going to be more
of an emotional response.”
Pattern disruption worked effectively for an
advert that had 13 million hits, despite the fact
that consumers hate ads. Consuming so much
content online is all about a change in your
emotional state – much the same as reading a
novel or chatting around a campfire. This leads
to a sense of group participation. “One of the
things I see happening a lot, in terms of trends,
is this idea of people having their attention
fragmented, but there is still a deep-seated
desire to feel connected, to have a sense of
common cultural discourse,” said Nahai. The
desire to talk about events in a timely fashion
is exemplified by the site of Tom Hiddleston’s
naked bum in a scene from The Night Manager.
“The more on-demand we give them, the more demanding consumers are getting” Richard Lindsay-Davies, DTG
38 39 41TVBE July16 DTG Business_final.indd 39 17/06/2016 16:37
IBC2016 Conference Speakers Announced
#IBCShow
Transformation in the Digital Era
Keynotes:
Featured Speakers:
Conference 8 – 12 September : Exhibition 9 – 13 SeptemberRAI, Amsterdam
Register now to save on Early Bird prices before 15 July!
Sir Martin SorrellCEO, WPP
Alex MahonThe FoundryContent and Production
Spencer StephensSony Pictures EntertainmentBusiness Transformations
Alex GreenAmazonIBC Leaders’ Summit
Hendrick McDermottNBC Universal InternationalPlatform Futures
Kevin BaillieAtomic FictionIBC Big Screen Experience
Sara JohnsonKeshet UKContent and Production
Erik HuggersPresident and CEO,
Vevo
Shahrzad RafatiFounder and CEO,
BroadbandTV
Dominique Delport Global Managing Director, Havas
Media Group
IBC.org/register
new tvbe template remade.indd 1 13/06/2016 15:42
“When it happened there was a massive storm
online. TV is very alive, if you can make it into
a cultural social experience,” she said. Next
came the factor of emotional contagion, the
idea in psychology that we literally transmit or
infect other people with our emotional state. If
three people sit quietly facing each other in a
room, within two minutes the one who is the most
emotionally expressive will have transferred his/
her mood to the other two.
“There is something really innate that happens
here, so when you make that explicit through
video or TV content you get a good emotional
impact. The kind of stuff you watch, talk about
and share reflects not only who you are, but also
who your friends are,” said Nahai. “Our desire
and drive to consume and comment on cultural
and TV based media have not really changed,
but the way we expect this to be delivered has
seen fundamental change.
“People are also expecting equal access, and
if you don’t give it to them, they are going to
get really frustrated,” she added. “There is also
the question of a whole bunch of antiquated
copyright rules; how can you create a system
in which you can allow people to amplify
content to the extent that they feel they can
share without infringing on copyright? It is a
conversation that needs to be had.”
Creating a killer headlineProducers can also enable people to amplify
their content. They should use the breadcrumb
approach. How do we achieve creative success
in the post-traditional TV world? How do we use
social video precisely to amplify TV?
“There are several things you can do. First is to
work out where and when your target market is
active. That does not mean time, it also means
which culture, which city. Then you chose
the platforms to focus on,” explained Nahai.
“For instance, Twitter is very much a less feely
platform. If you want people to discuss certain
issues that are more newsworthy, that’s where
you will see that gravitate to most. Facebook is
now moving towards a publishing model, and
you are going to find people consuming much
more video there. You have to create content
for that platform; you can’t just copy and paste
what you created for TV and expect it to work
elsewhere.” It is impossible to ignore YouTube,
the highest ranking for both musical content and
video content. “When you are creating content
for these social channels, you need to get in
on the game, so (I created) a quick formula so
that you can apply some of the psychological
principles to the titles of the content you are
making,” said Nahai. “Take a number and/or
a trigger word. You then take an adjective, a
key word and a promise and you can create a
killer headline. For example, how to fry an egg:
using the formula you get ’13 unbelievable ways
you can fry a small egg with socks’. Even if you
hate eggs your brain goes off on tangents and
that is the power of curiosity and psychological
triggers,” she added.
The other thing that producers have to
consider when using the big platforms is the
exploitation of thumbnails. “These will act as
trailers, because consumers are not necessarily
going to see the content in motion,” said Nahai.
A great example of this done really well is
Jamie Oliver’s food videos, for which he creates
bespoke thumbnails. The click and watch rate
with thumbnails has jumped up by 35 per cent.
“You have to think of them as film posters, not just
screenshots,” said Nahai. Having talked about
YouTube (and the massive amount of audio
streaming it is renowned for), Nahai returned
to Facebook. “These are dramatically different
viewing platforms when it comes to video. We
tend to use Facebook when we are in transit,
and people are now accessing it primarily
through their smartphones and not quite as
much via desktops,” she said.
“If you are thinking of designing video for
Facebook, you really have to think about mobile
video, and formatting for that. YouTube is the
biggest platform for video in the world, but when
it comes to Facebook it is much more visual, and
the reason for this is it has the auto play function
which grabs your peripheral vision,” she added.
“You are going to focus on the content.”
The other thing the industry has to think hard
about is the dreaded skip ad button. “There is
your advert and it is gone. That’s not much time
to create something that’s going to hook people
in. Content that is effective is often something
that serves as a starting point for conversation
and debate,” said Nahai. “In terms of the
younger viewers (25-35), 81 per cent of this group
are expecting companies to make a public
commitment to good corporate citizenship, and
it does not matter what industry you are in.
“If you want to create good content and you
want people to engage with your brand, you
have to figure out what you stand for and make
sure that comes across,” she concluded. n
Business TVBEurope 41July 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
“It is not that TV is dead, it’s just that we are becoming much more fluid about how
and where we consume content, and on which devices”
Nathalie Nahai
38 39 41TVBE July16 DTG Business_final.indd 41 17/06/2016 16:49
Data Centre42 TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
As the prevalence of online video
service subscribers continues to grow
at a strong double-digit pace, video
service operators (VSOs) around the world are
collectively shifting toward delivering more
content at higher resolutions online. In order
to succeed with online services, VSOs must
move away from simpler streaming encryption
solutions and adopt fully-fledged digital rights
management (DRM) protection, and their
profitability and growth are heavily dependent
on getting their monetisation components right.
New research from Frost & Sullivan reveals that
the perceived high cost of a commercial DRM
system and perceived low complexity of building
DRM in-house are compelling well over half of
VSOs today to attempt to build their own security
platforms. However, while this may seem like a
good short-term tactic to quickly roll out a new
service through an app or a web browser, it is
rarely an effective long-term strategy.
The unanticipated cost of ownershipAt present, there is a limited understanding of
the true levels of cost and complexity associated
with a do-it-yourself approach to DRM, but
globally, VSOs are finding that the modern
OTT ecosystem is a treacherous landscape
and is best navigated in partnership with an
experienced multi-DRM vendor.
A major issue associated with building a
security infrastructure in-house is that VSOs are
faced with having to create and permanently
fund dedicated product management,
development and testing teams with
competency in security. As a result, they are
committing themselves to a significant ongoing
R&D investment in maintaining and expanding
the secure playback and monetisation platform.
This complexity is further amplified by constant
disruptions in technology. 2016 will see the
shipment of nearly 2.5 billion connected devices
across nine device types, and keeping track of
new devices, platforms and technologies places
significant strain on player and server teams.
Delivering a service consistently, reliably and
securely to this vast plethora of endpoints is a
formidable undertaking, but one that must
be achieved if a service is to break out of the
noise to achieve significant growth and
retention of subscribers.
VSO engineering teams building secure players
in-house often under-appreciate the magnitude
of this fragmentation challenge when estimating
the total cost of ownership of their DRM solutions.
Frost & Sullivan research finds that the average
cost of porting a secure player to a new platform
is in the range of $100,000 to $250,000. Services
must support a minimum of ten to 12 devices
to be considered viable and ideally should be
supported via browsers or apps on more than 40
devices (with that number growing every year)
in order to be competitive. DRM core logics
must be chosen optimally for each device,
creating another layer of management
overhead and complexity.
Accordingly, the R&D investment
required simply for upfront
development itself can quickly
run into the millions of dollars.
Navigating the complexities of DRM developmentIn a new paper on the total cost
of ownership of DRM solutions,
Frost & Sullivan suggests that
undertaking in-house development
of a full-fledged DRM platform is
comparable to instituting a new product
line that is tangential to the VSO’s intended
product roadmap and outside of its core
competency. The paper warns that spending
scarce resources in an attempt to experiment in
reinventing the wheel is a risky business strategy
that can put a strain on a VSO’s bottom line.
According to the piece, multi-DRM vendors
are much better equipped to handle the
underlying fragmentation of various devices,
core DRM systems and compression and
streaming standards, as compared to all but
the largest and most technologically savvy
operators. By tapping into this expertise, VSOs
gain agility, reduce costs, strengthen security,
and tighten protection of revenue, all while
at the same time broadening the reach of
their services and improving the overall
customer experience.
What is technologically revolutionary with
an in-house implementation can become
simply evolutionary with a reliable partner.
The revolution can then move to customer
attraction and revenue growth, allowing VSOs to
successfully ride the OTT opportunity wave. n
A smarter strategy for multi-DRM deployment
by Steve Christian, senior vice president of marketing, Verimatrix
‘There is a limited understanding of the true levels of cost and complexity
associated with a do-it-yourself approach to DRM’
Media streaming devices 2%
Video games systems 2%IP STBs 3%
Blu-ray players 4%
IDTVs8%
Tablets8%
PCs12%
Othersmart
phones5%
iOS smartphones
11%
Android smart phones
45%
Unit shipments of CE device by type, global 2015
42 TVBE June16 Data Centre_final2.indd 46 16/06/2016 13:47
A joint venture partnership of
See you again next year
in Amsterdam.
ISE2017_SeeYou_220x290_.indd 1 15.02.16 11:42new tvbe template remade.indd 1 17/06/2016 12:55
new tvbe template remade.indd 1 17/06/2016 12:56
From assets to insights
Media operations todaymore than assets
more than systemsmore than people
www.tvbeurope.com
July 2016TVBEurope Supplements
In association with
Supplementii TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
With the growing need for every
operation in our industry to deliver
more content, to more places, more of
the time, the equal need for managers to ensure
their operation works as effi ciently as possible
becomes priority. But to truly meet this demand,
we must acknowledge that the industry is
evolving still – and with this, highlight the benefi ts
of focusing more on managing our entire media
operation and not just our media assets.
If there is one thing that has been evident
in the last ten years of digital disruption in
broadcasting, it is that we need clarity in our
communications. That’s why much of our focus
in areas like IP is in standards because we have
to have a common understanding, and a
common way of interacting.
File-based workfl ows, however, are now
pervasive but in many respects we have not
moved much beyond deploying digital versions
of analogue processes. And this is where we
need to go further.
We can now go beyond simply storing and
managing our assets to really making our assets
work for us – that is, deliver real operational
benefi ts through automating processes, tracking
assets and workfl ows, and most importantly
fi nally gaining a true understanding of the cost
of our operations and thereby getting more
value out of them.
MAM has been a critical factor in bringing us
on this journey, and while MAM technology
remains important, and will be ubiquitous, we
need to go beyond it. MAM is about visibility
and movement of content – MOM (Media
Operations Management) is about tracking,
managing and optimising processes related to
content to deliver business benefi ts.
Sony takes a holistic view of this overall
process from the creation of the image to the
workfl ows for managing, delivering and storing
it. With this in mind, the ‘Media Backbone’
concept has been updated to enable greater
control and management in the rapidly
changing real world of modern broadcasting:
Media Backbone Conductor focuses on MOM
for programme traffi c, versioning and content
processing, Media Backbone Navigator provides
dynamic asset management
capable of scaling from
single users to enterprises, and
Media Backbone Hive is our
next generation production
platform, the fi rst in the market
to utilise internet technologies
to offer dynamic scaling that
can fl ex with business needs.
The common element
to all three is control, but
control based around business
and operational needs not
technical imperatives.
The shift to IT has brought
many benefi ts in terms of
lower cost, increased
competition and far greater
use of more fl exible defi ned
approaches to infrastructure.
But at the same time, this
has demanded a growing
technical focus and drive
for broadcasters.
Cloud and datacentre technologies are
enabling the business to take back control, by
allowing us to focus more on the end users in
both operations and business management.
Going forward, business agility and fl exibility
will be even more important, enhanced by
adopting the technical fl exibility brought by IT.
It’s already a cliché to talk about the impact
of the disruptive nature of OTT, especially with the
likes of Netfl ix and Amazon Prime on consumer,
broadcaster and content creators’ behaviour.
However, it is vital for survival, let alone success,
in a more competitive and diverse media market
that agile and more elastic operational models
are adopted. Ultimately, the only means of
delivering real operational benefi ts from these
lies in how you adaptably manage your entire
media operation. n
Delivering real operational benefi ts
In association with
The speed and dependability of Optical Disc Archive. Plus the fl exibility of Media Navigator. At an amazing price.
Boost the real value of your content. Today and tomorrow.
Robust Content Management and Archive
Maximise your assets.Unlock your content’s true value with Navigator.
E� ortlessly manage every phase of today’s content workfl ow. From ingest, catalogue and editing to review, approvals, distribution and archive.
• Organise, manage and share your valuable media content
• Fast, fl exible, e� cient workfl ow for wide range of applications
• Top-fl ight performance at a fraction the cost of enterprise-grade MAM solutions
• Scales easily from single users to small workgroups
Seamless integration with Optical Disc Archive for a complete long-term asset management solution.
Find out more at www.pro.sony.eu/TV/Navigator
Once in your lifetime.Archive it right fi rst time with Optical Disc Archive (ODA).
Preserve all your precious media content assets with Optical Disc Archive. The cost e� ective, long-term storage solution that grows with you, from desktop drives to expandable library systems.
• Ideal for deep, near-online and plus-one archive, data preservation and disaster recovery
• Playout directly from archive media, just like HDD
• Robust, reliable high-capacity contactless media with 50+ year life
• Energy e� cient with low lifetime ownership costs
Seamless integration with Media Navigator for a complete asset management solution.
Find out more at www.pro.sony.eu/TV/ODA
Maximise your assets.
www.pro.sony.eu/TV/Navigator
Navigator
By Michael Harritmarketing director, media solutionsSony Professional Solutions Europe
‘Sony takes a holistic view of this overall process from the creation of the image to the workfl ows for managing,
delivering and storing it’
new tvbe template remade.indd 2 17/06/2016 16:30
Supplementii TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
With the growing need for every
operation in our industry to deliver
more content, to more places, more of
the time, the equal need for managers to ensure
their operation works as effi ciently as possible
becomes priority. But to truly meet this demand,
we must acknowledge that the industry is
evolving still – and with this, highlight the benefi ts
of focusing more on managing our entire media
operation and not just our media assets.
If there is one thing that has been evident
in the last ten years of digital disruption in
broadcasting, it is that we need clarity in our
communications. That’s why much of our focus
in areas like IP is in standards because we have
to have a common understanding, and a
common way of interacting.
File-based workfl ows, however, are now
pervasive but in many respects we have not
moved much beyond deploying digital versions
of analogue processes. And this is where we
need to go further.
We can now go beyond simply storing and
managing our assets to really making our assets
work for us – that is, deliver real operational
benefi ts through automating processes, tracking
assets and workfl ows, and most importantly
fi nally gaining a true understanding of the cost
of our operations and thereby getting more
value out of them.
MAM has been a critical factor in bringing us
on this journey, and while MAM technology
remains important, and will be ubiquitous, we
need to go beyond it. MAM is about visibility
and movement of content – MOM (Media
Operations Management) is about tracking,
managing and optimising processes related to
content to deliver business benefi ts.
Sony takes a holistic view of this overall
process from the creation of the image to the
workfl ows for managing, delivering and storing
it. With this in mind, the ‘Media Backbone’
concept has been updated to enable greater
control and management in the rapidly
changing real world of modern broadcasting:
Media Backbone Conductor focuses on MOM
for programme traffi c, versioning and content
processing, Media Backbone Navigator provides
dynamic asset management
capable of scaling from
single users to enterprises, and
Media Backbone Hive is our
next generation production
platform, the fi rst in the market
to utilise internet technologies
to offer dynamic scaling that
can fl ex with business needs.
The common element
to all three is control, but
control based around business
and operational needs not
technical imperatives.
The shift to IT has brought
many benefi ts in terms of
lower cost, increased
competition and far greater
use of more fl exible defi ned
approaches to infrastructure.
But at the same time, this
has demanded a growing
technical focus and drive
for broadcasters.
Cloud and datacentre technologies are
enabling the business to take back control, by
allowing us to focus more on the end users in
both operations and business management.
Going forward, business agility and fl exibility
will be even more important, enhanced by
adopting the technical fl exibility brought by IT.
It’s already a cliché to talk about the impact
of the disruptive nature of OTT, especially with the
likes of Netfl ix and Amazon Prime on consumer,
broadcaster and content creators’ behaviour.
However, it is vital for survival, let alone success,
in a more competitive and diverse media market
that agile and more elastic operational models
are adopted. Ultimately, the only means of
delivering real operational benefi ts from these
lies in how you adaptably manage your entire
media operation. n
Delivering real operational benefi ts
In association with
The speed and dependability of Optical Disc Archive. Plus the fl exibility of Media Navigator. At an amazing price.
Boost the real value of your content. Today and tomorrow.
Robust Content Management and Archive
Maximise your assets.Unlock your content’s true value with Navigator.
E� ortlessly manage every phase of today’s content workfl ow. From ingest, catalogue and editing to review, approvals, distribution and archive.
• Organise, manage and share your valuable media content
• Fast, fl exible, e� cient workfl ow for wide range of applications
• Top-fl ight performance at a fraction the cost of enterprise-grade MAM solutions
• Scales easily from single users to small workgroups
Seamless integration with Optical Disc Archive for a complete long-term asset management solution.
Find out more at www.pro.sony.eu/TV/Navigator
Once in your lifetime.Archive it right fi rst time with Optical Disc Archive (ODA).
Preserve all your precious media content assets with Optical Disc Archive. The cost e� ective, long-term storage solution that grows with you, from desktop drives to expandable library systems.
• Ideal for deep, near-online and plus-one archive, data preservation and disaster recovery
• Playout directly from archive media, just like HDD
• Robust, reliable high-capacity contactless media with 50+ year life
• Energy e� cient with low lifetime ownership costs
Seamless integration with Media Navigator for a complete asset management solution.
Find out more at www.pro.sony.eu/TV/ODA
Maximise your assets.
www.pro.sony.eu/TV/Navigator
Navigator
By Michael Harritmarketing director, media solutionsSony Professional Solutions Europe
‘Sony takes a holistic view of this overall process from the creation of the image to the workfl ows for managing,
delivering and storing it’
new tvbe template remade.indd 3 17/06/2016 16:30
A combined view of the wider potential
ROI from media technology investment.
Moving beyond legacy technology
integration toward greater scalability
and the effi ciency in media planning
and operations to cost effectively provide
new on-screen services and revenue.
From SDI and BNC to UHD and HDR, the
TV industry is overfl owing with acronyms.
So you’d be forgiven for thinking that the
last thing we need right now, in a time of great
technology upheaval, is the introduction of Yet
Another Acronym (YAA).
The difference with this one is that it pertains
to a fundamental change in how broadcasters
manage their entire operation, not just their
assets. Let’s defi ne it.
Media Operations Management (MOM) is the
process of analysing and appraising a broadcast
operation – its assets, systems, people and
resources – and then optimising it to make it better.
Unlike Media Asset Management (MAM),
which gives users a visibility of their assets, and
in some cases, automates various processes,
MOM is designed to enable broadcasters and
other media businesses to continuously track
and then improve performance right across
their operation. It is the practice of capturing
information about the media production and
delivery chain and then delivering a clear picture
of exactly what’s going on, where and how.
Why do it? Simple. MOM makes it possible
for broadcasters to spot bottlenecks, reduce
redundancy and proactively deal with the
effi ciency challenges and issues they face.
MAM might track your assets but MOM tracks
everything else as well.
By providing accurate data and intelligence
MOM helps to increase the understanding of
exactly how a broadcast operation, well,
operates. Increased understanding allows for
improved workfl ows. Improved workfl ows
means more effi ciency. More effi ciency
makes everyone happy, from the
staff on the shop fl oor to the fi nancial
director. And the improvement
cycle continues. Knowledge truly is power. If
you’re not convinced, let’s take a temporary
step backwards.
Running a media business is more complex,
more challenging and more dynamic than it has
ever been. Across the TV industry, budgetary
pressures are intense. In fact, it’s never been more
important to do more with less (and to keep doing
even more with even less as the market changes).
With the explosion of possible distribution
channels, every operation is now faced with
delivering content across more platforms, in more
places, to ever-tighter deadlines. This makes
ensuring operations work as effi ciently as possible
is a key priority. But many media companies are
struggling to keep up.
Supplementiv TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
Let MOM transform your businessMedia Operations Management (MOM) is more than just another acronym, it signifi es a fundamental change in how broadcasters manage their entire operation
TVBEurope vJuly 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Supplement
The question is: why aren’t media businesses doing
the same? It is possible to point to three reasons:
media products are predominantly focused
around highly changeable digital assets; each
‘product’ may have multiple versions existing at
the same time; and the business must be able
to react quickly to changing circumstances,
avoiding costly last minute changes.
These differences mean that, while the
approaches behind traditional ERP systems
still apply, the systems themselves are not
appropriate to today’s media operations.
In addition, media businesses tend to have
their own unique way of working which is often a
poor fi t for more generalist systems. Consequently,
operators need to be able to customise an
application, unlocking the best approach for their
specifi c needs. Which brings us neatly back to our
acronyms. MOM is the media industry’s ERP.
At its heart, MOM should have three core
building blocks:
1) A core integration platform that connects
disparate systems and processes
2) An orchestration engine that allows users
to model workfl ows and processes across
departments, resources and people, automating
them where appropriate
3) Graphical dashboards that offer confi gurable
real-time views of how resources are being used
by user, department or project
These are the foundations upon which
Sony built Media Backbone Conductor (MBC).
Admittedly, that’s another acronym. But MBC
is a MOM that enables broadcasters to create,
sustain and continuously improve the workfl ows
that underpin everything they produce.
MBC provides a detailed picture of resources
and assets, people and processes, and their
capacity, availability and downtime. Users can
orchestrate and unify all the disparate systems
they use on a daily basis: from transcoding,
ingest and planning through to editing, playout
and distribution.
It is also possible to automate manual,
repetitive tasks – such as creating, adapting,
approving and distributing content – making
them easier, faster and more cost effective.
To see how the operation is doing, users
can access customisable business intelligence
dashboards. These provide a real-time graphical
view of the complete broadcast operation,
tracking how individuals, departments and
projects use resources. With this knowledge,
it is then possible to identify areas for
improved workfl ows that can be embedded
into the system. A comprehensive workfl ow
design environment makes is possible to
test and model new processes, and
simulate what impact they will have,
before deploying them.
With live process monitoring it is possible to
quickly and easily view data fl ows and spot
bottlenecks, and other problems, and solve them.
Similarly, a prioritisation module makes it
possible to reassign tasks and resources to meet
changing requirements and allows a broadcaster
to focus on the assets or issues that really matter.
Importantly, adding MBC to a broadcast
operation doesn’t require a complete overhaul
of existing systems.
Applied as middleware, either on site or in the
cloud, it can be applied in an agile, rather than
‘big bang’ way, growing over time and integrating
with existing MAMs and other third-party systems.
Apologies for using another acronym but it also
adheres to standard SOA (Service Oriented
Architecture) integration principles.
By embedding core tools from SOA
platform provider Software AG, and by using
Open Standards and protocols for software
development, there is less of the risk normally
associated with having a single vendor providing
a technology solution.
Applying MOM principals to a broadcast
operation can take users far beyond the
limitations of MAM. And, by adopting MBC
in particular, users get an open orchestration
platform, in-depth workfl ow engine and
actionable business intelligence that can
transform the way they work. And no amount of
acronyms can defl ect from that. n
‘Why do it? Simple. MOM makes is possible for broadcasters to spot bottlenecks, reduce
redundancy and proactively deal with the effi ciency challenges and issues they face. MAM might track your assets but MOM
tracks everything else as well’
In association with
Benefi ts of using Media Backbone Conductor• Save time: Increasing effi ciency and
cutting production time as you automate processes and workfl ows
• Reduce and focus: Making better use of existing resources – from people to facilities
• Gain control: Managing technology integrations more effectively, realising a greater return on your investment
• Save money: Avoiding costly capital expenditure and making the most of the
systems you already have• Increase fl exibility: Enabling you to adapt
to ongoing changes in the industry• Catch errors early so you can schedule
fi xes in good time and avoid using emergency cash
• Plan ahead: Gaining a way to plan more effectively for the future while minimising risks
www.pro.sony.eu/MBC
“Over the last few years, digital tools have created new possibilities for our teams in terms of creative production, swift acquisition and multi-platform distribution of content; we
wanted to harness digital technology to benefi t our asset management in the same way… By selecting Media Backbone Conductor we’ve been able to modernise our existing
workfl ow while retaining the necessary fl exibility to adapt and extend our approach as our business requirements change in the future”
Steve Fish, department head of technology and operations, Turner Broadcasting System Europe
6 interactive Target Areas to monitor to achieve improved ROI
ROI
leg
acy
scal
abilit
y
e�ciency reduction
cost
onscreenm
orereven
ue +
The largest media organisations are often
inherently siloed, with different teams rarely
aware of what another is doing. This makes
gaining the perspective needed to affect long-
lasting, meaningful change almost impossible.
Fortunately, there is a solution.
As much as people hate to admit it, while
broadcasting is, in many ways, at the cutting
edge when it comes to innovation, in some
ways, it still lags behind other industries. Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) is one example.
There are, of course, many unique aspects to
running a media operation. No one can pretend
it’s the same as manufacturing a car, or running
a retail business, or being a consultancy. But
broadcasters still need to gain true visibility across
their operations, have a requirement to manage
both fi xed and variable costs, and absolutely
must get stuff done on time and on budget.
In a manufacturing plant, ERP integrates all the
individual processes that organisations use in order
to operate effectively. It prevents separate silos
obscuring a true picture of the business. And by
offering a ‘single version of the truth’ it can uncover
ineffi ciencies within operations. It provides key
metrics such as utilisation rates, on-time delivery
fi gures and profi tability analysis: the kind of data
that is often impossible to fi nd in media operations,
but would be very helpful indeed.
Broadcast Innovation Ltd is a specialist independent
broadcast and media solutions consultant. The
illustration snapshots part of fast track process used
with broadcasters, pay-TV operators and service
providers to successfully plan new technology
investment and solutions architecture for next
generation tv and media services.
new tvbe template remade.indd 2 17/06/2016 16:38
A combined view of the wider potential
ROI from media technology investment.
Moving beyond legacy technology
integration toward greater scalability
and the effi ciency in media planning
and operations to cost effectively provide
new on-screen services and revenue.
From SDI and BNC to UHD and HDR, the
TV industry is overfl owing with acronyms.
So you’d be forgiven for thinking that the
last thing we need right now, in a time of great
technology upheaval, is the introduction of Yet
Another Acronym (YAA).
The difference with this one is that it pertains
to a fundamental change in how broadcasters
manage their entire operation, not just their
assets. Let’s defi ne it.
Media Operations Management (MOM) is the
process of analysing and appraising a broadcast
operation – its assets, systems, people and
resources – and then optimising it to make it better.
Unlike Media Asset Management (MAM),
which gives users a visibility of their assets, and
in some cases, automates various processes,
MOM is designed to enable broadcasters and
other media businesses to continuously track
and then improve performance right across
their operation. It is the practice of capturing
information about the media production and
delivery chain and then delivering a clear picture
of exactly what’s going on, where and how.
Why do it? Simple. MOM makes it possible
for broadcasters to spot bottlenecks, reduce
redundancy and proactively deal with the
effi ciency challenges and issues they face.
MAM might track your assets but MOM tracks
everything else as well.
By providing accurate data and intelligence
MOM helps to increase the understanding of
exactly how a broadcast operation, well,
operates. Increased understanding allows for
improved workfl ows. Improved workfl ows
means more effi ciency. More effi ciency
makes everyone happy, from the
staff on the shop fl oor to the fi nancial
director. And the improvement
cycle continues. Knowledge truly is power. If
you’re not convinced, let’s take a temporary
step backwards.
Running a media business is more complex,
more challenging and more dynamic than it has
ever been. Across the TV industry, budgetary
pressures are intense. In fact, it’s never been more
important to do more with less (and to keep doing
even more with even less as the market changes).
With the explosion of possible distribution
channels, every operation is now faced with
delivering content across more platforms, in more
places, to ever-tighter deadlines. This makes
ensuring operations work as effi ciently as possible
is a key priority. But many media companies are
struggling to keep up.
Supplementiv TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
Let MOM transform your businessMedia Operations Management (MOM) is more than just another acronym, it signifi es a fundamental change in how broadcasters manage their entire operation
TVBEurope vJuly 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Supplement
The question is: why aren’t media businesses doing
the same? It is possible to point to three reasons:
media products are predominantly focused
around highly changeable digital assets; each
‘product’ may have multiple versions existing at
the same time; and the business must be able
to react quickly to changing circumstances,
avoiding costly last minute changes.
These differences mean that, while the
approaches behind traditional ERP systems
still apply, the systems themselves are not
appropriate to today’s media operations.
In addition, media businesses tend to have
their own unique way of working which is often a
poor fi t for more generalist systems. Consequently,
operators need to be able to customise an
application, unlocking the best approach for their
specifi c needs. Which brings us neatly back to our
acronyms. MOM is the media industry’s ERP.
At its heart, MOM should have three core
building blocks:
1) A core integration platform that connects
disparate systems and processes
2) An orchestration engine that allows users
to model workfl ows and processes across
departments, resources and people, automating
them where appropriate
3) Graphical dashboards that offer confi gurable
real-time views of how resources are being used
by user, department or project
These are the foundations upon which
Sony built Media Backbone Conductor (MBC).
Admittedly, that’s another acronym. But MBC
is a MOM that enables broadcasters to create,
sustain and continuously improve the workfl ows
that underpin everything they produce.
MBC provides a detailed picture of resources
and assets, people and processes, and their
capacity, availability and downtime. Users can
orchestrate and unify all the disparate systems
they use on a daily basis: from transcoding,
ingest and planning through to editing, playout
and distribution.
It is also possible to automate manual,
repetitive tasks – such as creating, adapting,
approving and distributing content – making
them easier, faster and more cost effective.
To see how the operation is doing, users
can access customisable business intelligence
dashboards. These provide a real-time graphical
view of the complete broadcast operation,
tracking how individuals, departments and
projects use resources. With this knowledge,
it is then possible to identify areas for
improved workfl ows that can be embedded
into the system. A comprehensive workfl ow
design environment makes is possible to
test and model new processes, and
simulate what impact they will have,
before deploying them.
With live process monitoring it is possible to
quickly and easily view data fl ows and spot
bottlenecks, and other problems, and solve them.
Similarly, a prioritisation module makes it
possible to reassign tasks and resources to meet
changing requirements and allows a broadcaster
to focus on the assets or issues that really matter.
Importantly, adding MBC to a broadcast
operation doesn’t require a complete overhaul
of existing systems.
Applied as middleware, either on site or in the
cloud, it can be applied in an agile, rather than
‘big bang’ way, growing over time and integrating
with existing MAMs and other third-party systems.
Apologies for using another acronym but it also
adheres to standard SOA (Service Oriented
Architecture) integration principles.
By embedding core tools from SOA
platform provider Software AG, and by using
Open Standards and protocols for software
development, there is less of the risk normally
associated with having a single vendor providing
a technology solution.
Applying MOM principals to a broadcast
operation can take users far beyond the
limitations of MAM. And, by adopting MBC
in particular, users get an open orchestration
platform, in-depth workfl ow engine and
actionable business intelligence that can
transform the way they work. And no amount of
acronyms can defl ect from that. n
‘Why do it? Simple. MOM makes is possible for broadcasters to spot bottlenecks, reduce
redundancy and proactively deal with the effi ciency challenges and issues they face. MAM might track your assets but MOM
tracks everything else as well’
In association with
Benefi ts of using Media Backbone Conductor• Save time: Increasing effi ciency and
cutting production time as you automate processes and workfl ows
• Reduce and focus: Making better use of existing resources – from people to facilities
• Gain control: Managing technology integrations more effectively, realising a greater return on your investment
• Save money: Avoiding costly capital expenditure and making the most of the
systems you already have• Increase fl exibility: Enabling you to adapt
to ongoing changes in the industry• Catch errors early so you can schedule
fi xes in good time and avoid using emergency cash
• Plan ahead: Gaining a way to plan more effectively for the future while minimising risks
www.pro.sony.eu/MBC
“Over the last few years, digital tools have created new possibilities for our teams in terms of creative production, swift acquisition and multi-platform distribution of content; we
wanted to harness digital technology to benefi t our asset management in the same way… By selecting Media Backbone Conductor we’ve been able to modernise our existing
workfl ow while retaining the necessary fl exibility to adapt and extend our approach as our business requirements change in the future”
Steve Fish, department head of technology and operations, Turner Broadcasting System Europe
6 interactive Target Areas to monitor to achieve improved ROI
ROI
leg
acy
scal
abilit
y
e�ciency reduction
cost
onscreenm
orereven
ue +
The largest media organisations are often
inherently siloed, with different teams rarely
aware of what another is doing. This makes
gaining the perspective needed to affect long-
lasting, meaningful change almost impossible.
Fortunately, there is a solution.
As much as people hate to admit it, while
broadcasting is, in many ways, at the cutting
edge when it comes to innovation, in some
ways, it still lags behind other industries. Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) is one example.
There are, of course, many unique aspects to
running a media operation. No one can pretend
it’s the same as manufacturing a car, or running
a retail business, or being a consultancy. But
broadcasters still need to gain true visibility across
their operations, have a requirement to manage
both fi xed and variable costs, and absolutely
must get stuff done on time and on budget.
In a manufacturing plant, ERP integrates all the
individual processes that organisations use in order
to operate effectively. It prevents separate silos
obscuring a true picture of the business. And by
offering a ‘single version of the truth’ it can uncover
ineffi ciencies within operations. It provides key
metrics such as utilisation rates, on-time delivery
fi gures and profi tability analysis: the kind of data
that is often impossible to fi nd in media operations,
but would be very helpful indeed.
Broadcast Innovation Ltd is a specialist independent
broadcast and media solutions consultant. The
illustration snapshots part of fast track process used
with broadcasters, pay-TV operators and service
providers to successfully plan new technology
investment and solutions architecture for next
generation tv and media services.
new tvbe template remade.indd 3 17/06/2016 16:38
So, you’ve got a news story to tell. How do
you go about telling it to the world?
In the Middle Ages, news would have
been passed to the masses via word-of-mouth, a
church service, or the King’s offi cial messenger. It
was rudimental but it worked.
In 2016, of course, we have the relative luxury
of television, radio and, increasingly, the internet.
But while news dissemination is undoubtedly
quicker now than it was 500 years ago, it is also
infi nitely more complex. In fact, it’s infi nitely
more complex than it was fi ve or ten years ago
because the way that people consume their
news continues to change.
Television news is still highly relevant,
especially to people of a certain age, and
particularly in countries where it is reported
without censor, such as the UK.
According to industry regulator Ofcom, 75
per cent of British people still get their news
through TV. For people aged 55 and over
that fi gure reaches 90 per cent. The millennial
generation, however, sees and hears things
rather differently. The majority of 16 to 24-year-
olds use the internet or apps. In 2014, 60 per cent
of that age group got their daily news fi x that
way. That fi gure will have grown signifi cantly
in the two years since the research was carried
out. At the same time, evidence suggests that
the more devices a person owns, the more news
they are likely to consume.
The upshot of all this is that there is now a
huge demand for online news: and people
want it on different devices, via their preferred
purveyor, and they don’t want to wait for it.
They want it now.
Sadly, that means that the King’s messenger is
probably out of a job. But then, so it seems, are
some traditional broadcasters.
The reality today is that news often breaks
initially on social media with the earliest
exposure to a story coming from whoever is
fi rst on the scene, armed with their Twitter app
and their smartphone. Sometimes this is a news
journalist but more often than not it is a member
of the public.
As a result, the “internet of news” is now the
fi rst place that people turn to. They might move
on to a rolling news channel or wait for the 10pm
bulletin to get the full picture, but the web is their
fi rst port of call.
This is having a signifi cant impact on how
news organisations create, develop and
distribute their stories and many are now taking
an internet-fi rst approach, creating stories for
digital media and then developing them for
broadcast later.
Wireless cameras, video streaming, and
social networks can help the journalist in the fi eld
get their stories to air (or the web) quicker, but
what can help the newsroom when, in a world
of instant updates, “now” is the new deadline?
At the same time, for the man or woman on
the street with his or her smartphone, there is little
consideration for integrity or balance. Speed
is the only concern. For news broadcasters,
editorial control remains critical. As they have
always done, editors must add insight and
context if the news is to be relevant and must
ensure accuracy and fairness if they’re to
maintain their status and reputation. They just
have to do it much quicker.
And here’s the real quandary. If traditional,
newscast-driven processes get in the way of
internet-fi rst publishing, the organisation can
disappear from its potential viewers’ mindshare
and, perhaps more importantly, their newsfeeds.
But, if rushing to get out multiple versions of
a story compromises the quality of that story,
the organisation loses the audience’s trust, its
brand reputation diminishes and viewers leave
anyway. Can a newsroom have it both ways?
Is it possible to have a news production process
that incorporates the central story across
multiple media, without hindering the journalist’s
ability to fact-check, double-source and polish
a story? The short answer is yes. And it comes
down to improved operations management.
The NRCS (News Room Computer System)
is still the beating heart of a news organisation,
connecting all the vital equipment that is used
to put a news bulletin on air. But while it is crucial
to success, the NRCS is mainly focusing on
the editorial side of news production leaving
the actual content creation to dedicated
production systems.
In a modern newsroom, the NRCS needs
to be able to go beyond broadcast news to
allow one story to be told in different ways, via
different platforms. One option is to buy a better
Supplementvi TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
The end of broadcast news?By focussing on operations management, broadcasters can regain control of the increasingly complicated news production process and still be fi rst with the story
TVBEurope viiJuly 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Supplement
NRCS. But no broadcaster wants to throw away
a system that is familiar to their news team and,
very probably, required signifi cant investment.
One solution, therefore, is not to replace the
NCRS but to bolster it with a network production
system that helps to improve how the whole
operation is managed. That is why Sony
launched Media Backbone Hive.
The successor to the SONAPS news
production system, Hive is a scalable journalist-
centric software layer that can be deployed
in-house or off premises in a data centre.
Making use of Hyper Convergent Node
technology in the back-end, and providing
operations analysis via customisable dashboards
at the front, Hive streamlines, and provides
control of, the news production operation,
integrating third-party tools, providing fl exible fi le
management capabilities and offering built-in
applications of its own.
Hive oversees all the different elements that
connect to an NRCS, across import, production,
publishing, planning, archive and playout (see
benefi ts list). And, by combining NRCS control
with networked news production capabilities,
it simplifi es the task of getting news out quickly
and accurately to multiple people, on multiple
devices, from anywhere in the world.
Journalists can read the wires, pull video,
edit it, collaborate with remote correspondents
and other journalists – just like a traditional
NRCS operation – but now they can take
it much further. They can also do all the
additional production work that’s increasingly
the norm: creating different versions for
different media, publishing fast, and allowing
partners to brand their own versions. And
they can do it without the need to waste time
jumping from old system to new system.
Ultimately, it means broadcasters can tackle
the challenge of adopting an internet-fi rst
news production approach without completely
changing the broadcast production process.
News consumption in the 21st century is a
complicated business but news production
doesn’t have to be. And we certainly don’t
have to go back to the Middle Ages to make
it simple again. n
‘If traditional, newscast-driven processes get in the way of internet-fi rst publishing,
the organisation can disappear from its potential viewers’ mindshare and, perhaps
more importantly, their newsfeeds’
‘It simplifi es the task of getting news out quickly and accurately to multiple
people, on multiple devices, from anywhere in the world’
In association with
Benefi ts of Media Backbone Hive• Integrated assignment and planning
automatically gets journalists up to speed, sending assignments direct to their cameras, linking and structuring key assets.
• Multiple ingest capabilities intelligently route video inputs to the right places, making a proxy available to all users instantly.
• Key metadata is linked to news content – Hive automatically updates newsroom systems with new content.
• Full integration with wireless cameras enables journalists to begin editing with proxy footage as soon as it’s shot and then effortlessly switch to high res fi les when they’re available.
• Hive is fi le agnostic working with any fi le type, format or resolution, whether video, audio or non-media.
• Simple and advanced logging can add markers in real time, building metadata that’s immediately usable.
• Journalists can quickly and easily search the entire newsroom system to fi nd what they need – whether current or archived content, or material arriving in the moment.
• The system enables story creation wherever it’s needed on the system, in a web-based environment, or remotely in the fi eld.
• Hive publishing serves both traditional TV playout as well as social media, web and mobile ensuring the story is delivered on time every time – plus the server houses all content ready for air, keeping it secure and separate from source fi les.
www.pro.sony.eu/hive
new tvbe template remade.indd 2 17/06/2016 16:31
So, you’ve got a news story to tell. How do
you go about telling it to the world?
In the Middle Ages, news would have
been passed to the masses via word-of-mouth, a
church service, or the King’s offi cial messenger. It
was rudimental but it worked.
In 2016, of course, we have the relative luxury
of television, radio and, increasingly, the internet.
But while news dissemination is undoubtedly
quicker now than it was 500 years ago, it is also
infi nitely more complex. In fact, it’s infi nitely
more complex than it was fi ve or ten years ago
because the way that people consume their
news continues to change.
Television news is still highly relevant,
especially to people of a certain age, and
particularly in countries where it is reported
without censor, such as the UK.
According to industry regulator Ofcom, 75
per cent of British people still get their news
through TV. For people aged 55 and over
that fi gure reaches 90 per cent. The millennial
generation, however, sees and hears things
rather differently. The majority of 16 to 24-year-
olds use the internet or apps. In 2014, 60 per cent
of that age group got their daily news fi x that
way. That fi gure will have grown signifi cantly
in the two years since the research was carried
out. At the same time, evidence suggests that
the more devices a person owns, the more news
they are likely to consume.
The upshot of all this is that there is now a
huge demand for online news: and people
want it on different devices, via their preferred
purveyor, and they don’t want to wait for it.
They want it now.
Sadly, that means that the King’s messenger is
probably out of a job. But then, so it seems, are
some traditional broadcasters.
The reality today is that news often breaks
initially on social media with the earliest
exposure to a story coming from whoever is
fi rst on the scene, armed with their Twitter app
and their smartphone. Sometimes this is a news
journalist but more often than not it is a member
of the public.
As a result, the “internet of news” is now the
fi rst place that people turn to. They might move
on to a rolling news channel or wait for the 10pm
bulletin to get the full picture, but the web is their
fi rst port of call.
This is having a signifi cant impact on how
news organisations create, develop and
distribute their stories and many are now taking
an internet-fi rst approach, creating stories for
digital media and then developing them for
broadcast later.
Wireless cameras, video streaming, and
social networks can help the journalist in the fi eld
get their stories to air (or the web) quicker, but
what can help the newsroom when, in a world
of instant updates, “now” is the new deadline?
At the same time, for the man or woman on
the street with his or her smartphone, there is little
consideration for integrity or balance. Speed
is the only concern. For news broadcasters,
editorial control remains critical. As they have
always done, editors must add insight and
context if the news is to be relevant and must
ensure accuracy and fairness if they’re to
maintain their status and reputation. They just
have to do it much quicker.
And here’s the real quandary. If traditional,
newscast-driven processes get in the way of
internet-fi rst publishing, the organisation can
disappear from its potential viewers’ mindshare
and, perhaps more importantly, their newsfeeds.
But, if rushing to get out multiple versions of
a story compromises the quality of that story,
the organisation loses the audience’s trust, its
brand reputation diminishes and viewers leave
anyway. Can a newsroom have it both ways?
Is it possible to have a news production process
that incorporates the central story across
multiple media, without hindering the journalist’s
ability to fact-check, double-source and polish
a story? The short answer is yes. And it comes
down to improved operations management.
The NRCS (News Room Computer System)
is still the beating heart of a news organisation,
connecting all the vital equipment that is used
to put a news bulletin on air. But while it is crucial
to success, the NRCS is mainly focusing on
the editorial side of news production leaving
the actual content creation to dedicated
production systems.
In a modern newsroom, the NRCS needs
to be able to go beyond broadcast news to
allow one story to be told in different ways, via
different platforms. One option is to buy a better
Supplementvi TVBEurope www.tvbeurope.com July 2016
The end of broadcast news?By focussing on operations management, broadcasters can regain control of the increasingly complicated news production process and still be fi rst with the story
TVBEurope viiJuly 2016 www.tvbeurope.com
Supplement
NRCS. But no broadcaster wants to throw away
a system that is familiar to their news team and,
very probably, required signifi cant investment.
One solution, therefore, is not to replace the
NCRS but to bolster it with a network production
system that helps to improve how the whole
operation is managed. That is why Sony
launched Media Backbone Hive.
The successor to the SONAPS news
production system, Hive is a scalable journalist-
centric software layer that can be deployed
in-house or off premises in a data centre.
Making use of Hyper Convergent Node
technology in the back-end, and providing
operations analysis via customisable dashboards
at the front, Hive streamlines, and provides
control of, the news production operation,
integrating third-party tools, providing fl exible fi le
management capabilities and offering built-in
applications of its own.
Hive oversees all the different elements that
connect to an NRCS, across import, production,
publishing, planning, archive and playout (see
benefi ts list). And, by combining NRCS control
with networked news production capabilities,
it simplifi es the task of getting news out quickly
and accurately to multiple people, on multiple
devices, from anywhere in the world.
Journalists can read the wires, pull video,
edit it, collaborate with remote correspondents
and other journalists – just like a traditional
NRCS operation – but now they can take
it much further. They can also do all the
additional production work that’s increasingly
the norm: creating different versions for
different media, publishing fast, and allowing
partners to brand their own versions. And
they can do it without the need to waste time
jumping from old system to new system.
Ultimately, it means broadcasters can tackle
the challenge of adopting an internet-fi rst
news production approach without completely
changing the broadcast production process.
News consumption in the 21st century is a
complicated business but news production
doesn’t have to be. And we certainly don’t
have to go back to the Middle Ages to make
it simple again. n
‘If traditional, newscast-driven processes get in the way of internet-fi rst publishing,
the organisation can disappear from its potential viewers’ mindshare and, perhaps
more importantly, their newsfeeds’
‘It simplifi es the task of getting news out quickly and accurately to multiple
people, on multiple devices, from anywhere in the world’
In association with
Benefi ts of Media Backbone Hive• Integrated assignment and planning
automatically gets journalists up to speed, sending assignments direct to their cameras, linking and structuring key assets.
• Multiple ingest capabilities intelligently route video inputs to the right places, making a proxy available to all users instantly.
• Key metadata is linked to news content – Hive automatically updates newsroom systems with new content.
• Full integration with wireless cameras enables journalists to begin editing with proxy footage as soon as it’s shot and then effortlessly switch to high res fi les when they’re available.
• Hive is fi le agnostic working with any fi le type, format or resolution, whether video, audio or non-media.
• Simple and advanced logging can add markers in real time, building metadata that’s immediately usable.
• Journalists can quickly and easily search the entire newsroom system to fi nd what they need – whether current or archived content, or material arriving in the moment.
• The system enables story creation wherever it’s needed on the system, in a web-based environment, or remotely in the fi eld.
• Hive publishing serves both traditional TV playout as well as social media, web and mobile ensuring the story is delivered on time every time – plus the server houses all content ready for air, keeping it secure and separate from source fi les.
www.pro.sony.eu/hive
new tvbe template remade.indd 3 17/06/2016 16:31
www.pro.sony.eu/hivewww.pro.sony.eu/MBC