Business integration in today’s over the-top world

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

Business Integration in Today’s

Over-the-Top World

A SintecMedia Solution Profile

Contributors:

Bob Lamb – Managing Director OTTilus, SintecMedia

Ryan Waldon-Leigh - Head of Presales, SintecMedia

Fabrice Beer-Gabel, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing, SintecMedia

Stephen Kyefulumya, Vice President Sales, APAC, SintecMedia

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

Contents

� 1. Introduction ................................................................ iii

� 2. The Content Explosion .............................................. iv

� 3. Rich and Efficient Scheduling and Programming ....... v

� 4. Metadata Management .............................................. vi

� 5. Effective Rights Exploitation ..................................... vii

� 6. Media Complexity ..................................................... vii

� 7. Monetizing OTT Services ........................................ viii

� 8. In Conclusion .............................................................. x

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

1. Introduction

In today’s highly connected era, the open Internet is paving the way for next-generation television

and video services that were inconceivable only a few short years ago. As a result, consumer

demand and viewer expectations are placing tremendous pressure on broadcasters and content

providers. Media organizations steeped in traditional, linear content delivery must figure out how to

evolve their operations to accommodate non-linear services such as VOD and catch-up TV – and also

to deliver broadcast-quality content on the full range of platforms ranging from gaming consoles,

mobile phones and tablets to PCs and smart TVs. They have to accomplish all of this in a manner that

is not only cost-effective, but also opens the door to new revenues and new ways to monetize

content.

It’s a tall order that needs a careful and well-thought-out strategy that seamlessly incorporates OTT

delivery into existing workflows and systems. With the right business management tools,

broadcasters can introduce this lucrative new service into the existing operation in a fashion that

minimizes delivery time, optimizes available resources and maximizes profits. An essential

component is an OTT solution that tightly integrates business operations around workflows,

metadata, rights, ad campaigns and analytics — while supporting ubiquitous delivery of premium

content to all devices and ensuring the best-possible user experience.

Pilat Media, recently acquired by SintecMedia, has built a large customer base of leading media

organizations that manage billions of dollars of ad revenue and many thousands of linear and non-

linear services through its flagship Integrated Broadcast Management System (IBMS). Leveraging a

single database, a unified business logic layer and an enterprise-class workflow architecture, IBMS

replaces multiple disparate systems with a centralized information hub, designed to keep the

broadcast business running at peak efficiency. Content management, scheduling, airtimes sales,

media trafficking and more are integrated in one easy- to-navigate GUI environment - optimizing

utilization of airtime, broadcast rights and other resources. This enterprise class system can easily

scale to handle new content, service offerings and delivery platforms to integrate multi-screen, non-

linear and targeted services into your business and operations, however complex they may be. By

providing a unique ability to design and deliver cross platform campaigns, this overall solution offers

broadcasters much better monetization opportunities. As part of the recent acquisition,

SintecMedia now also offers the OTTilus suite of enterprise-class OTT solutions that enable

broadcasters, platform operators, and new media ventures to launch the next generation of TV

Everywhere services.

This paper will take a deeper dive into the challenges of OTT delivery and describe the IBMS

approach, which enables a fully integrated media operation in which OTT is managed simply as an

adjunct to existing broadcast services. We will describe how workflow, analytics, metadata, rights,

scheduling, and media can be centrally managed across all delivery platforms to maximize

efficiencies and exploit new revenue sources.

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

2. The Content Explosion

Content has never been so pervasive, nor has it been available on such a wide range of screens and

devices. To be successful, today’s media organizations must embrace the “everywhereness” of

content and ensure that it is available not only on today’s delivery platforms, but can be easily

ported to future outlets. Just like traditional broadcast, one of the key factors to the success of an

OTT service is how attractive the content library is. So ‘Content is still King’ - and OTT services are

just another way to reach customers. The issue is not ‘how do I prevent the erosion of viewers from

my traditional linear channels?’ rather, ‘how do I best reach the viewer where they want to

consume my content and keep them aware of my content across platforms?’

To achieve this, broadcasters must have a unified approach that drives audiences either to their

traditional linear offerings or to the OTT services and vice versa.

As shown in figure 1 below, a content creator such as Showtime must think beyond its core pay TV

channels (e.g. Showtime, Smithsonian, and The Movie Channel) to make sure the content is also

delivered to branded multiplatform services such as the Showtime Anytime offering for

smartphones and tablets. Next, the content must be easily distributed out to affiliates as well as

Internet streaming services such as Amazon, iTunes, and Hulu, and the content provider’s own

branded channels on self-publishing sites such as YouTube.

Figure 1 – Content Everywhere

Widespread distribution of content to every device and outlet is just one aspect of the challenge;

the quality of delivery is equally important. In fact, an effective multi-screen operation is not just

concerned with delivery to every possible platform, but it also takes into account factors such as

second-screen viewing in which consumers might watch a program on one screen while at the same

time accessing additional added-value content and related metadata on another. Another key

aspect of the multi-platform world is personalization; with an effective means for viewers to interact

with each other and discuss content, media organizations can maximize the marketing and

advertising impact of any OTT service.

Providing these types of user experiences isn’t free, and it isn’t likely to provide much short-term

revenue – but if implemented correctly, OTT offers powerful long-term rewards. Successful OTT

implementation requires a business integration strategy that seeks to efficiently incorporate OTT

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

into existing workflows, with consideration given to programming, rights exploitation and rights

management, media preparation workflows, monetization and analytics.

3. Rich and Efficient Scheduling and

Programming

Scheduling is one of the first items to consider when implementing OTT services, because of the

added complexity of programming a piece of content for many different platforms and services.

Customers expect a consistent and multifaceted experience when they subscribe to a media brand,

which results in a highly complex behind-the-scenes maze of different outlets and devices that must

be programmed.

Figure 2 shows a multiplatform scheduling matrix that leverages a broadcast management system

(BMS) to schedule programs and services across all types of devices. Key here is a BMS that helps

identify and leverage synergies between the linear and nonlinear areas of the business. For example,

it’s possible to link both types of services for automated capture processing if the BMS provides the

capability of automatically processing rights by checking that rights are valid for each outlet and

making sure the rights are enforced throughout the product lifecycle.

Figure 2 - Multiplatform Scheduling Matrix

This linear/nonlinear synergy creates powerful opportunities to coordinate marketing efforts across

the business, with a consolidated planning team managing the scheduling of assets and applying a

common look and feel that can be adapted for each outlet. Sharing common attributes and

metadata across all services is another way of building a brand identity that resonates with

customers. Consistent branding also extends to the customer’s navigation experience. With each

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

EPG reflecting a common look and feel, customers are always reminded of the brand – and it

enables them to search and discover content in a familiar way.

4. Metadata Management

Another critical factor for consolidated programming is a BMS that provides a single point of entry

for sharing assets across all services, with a centralized view of rights and scheduling and a central

metadata repository. In fact, metadata management is the key to successful branding and the

driving force behind the customer experience, so it’s critical that the scheduling function provide a

set of checks that ensure the correct levels of metadata for every asset to be programmed.

Figure 3 – Behind the Scenes of a Multi-Platform Operation

Every media enterprise has enormous banks of existing metadata within the business, some of it

self-originated and some perhaps purchased from external sources. It’s also possible to use

automated workflows to import metadata from outside the broadcast operation to further enrich

content; examples might be social media, content from movie database websites, or user reviews

and ratings. Once the centralized metadata repository is in place, that metadata can be easily

exploited to build a strong and consistent brand across all services.

In one recent example in the U.K., ITV embarked on a very successful rebranding exercise in which

all outlets were viewed as potential points of interaction with customers. The broadcaster

established consistent packaging for every aspect of the business including linear, nonlinear, OTT,

and pay TV, with a recognizable and familiar look and feel for the EPG and common metadata for all

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

assets regardless of the devices on which they would be consumed. The overall effect for consumers

was one of added value and an improved experience.

5. Effective Rights Exploitation

In a perfect world, deals would be all-encompassing and allow us to use content whenever and

wherever the business requires – but today’s reality, of course, is much more complex. It’s no longer

just a question of territory; now, rights are increasingly complex and content-dependent and require

the ability to check across days’ or weeks’ worth of schedules on other platforms. Therefore, a

central repository for managing rights, closely linked to scheduling and media operations, has

become an absolute necessity. Another critical component is the ability to expose the rights

information to external resources such as DRM and scheduling systems, to ensure rights

enforcement all the way to content delivery. With this central repository, operators can ensure the

proper exploitation of all rights and generate accurate reporting on their usage thereby reaping the

best value out of the huge investment the company has made in rights and content.

In a typical contract, play rights or runs no longer apply just to the linear business but to all types of

output. Operators need the ability to restrict the number of times a piece of content has been

placed in the nonlinear schedule and the length of time in which it will stay in the schedule. They

also need the ability to manage catch-up, which might have a dependency on the linear schedule

and also a lag or duration that is fixed in the contract. These details need to be captured up front by

the rights management system because they impact how the operation will enforce those rights

downstream when operators start scheduling and using the content.

Rights do not just cover scheduling of content but also may restrict how the content can be used in a

media operation; e.g. languaging or editing rights that also need to be enforced downstream. So

rights management solutions must also monitor and control the media operations side of the

business.

Another complex aspect of rights management is conditional rights that govern the number of times

content has been scheduled in a given month on a given platform, or details such as ensuring the

content premiers on a particular linear channel before being played on a nonlinear service. These

conditional rights are extremely difficult to manage and it’s impractical to code a rule for each

purpose; therefore IBMS has addressed this requirement with a business rules engine that allows

rights conditions to be added at will as new business rules, and a dictionary of objects with which to

populate those rules.

6. Media Complexity

Another area massively impacted by the proliferation of OTT services is media operations. It’s no

longer a question of dealing with one unified playout format for the linear business and broadcast;

now you’re required to deal with multiple versions and copies of versions for each and every asset.

Adding one device to the maze of services suddenly means the addition of 10 to 15 different assets

in different bitrates, formats, aspect ratios, and other factors. This type of complexity is difficult if

not impossible to manage manually; it will likely require additional headcount and won’t provide the

flexibility you need to cope with the increased volumes of content.

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

Therefore, a modern broadcast operation relies on a centralized workflow management system that

provides intelligent, scalable workflows that deal with each asset in an automated fashion;

operators only step in when problems crop up or exceptions need to be dealt with. In fact, one Pilat

Media client has used this approach to triple its output without increasing its headcount.

Figure 4 illustrates a typical end-to-end flow of an asset for OTT delivery, with each stage offering

the potential to use workflow and automated processes for handling the increased volumes of

content. Linking linear and nonlinear scheduling together in one broadcast operation allows you to

enforce the rules in the contract and automatically create the catch-up required across all devices.

For media operations in particular, this approach provides a schedule-driven, automatically

generated set of work orders for media preparation with each asset carrying a priority and delivery

requirement that is calculated from the schedule. If the schedule changes or an asset is removed

entirely, the system automatically updates all related tasks to reflect the change in priority – moving

content forward and re-prioritizing and escalating all work orders to reflect the change.

Figure 4 – Business Operation End-to-End flow of an asset for OTT delivery

7. Monetizing OTT Services

One of side benefits of OTT deployment is a rich set of data gleaned from customer behavior that

can be used to identify trends, and when used in conjunction with the centralized metadata

approach, provide powerful input into customers’ consumption habits.

This data can be leveraged for advertising and upsell marketing campaigns; for instance, data on

when customers were buffering content and how long it was taking could be used to market an

upgraded, faster Internet connection. Other campaigns could provide a loyalty bonus by adding OTT

as a value-added service, or provide discounts and coupons on partner websites.

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

A strong metadata repository that cross-references all content can enable a wide range of marketing

possibilities; for instance, for a customer watching content in a particular genre, you can promote

another, similar genre. Campaigns around timing can also be effective; for instance, offering the

premier of a popular series on the OTT service before it’s available on another outlet for additional

revenue. Or, just prior to the premier of the new season of the series, you could offer the previous

two seasons as a package for binge viewers who want to come up to speed on the program.

Not only do these types of campaigns increase the perceived value for the customer, but they

provide incremental revenue with no additional investment; it’s just a matter of re-packaging

because you know from your centralized metadata repository that the content is already in place.

It’s the age of the “virtual water cooler,” and often a program shoots to the top of the charts

because of the buzz created around it via social networks. Here is another powerful marketing

opportunity that requires little or no capital outlay: supplemental content available over the Internet

or on a mobile app that gives viewers additional insight into the content they’re watching. Again,

this type of rich data delivery is possible because of the integration of all metadata sources in the

centralized repository.

Maximising the ad revenue is key to a good monetization strategy and a solution that provides the

broadcaster more control of their inventory across all platforms is central to this. An integrated

solution provides the ability to deliver cross platform campaigns and opens the gateway to much

stronger revenue generation by offering unified campaigns on the linear channels as well as the OTT

offerings. Use of ad servers like Google’s Double Click to serve the ads has been common; however,

this needs to be complemented by the ability for the broadcasters to tightly control and recognise all

the revenue from their ads especially around their premium shows.

Figure 5 – Integrated Cross Platform Ad Sales Management

SintecMedia | Contact: Stephen Kyefulumya, VP Sales Asia Pacific; [email protected], M: +61 (0) 400 395 936 |

www.sintecmedia.com

8. In Conclusion

To summarize, success in today’s complex OTT world boils down to three key components:

� Ensuring the “Everywhereness” of content by programming it on all available platforms,

� Creating a viewer experience that brings customers back to your service again and again,

and

� Creating business efficiencies that help maximize profitability and exploit new revenue

sources.

All of these capabilities require tight integration between business and media operations, and the

ability to utilize workflows and resources that are already in place through centralized management

of rights, scheduling and metadata.

OTT is introducing new paradigms around content programming and the viewer experience,

resulting in heightened viewer expectations and exponential new demands on the media operation.

For these challenges to be met, media organizations must tightly integrate broadcast and OTT

services within the operation as well as programming and customer experience management. This

tight integration is at the heart of the SintecMedia’s mission to provide media customers with a

business management framework for highly profitable, popular, and successful OTT delivery.

Figure 6 – A fully integrated broadcast operation for traditional TV and OTT ecosystem