digital broadcast

VOLUME 2 ISSUE 3 MARCH 2009

THE BUSINESS OF DIGITAL CONTENT DELIVERY An ITP Business Publication

Showcasing the region’s leading broadcast technology innovators

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CONTENTS

MARCH 2009

34OUTFOXEDFox International Channels poised to carve a

profi table niche in the region’s FTA TV sector.

18SELLING SOCIALTailored enterprise social media applications

are being leveraged to create new media assets.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE...

44BOXED INTh e STB industry is in a state of fl ux as

vendors jostle to uncover a killer app.

THE BRIEFINGNew Iraq DVB-H launch

confi rmed; Al Jazeera English

seeks Nth American carriage.

WEB HIGHLIGHTSSpot poll: Pay TV service

factors; top reader source

markets; editor’s pick.

WORLD DATELINEUS delays analogue switch-off ;

African pay TV operator goes

bust; Endemol expands its

operations in Brazil. COVER STORY: TELEVISIONARIESDigital Broadcast profi les 10 of the

region’s most innovative content

delivery services.

MARKET ANALYSISMENA HD channels on brink of

momentous expansion.

5

10

12

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EDITORIAL

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COMMENT

MARCH 2009 03

SHOW OFSTRENGTHI f trade show attendance can be used as

a barometer of the health of a particular

industry, then the forecast for the

broadcast, media and communications

business is less gloomy than many would have

you believe.

Th e region’s very own CABSAT, the Mobile

World Congress in Barcelona and the behemoth

that is NAB are upon us, and so far the outlook,

for these key events, is genuinely positive.

Some may point to Quantel’s recent decision

to pull out of NAB as an indicator of an

impending collapse.

But in the past year Quantel and high-

profi le end users such as Dreamworks, have

been leveraging 3D technology to great eff ect.

Th is buzz has even been picked up by the

mainstream press creating a self perpetuating

promotional machine. Th is sort of publicity is

priceless and Quantel has done an excellent job

of ensuring that it benefi tted from some of the

spotlight shining on 3D production.

Th e industry had similar doom mongering

when Apple dropped out of NAB 2008 (pre-

economic slowdown). Th is decision was based

less on any perceived failing of NAB, but more

to do with the fact that Apple – as the company

said at the time – had established a chain of

retail stores and a web portal that connected it

with 100 million professionals.

However, Quantel and Apple are special cases,

and the vast majority of exhibitors at any of the

three big shows would not consider missing out.

On the local front, 80 percent of last year’s

CABSAT exhibitors rebooked on site for the

2009 edition. Th e show has also broken its own

record for attracting new exhibitors (there

will be 60 debutants this year) and the 2009

instalment will feature more fl oor space than

last year.

Ultimately, the trade show looks set to remain

a key date on the calendar for most, even if this

year’s event may be a slightly trimmed down

instalment of previous aff airs.

Pessimistic elements within the press have

suggested that reduced corporate travel will

lead to lower footfall at trade shows across all

sectors, as companies ruthlessly cut staff from

their travel plans and opt to take only the most

essential employees.

Th at may sound ominous, however in the run-

up to IBC 2008 I was mistakenly included on the

internal emails of a medium-sized exhibitor. I

was sent the hotel allocation list and there were

more than 50 representatives of that company

in Amsterdam.

If this number were limited to only essential

sales and marketing staff would the company

have generated less business? Would the

smaller companies that sought to do business

with them, have been unable to garner any

sales? It is doubtful.

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Mobision offi cials last month confi rmed that Iraq’s

DVB-H mobile television service would launch on

March 10.

Th e mobile TV rollout was initially postponed in

late-January, when the company cited Iraq’s pro-

vincial elections as the reason behind the delay.

Despite the delay, Alsumaria TV’s 20-channel

Mobision service will still be the fi rst DVB-H-based

mobile TV off ering to launch in the Middle East.

Th e service will be hosted independently by Mo-

bision, without the involvement of a mobile net-

IRAQ DVB-H LAUNCH DATE SET FOLLOWING DELAYMobision service will now boast improved coverage and signal quality

Operator Mobision has used the additional time gained from the delay to extend network coverage and build support infrastructure.

MARCH 2009 05

THE BRIEFING

SATELLITE BROADBAND DETAILS REVEALED

Abu Dhabi based satellite operator Yahsat has revealed pricing details of its YahClick satellite-delivered broadband service to Digital Broadcast.

Scheduled for launch in 2011, once the company’s second satellite, Yahsat 1B is in orbit, YahClick will offer broadband speed internet in areas outside of fi xed networks. The service will be available in more than 20 territories throughout the Middle East and Africa.

“User terminals will cost in the range of US $350 to $400 and service plans will start at $30 per month,” revealed Yahsat CCO, Shawkat Ahmed.

“There will also be other packages available for more demanding consumers and some tailored specifi cally for the needs of enterprise customers,” he added.

“The service has been devel-oped to address the gap in the broadband internet supply in the region. We are witnessing growing demand for broadband internet driven by emerging applications such as YouTube, IP video services. Dial-up simply can’t handle rich web content,” said Ahmed.

Broadband penetration by household in the Middle East and Africa is currently at ap-proximately fi ve percent. This fi gure is 20 percent for the Asia-Pacifi c region and over 50 percent in Western Europe and the US, according to fi gures provided by Yahsat.

An announcement regarding service partners for YahClick is expected soon.

BROA

DCA

ST BYTES

work operator, despite earlier negotiations with

Asiacell and Zain Iraq.

“Mobision has developed its own subscription

management system and scratch cards,” Andre

Abi-Nassif, senior vice president of Mobision re-

vealed exclusively to Digital Broadcast.

“Th e construction of a 40-seat call centre facil-

ity located in Beirut has also recently been com-

pleted,” he added.

Abi-Nassif said the launch delay allowed time for

extra work to be conducted to increase the cover-

age area of the mobile TV service.

“We have improved Mobision’s signal strength

in Kurdistan to the north, and in greater Baghdad.

“Th e delay allowed us to complete the installa-

tion of further repeaters, transmitters and anten-

nae throughout Iraq.”

Abi-Nassif said signifi cant interest in the project

was demonstrated by global service providers at

the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, indicat-

ing a promising future for DVB-H technology.

“Everybody was astonished at the success of our

project,” he claimed.

JCC INVESTS IN BTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMBroadcast Traffi c Systems (BTS) has implement-

ed its Enterprise Broadcast Management system

at the Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC), where

it is being used to manage the both JCC channel

and the newly launched Baraem channel for pre-

school children.

Th e BTS system manages activities such as

programme rights, long term planning and frame

accurate transmission scheduling for the chan-

nels. Th e system has been fully integrated with an

automation solution to provide a fully integrated

broadcast management solution.

Speaking about the deal, Craig Buckland, tech-

nical director at BTS said: “We are pleased that JCC

selected BTS for its traffi c operation. Th e system we

have installed at JCC is our very latest Enterprise

application. We have worked in partnership with

JCC to introduce a range of features that make the

JCC system a model for other broadcasters.”

The BTS system is being used for both JCC and new channel, Baraem.

06

SHOWTIME ADDS BBC PRIME TO SCHEDULEPay TV operator Showtime Arabia will add BBC Prime to its broadcast slate on March 1.

The addition of BBC Prime to Showtime’s bouquet follows on from the inclusion of the BBC Lifestyle channel in December. Both channels are properties of the British broadcaster’s BBC Worldwide arm.

The channel, which broad-casts popular BBC series in-cluding Eastenders, Spooks and Waking the Dead, rounds out Showtime’s TV serial offering, will be available free-of-charge to the operator’s Showtime Family, Movies, Premier and Platinum subscribers.

Showtime president and CEO Marc Antoine d’Halluin said the pay TV operator was looking forward to “extending its rela-tionship” with BBC Worldwide.

“The new channel will complement the wide range of British programming avail-able on Showtime including Sky News, BBC Lifestyle, and the English Premier League,” d’Halluin added.

www.digitalproductionme.comMARCH 2009

CITY 7’S BIN HENDI EXPLAINS JOB CUTSFTA channel cancels three in-house productions; denies ad sales falling

Ninety staff have been retrenched by Dubai-

based television station, City 7 TV, as part of a

‘lean and mean’ approach by management to cut

operating costs.

Th ree of the Bin Hendi Enterprises-owned sta-

tion’s regular programmes were also axed, as part

of the company’s strategy to remain fi nancially vi-

able during the global economic downturn.

Total staff numbers at City 7 have been reduced

to 44, and the channel’s planned expansion into

Dubai Studio City has also been stalled, revealed

Mohiuddin Bin Hendi, chief executive of Bin Hendi

Enterprises during an exclusive interview with

Digital Broadcast.

“We need to be lean and mean and keep our staff

The RMPC will face competition from across the GCC once it is complete.

numbers as low as possible in order to aff ord to keep

the television station running,” said Bin Hendi.

“Firms all around the world are cutting their

costs and laying off staff , so it’s not something new

to City 7 TV,” he said.

“We have also cancelled three programmes [City

Woman, In Gear and Kids Club]. Th ese shows were

not fi nancially viable and they were costing the sta-

tion a lot of money with no return on that invest-

ment so we had no choice but to shut them down.”

Bin Hendi also denied reports that the television

station’s remaining staff had been asked to accept

a 20 percent salary reduction.

“Th at’s not true, it is simply a rumour. We haven’t

made pay cuts yet, but obviously if the fi nancial sit-

uation stays the way it is currently, then there will

be discussions of that nature,” he admitted.

But despite the drastic cost-cutting measures,

Bin Hendi maintained that City 7 was still in a fi -

nancially stable position, and not suff ering from

low advertising revenue.

“Sometimes sales have been low here and there,

but since Dubai has been so progressive, we had

become accustomed to 40 and 50 percent annual

increases in business, but now we have reverted

back to what is probably a more normal growth

fi gure of about 10 or 15 percent.”

THE BRIEFING

BROA

DCA

ST BYTES

SAUDI MEDIA CLUSTER GETS THE GO AHEADTh e planned Riyadh Media Production City (RMPC)

has been approved by the Municipality of Riyadh

and master plans are currently being drawn up.

Th e 80,000 sqm development will be located on

the outskirts of the city off the King Fahad Road.

RMPC will compete with a host of similar

media focused clusters in the region including

Dubai’s existing Media City and International

Media Production Zone and the proposed Qatar

Media City.

Despite the job cuts, Bin Hendi insists the channel’s ad sales are growing.

BBC Prime will be available on theShowtime pay TV platform from this month.

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Al Jazeera English (AJE) has applied for carriage

on Canadian Cable networks and launched a new

web portal aimed at refi ning its public profi le in

North America.

Th e channel currently reaches 130 million

households in more than 100 countries, however

it has struggled to fi nd mainstream distribution

channels in Canada and the US.

Th e network has now confi rmed that it has ap-

plied to the Canadian Radio-television and Tele-

communications Commission (CRTC) to obtain a

place on the list of eligible satellite services.

Th e application process involves a 30-day pe-

riod of feedback from the public. In order to gar-

ner public support, the network has established a

website – IWantAJE.net – to dispel common mis-

conceptions about the channel.

“It is clear to us there is a signifi cant demand for

AJE in Canada,” said Tony Burman, managing di-

rector, Al Jazeera English.

“Canadians want to understand the world in all

of its diversity and cultural richness. Our website

AJE PURSUES NORTH AMERICAN CARRIAGE

QTEL EYES MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT STRATEGIES WITH MEFQtel has become the newest member of the Mobile Enter-tainment Forum (MEF), after signing a membership agree-ment during the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The international forum was established in 2000 to provide a platform for discussion between various players posi-tioned throughout the mobile entertainment business chain.

Senior representatives of the Qatar-based telco said the forum would be used as a means to communicate directly with content and ap-plication developers, focusing on innovation trends and strategies in the emerging markets of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

AL AAN AUTOMATES WEB PUBLISHINGUAE-based satellite broad-caster Al Aan TV has become the fi rst service in the region to deploy SysMedia’s newsroom-to-web automation technol-ogy, NewsWatch. The installa-tion was overseen by regional partner Wecom Global.

Al Aan TV approached reseller and systems integra-tor Wecom with the aim of updating its website with news stories from its Avid iNews newsroom system.

NewsWatch tracks the run-ning order in a broadcaster’s newsroom system, watching for stories highlighted for re-publishing by an editor. It then automatically extracts the text from stories and converts it to XML for republishing without any additional editorial effort.

BROA

DCA

ST BYTES Network steps up efforts to break into lucrative US and Canadian markets

receives 22 million visits every month with over

50 percent coming from North America, and our

branded YouTube page is by far the most popular

news site on YouTube,” claimed Burman.

“Th ese numbers alone show how hungry Cana-

dians are for the fearless, groundbreaking report-

ing that runs daily on AJE,” said Burman.

“Th is is a demonstration of the country’s com-

mitment to freedom of expression.”

MARCH 2009

THE BRIEFING

Al Jazeera English is currently available in 130 million households..

JMC UPGRADES ARABSAT PLAYOUT FACILITY

Jordan Media City (JMC) has upgraded its satel-

lite television playout facilities with the addition of

new Omneon Spectrum media server systems.

Th e new servers are currently being used to

broadcast JMC client Arabsat’s 28 satellite televi-

sion channels across the Middle East and North

Africa (MENA) region.

“Following an evaluation of broadcast server

technologies, we elected to use Omneon Spec-

trum servers to support our expanding opera-

tions, including transmission for the Arabsat

service,” said Suleiman Nakai, transmission engi-

neering manager at Jordan Media City.

Each of the two Omneon Spectrum servers at

JMC carries 14 Arabsat channels to air.

“We have invested in the latest technology and

continually update our infrastructure to keep

pace with the industry and give our customers

superior service,” he added.

JMC is currently responsible for the playout of more than 60 channels.


EDITOR’S CHOICES

MARCH 2009

DPME.COM ROUND-UP

SPOT POLL

WEBSITE VIEWER STATS

What is your main infl uence when you select a pay TV operator?

34%Sport

BROADCAST BUSINESS

I WANT MY MOBILE TVThe impending launch of DVB-H mobile TV services in various territories across the Middle East bodes well

CONTENT PRODUCTION

ROUGH CUT: THE TROUBLE WITH HDHaitham Dargouth, head of technical and broadcast for CNBC, discusses the commercial challenges of HD

TOP MIDDLE EAST SOURCE MARKETS - FEBRUARY

1 UAE2 Saudi Arabia3 Qatar4 Bahrain5 Egypt

TOP GLOBAL SOURCE MARKETS - FEBRUARY

1 US2 UK3 Germany4 India5 Canada

SOURCE: Google Analytics.

Some parts of the Middle East will be able to receive free mobile TV services as early as this year, according

to the S2M Group. Th e company will launch its satellite/terrestrial network in key regional markets later

this year, with a mixture of free and subscription channels.

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MIDDLE EAST SETFOR FREE MOBILE TV

The online home of:

30%Price

14%Movies

11%I only need

FTA channels

8% 3%Arabic

I only needthe internet

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WORLD DATELINE

UNITED STATESUS CONGRESS VOTES TO DELAY DIGITAL SWITCHOVER

BRAZILENDEMOL LAUNCHES PRODUCTION ARM IN BRAZIL

AFRICAAFRICAN PAY TV OPERATOR GOES BUST

A bill to delay the termination of analogue TV signals in the US was passed last month.

The country’s digital swi-tchover had been scheduled for February 17 however it became clear that an unacceptably large number of Americans were unprepared. The deadline for the remaining analogue viewers has now been ex-tended until June 12.

A report by the Nielsen Company published in January found that an estimated 6.5

million US households were unprepared for the roll-out of digital only TV services.

The bill was passed by a majority of 264-158.

The decision sparked claims that consumers would now be increasingly confused as well as adding to TV stations’ costs as they broadcast in both ana-logue and digital for another four months.

Channels have been given the option to switchover early if they choose.

International production giant Endemol has announced that it will launch a production opera-tion in Brazil.

Endemol already has a par-ticipation TV company – Action Media – operating in the coun-

try. This will now be absorbed into Endemol Brasil with Action Media’s chief Daniela Busoli assuming the role of managing director at the new company.

A deal between Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo and Endemol will not be affected with the pair’s joint venture Endemol Globo continuing to create content exclusively for the TV Globo channel while Endemol Brasil will cater to the rest of the market.

“Endemol has already proven that there is a big appe-tite for its formats in Brazil and there is now huge potential for us to build on that,” com-mented Busoli.

UK-based African pay TV opera-tor GTV went into liquidation last month and immediately withdrew its services. In a statement to the press, the company revealed that the board had made the unanimous decision after it failed to secure suffi cient investment.

“Increased instability in global markets interrupted our ability to secure funding on an acceptable

timescale and has left us no choice but to cease operations,” said a company spokesperson.

“We realise the negative impact this has had on our loyal customers, creditors and staff. We have tried every possible step to keep the company going.”

GTV had broadcast the English Premier League across Africa. South-African broadcaster Super-Sport has taken over the rights.

UNITED KINGDOMBT RESULTS SLIDE BUT IPTV SUBSCRIBERS GROWUK based telco and infrastructure provider BT announced a rise in subscribers for its IPTV service BT Vision, despite a sharp dip in the group’s profi ts.

The offering added 58,000 subscribers in Q4 reaching a total of 398,000.

Despite being the dominant UK broadband supplier with 4.7 million homes, the company’s quarterly profi t dropped to US $163 million from $867 million in

the same period last year.The BT Global services

division – which incorporates BT Media and Broadcast – re-ported 40 percent growth in revenues internation-ally. In total, Global Services revenues rose 15 percent to $3.25 billion.

Car manufacturer Honda also announced that it would become the fi rst sponsor of a branded VOD service.

Endemol was previously producing content in Brazil with TV Globo.

GTV

MARCH 2009

The US analogue switchoff was delayed to ensure minimal disruption.

www.digitalproductionme.com 013

One of Hong Kong’s largest mobile network operators, CSL is to launch a 24-hour Cartoon Network channel for mobile TV.

The service will be available on CSL’s Studio on Demand platform. User will also be able to download, wallpapers, ringtones and icons. There will be no advertising breaks in the programming.

“Hong Kong has the highest penetration of mobile phones in Asia and it only makes sense for us to lead the way in providing world-class mobile

TV services here,” said Aenil Premji, chief marketing offi cer of CSL. “Studio on Demand provides users with the choice to watch their favourite programs as and when they please exercising a degree of control similar to their living room whenever and wherever they are.”

US ONLINE VIDEO: USAGE AND EXPECTA-TIONS ON THE RISE

10%Percentage of US online video users aged 13-54 watching full-length episodes of TV shows in 2006...

21%... That percentage in 2008.

65%Percentage of those who ex-pect to watch this content on the device of their choice.

28%Percentage of people using third party content hosting sites to access US TV network programming (this fi gure has doubled since 2007).

86%Percentage of 13-54 year-olds who said they would be more engaged with advertising around programs available on the internet.

BY THE N

UM

BERS

WORLD DATELINE

HONG KONGCARTOON NETWORK MOB-TV CHANNEL TO LAUNCH

SWITZERLANDNAGRA SECURES WIFI TV ENABLERPacketVideo’s ‘Telly’ device, that converts WiFi capable phones and portable media players into mobile TVs has is now available with content security functionality.

The Telly device decodes

broadcast signals and optimises them for a user’s particular device, regardless of whether or not it has an in-built mobile TV receiver.

“While the mobile TV market has signifi cant growth potential and stands to change the way

consumers watch, and demand, television, usability challenges have stunted adoption to date,” said Dr. Osama Alshaykh, chief technol-ogy offi cer, PacketVideo. “Our partnership with Nagravision is a strong step forward in acceler-ating the mass market adoption of mobile TV by putting broadcast TV services into the hands of new users.”

The Telly unit supports DVB-H and MediaFLO.

SOU

RCE: Knowledge N

etworks (2009)

MARCH 2009

GTV collapsed despite holding African EPL football rights.


categorically dispelled in the fi rst quarter of 2009.

Etisalat won the right to the third mobile license

in Iran and promptly revealed to Reuters that it was

also hoping to complete an acquisition of an Iraqi

telco. Th e UAE based giant has previously spoken of

a US $3 billion fund set aside for acquisitions.

In January, Egyptian fi rm Orascom announced

an investment in Namibia, Qtel pressed ahead with

its plans to take a 65 percent stake in Indonesia’s

Indosat and Bahrain-based Batelco spent $225 mil-

lion acquiring Indian GSM fi rm S Tel.

As ARPU from traditional voice services con-

tinues to wane, content is at the heart of many of

the strategies aimed at compensating for this. Th e

health of the Middle East’s telcos and their overseas

growth, secures the future of continually expanding

services in their domestic markets.

Th ese cash rich operators will continue to invest

in the broadcast infrastructure required to distrib-

ute these services and of course, to purchase the

content that is delivered.

By the end of 2009, it is likely that there will be a

minimum of three DVB-H services available in the

Middle East, triple play off erings will be standard

and IPTV rollouts will be gathering steam. Th e

associated investment into the broadcast technol-

ogy sector that is associated with these is massive;

set top boxes, middleware and conditional access

developers, playout, VOD servers, quality monitor-

ing, encoders… the list goes on.

Th e increase in demand for content should also

mean additional spending money available for the

region’s producers and production service providers

feeding more investment back in to the broadcast

technology business.

W hile it would be foolish and short-

sighted to say that the region’s

broadcast sector is not aff ected by

the recent fi nancial slide, it is im-

portant to note that there several regional buff ers

protecting the Middle East from the global threats.

Th ere is one particularly ominous catchphrase

spawned by the downturn that has yet to be applied

to the local broadcast industry; stimulus package,

formerly known as a bailout.

Th e previously buoyant US car industry had

cruised along on the basis that people would always

need cars. Th e Japanese car industry, largely attrib-

uted as the largest benefactor from any pre-credit

crunch slide by its US counterparts, now also fi nds

itself in trouble.

Yet the media and broadcast industry – so often

perceived as vulnerable – is yet to invoke the tagline

of the downturn. In the Middle East this is unlikely

to ever happen.

Economically, a stimulus package is simply an

intense hit of investment, an economic adrenaline

shot. Over the next three years or so, content own-

ers, broadcast technology vendors, distributors

and all the associated service providers can expect

stimulus from a more organic source, the regional

telecoms sector.

It must also be remembered that Etisalat and Ku-

wait-based Zain are the world’s two fastest growing

telecom operators in the world. Th e regions that

they are expanding into are some of the most active

worldwide in the various forms of telco-derived

television services.

If there were any doubts over the health of the

telecom sector in this region these have been

MARCH 2009

OPINION

WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING TELCOS BY PROPORTIONATE

SUBSCRIBER GROWTH Q1, 2008

106.41%Etisalat

70.31%Zain Group

64.62%SK Telecom

57.77%Telekom Malaysia

50.86%SingTel Malayasia

SOURCE: Informa Media & Telecoms

Continued investment by the region’s telcos into various broadcast services could be all the stimulus that the regional market requires, writes John Parnell.

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IN ORBITadvertising and subscriptions. It is not possible.

Th ey have become extremely expensive and Al

Jazeera Sports has been extremely active in the

football rights market jacking up prices in the

process. If they can aff ord it, good luck to them.

Al Jazeera does not have a commercial agenda so

whatever it does, it will be permissible.

: What are the company’s plans for the Orbitfone service?SA: Around a year ago we suspended that business

however, there may be opportunities in the future

and if things change we’ll be the fi rst to be back.

Th e Bahraini telecoms sector has become too

liberalised and too many licenses were issued

for that kind of business. If we want to provide

high service standards to our consumers we

need to ensure that whatever we off er is not only

competitive but also of a high quality and in the

environment that exists in Bahrain at present, we

are unable to do so.

: What will Orbit primarily focus on in 2009?SA: Orbit always plans to improve its service. We

have focused on news in the last quarter adding

Fox News and Orbit News 2, primarily because

there is a huge interest in news from the Arab

population in the region and they wanted to have

access to high quality, fi rst hand news especially

at the time of the US election.

We have also recently added Fox Sports

exclusively and there will be two more sports

channels to be launched in the near future.

: You have previously called for consolidation in both the pay TV and FTA sector in the Middle East, do you think the current fi nancial situation could prompt that process?Samir Abdulhadi: Yes it could act as a catalyst

to trigger this. Not all of the FTA channels are

viable and in my opinion having three pay TV

operators is not viable in the long run. Some form

of consolidation must take place. I could make

predictions, however, ultimately what makes

economic sense should be the prevailing modus

operandi. Consolidation hasn’t happened yet, but

you never know…

: It seems that there is a consensus among the pay TV operators that this is necessary. Why hasn’t it happened yet?SA: People think they can continue to operate

alone but at the end of the day, one has to leave

passion aside and focus on the economics of the

business. Every single [pay TV] market outside the

Middle East has seen consolidation and the new

companies do better in terms of the bottom line,

than the previous entities. Th ere is a lesson to be

learned from that process.

: The exclusive regional broadcasting rights for the English Premier League will be auctioned later this year. Will Orbit take part in the bidding process?SA: We haven’t decided whether to participate

or not. Th e licence fees for such events, although

important – I’m not questioning the importance of

the EPL in any way – can never be recouped from

MARCH 2009

Q&A

Every single [pay TV] market outside the Middle East has seen consolidation and the new companies do better in terms of the bottom line, than the previous entities. There is a lesson to be learned from that process. SAMIR ABDULHADICEO, Orbit.

Pay TV operator Orbit has enjoyed a strong start to 2009, a promising indicator for the company and the industry at large. CEO Samir Abdulhadi speaks to Digital Broadcast about consolidation, football rights and new channel launches.

018 www.digitalproductionme.comMARCH 2009

NEWS REVIEW

019MARCH 2009

SELLING SOCIALWith question marks over the ability of so-called “general” social media sites, such asFacebook and MySpace, to make money, what commercial case is there for social media?Digital Broadcast spoke to Dubai-based H2O New Media about the value of enterprise social media in the broadcast and entertainment industries.

ing fi gures have declined. Of the top 20 highest

rated telecasts in the US, the most recent was

from the 1996 Winter Olympics.

“If you look at the leading TV programmes from

the 1950s and the viewer rates for primetime TV to-

day, it is one tenth of what it was. Th ere really is a lot

of competition and broadcasters are going to need

to redefi ne their business models,” claims Vaile.

“Whether you are a broadcaster or a web-based

publisher, one-way communication is not as

valuable as having an audience that is actively

interacting with your content. If there is a news

story online and I can submit a video blog on what

I think of the story, then that creates a content

asset for the media operator and creates the data

asset as well. CNN does this well with iReport and

the others are following suit.”

Vaile is adamant that Middle East content-based

business has no other way to turn but the user gen-

erated content (UGC) and viewer community path.

“Th is is not something that is going to happen,

or is happening…it has happened. Th e removal of

media restrictions and freedom of press across the

Middle East is happening. Regulators can block

as many sites with as many fi lters as they want,

people always fi nd their way round these blocks.

Th e authorities have to accept UGC and citizen

journalism,” states Vaile.

In order for emerging media business models

to succeed in the Middle East, Vaile believes the

industry itself needs to embrace social media

applications and the creative and commercial

benefi ts that they enable. With the region now

boasting the second highest rate of internet adop-

tion the pool of consumers open to social media

networking is expanding all the time.

“Th e region has always tended to lag a little in

technology and media adoption. What tends to

Seven of the world’s ten most visited

websites involve at least some element of

social media. Despite the main players’

inability to turn traffi c into revenue,

there are an increasing number of smaller social

media companies fi nding a thriving market for

tailor-made, specialised platforms.

H2O New Media caters develops tailor made for

social media platforms for enterprises looking to

exploit the opportunities they can present.

“We looked at the trends and noticed that every

media platform over time fragments into niche ar-

eas,” explains Steve Vaile, CEO of H2O New Media.

”I remember when there was one TV channel in

the UK and you had to wait till 6pm for the second

one to start. Now there are hundreds of satellite

channels and some signifi cant niche broadcasters

like the Discovery Channel. We saw social media

as the next sector to fragment just as print, radio,

TV and regular websites had previously.”

Vaile admits to almost “accidentally” falling into

the social media business. After establishing Dubai

Lime – an entertainment and arts online commu-

nity – he began to receive requests to develop social

media applications for an increasing number of

third-party media companies until the foundation

of H2O had been laid by sheer market demand.

“It’s a year since we started the business. We

have acquired more than 50 customers, our fi rst

year’s revenue was US$600,000 – which isn’t bad

for a company in its fi rst year – and the target for

2009 is between $1.5 and $3 million. We have a

software platform that allows us to come to you

as a company and provide you with your own

customised social media platform. It’s basically

Software as a Service (SaaS).”

As broadcasters face increasing competition

from alternative sources of entertainment, view-


NEWS REVIEW

Whether youare a broadcaster or a web based publisher, one-way communication isnot as valuable as having an audience that is actively interacting withyour content. STEVE VAILECEO, H2O New Media.


MIXED BAGA number of international and regional media companies offer social media applications and communities leveraging video content. H2O New Media’s Steve Vaile gives his opinion on the perceived quality of some of those web offerings.

MBC“MBC has done an incredible job at user engagement. It has developed its own social media sites. MBC is doing a good job with its women’s platform, iMatter and this has more in the pipeline.”

AMEINFO AND ZAWYA“They will both have to make a technology changes if they are to make the leap from on-line media providers to online media communities, but the companies that make that change will be valued higher than the traditional media platforms in the future.”

AMG“AMG has dipped a toe into the UGC market with projects like SHOOF tv – which is not particularly impressive in terms of its functionality.”

AL JAZEERA“The Al Jazeera Network is one of the leading online providers. It has solid content distribution strategies across several platforms.”

MAKTOOB“We may see people like Maktoob looking to acquire other people’s digital content in the future… Maktoob has around 13 million users, I would be surprised if half of those are active.

MARCH 2009

happen in the Middle East market is that it will be

behind for a period and then it will invest in and

adopt the most recent technologies and suddenly

leapfrog its US and European counterparts. We

have seen that with some of the WiMAX adoption

in places like Bahrain,” observes Vaile adding

that he sees no immediate technological barriers

preventing the main players from exploiting the

opportunities that social media presents, with

existing portals growing steadily.

So what exactly are these benefi ts that Vaile and

H2O are championing?

Vaile says that as media companies continue to

experiment with various business models and look

to fi nd their new positioning, social media could

provide several vital tools for content generation

and delivery, marketing, and cost saving.

“If a broadcaster is supported by advertising

and their market moves to the internet, it needs

to have a solution in place or its revenue will fall

through the fl oor. I am 35 and I do not consider

myself up to date with the latest gadgets, yet I still

watch YouTube and other online platforms more

than I watch TV. In fact last week I cancelled my

TV subscription services simply because I wasn’t

watching them. If I can get everything I want

online, then people aged 16 to 25, the group adver-

tisers want to target, will be more than capable of

doing the same.”

Th e fact that the Middle East’s demographics are

heavily skewed towards youth (one in fi ve people

are aged 15-24 according to the UN) in comparison

to other markets indicates that these trends should

be adopted in the region with little resistance.

Social media is not just about following a

trend for the sake of not missing a fad and Vaile

is quick to highlight the business case behind it.

“Everybody knows that if you distribute a print

title online instead, there is a signifi cant cost

saving. If you have a community built around

your online publication, you benefi t from user

generated content, one-on-one interaction, affi nity

marketing and of course the creation of a data

asset,” says Vaile.

“A media company could use Facebook advertis-

ing to drive its business or it could develop its

own vertically focused community where it can

conduct the one-on-one marketing element within

its own infrastructure and can own the data asset,

maintain, control, manipulate and monetise that

database,” explains Vaile.

A continued diversifi cation of revenue sources

is inevitable, Vaile claims. He predicts a sustained

period of consolidation in the near future.

“Th ere is a swing [toward new revenue streams]

and broadcasters are asking themselves how they

are going to make money,” claims Vaile. “Th e

advertising models are changing, the markets have

shifted and the things that are driving spending

are changing. We will see some merger and acqui-

sition activity and some telco operators acquiring

media companies three to fi ve years from now.”

NEWS REVIEW

REGIO

NA

L ON

LINE CO

MM

UN

ITY DEV

ELOPM

ENT

Encouraging membership and user contributions on a web platform enables companies to build a data asset while acquiring free content.

We’ve always had an eye on the future – a strong vision for

where the TV business is going and the technologies

it needs to succeed. With our Emmy award-winning video

compression and on-demand solutions, and the latest

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Now as part of the Ericsson group, our vision is

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Our new collection of visionary papers will give you

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visit www.tandbergtv.com/vision.

On track, on vision

MARCH 2009 www.digitalproductionme.com

COVER STORY

022

T he content delivery industries in the Middle

East have come along way in a very short

time. Th ree satellite pay TV operators and

the ever expanding FTA market were more

or less the sum total just a few years ago. Today, the

region has broadcast services on three screens; mo-

bile, PC and television. Th ere are increasing numbers

of Fiber to the home (FTTH) roll-outs, presenting

new opportunities for two-way delivery networks.

On-demand programming and digital content

delivery services have fl ourished and the region’s fi rst

PVR boxes have been rolled out by pay TV operators.

Th ese new services often depend on new network

infrastructures tying the fates of the telecommu-

nication and broadcast industries. Th is scenario

has been seen in the region on several levels and

in many forms. Satellite service operators and net-

work infrastructure providers are benefi ting from

the broadcast boom, telcos are off ering TV services

– often via their own branded platforms – and the

The Middle East is keeping pace with global shifts in content delivery and broadcast technology and is even leading the pack on some fronts. Digital Broadcast looks at ten of the most innovative and noteworthy projects in the region that are creating new revenue streams for the content delivery industry, enabling new services and protecting its future.

TELEVISIONARIES

COVER STORY

www.digitalproductionme.com MARCH 2009 023

internet is becoming a key source of legitimate,

rights protected content.

Digital Broadcast off ers the following 10 examples

of broadcast innovation not as a quantifi ed like-for-

like comparison, but to demonstrate the breadth

and diversity of the advances that have been made

in the region. Technology is not the sole criteria for

the entries. Th e development of untested business

plans, public service provision, scale, pioneering

network architectures and more have been con-

sidered alongside the underlying technology that

enables them.

Unfortunately, there are more worthy projects

than can be mentioned in this article. In cases

where numerous similar projects have occurred at

the same time, the example that is likely to have the

widest impact moving forward, have won out. New

platforms feature prominently however these have

been judged on function and paths to monetisation,

rather than novelty value.

The Nokia online music store, which launched in December 2008, is perhaps the most high-profi le legitimate online content portal available in the Middle East.

Although only currently accessible in the UAE, Nokia has signalled its intentions to expand the service’s availability into other markets.

The platform is one of 12 around the world with the same user interface and styling with content tailored for each repsective market.

With most of the other portals based in Europe, the initialisation of the UAE store is an indication that the major players in the industry now view the region as a feasible market. Just a few years ago, the extent of piracy activity in the UAE would have

rendered such an initiative doomed from the outset. Nokia is the fi rst international content aggregator

to establish such a service in the region. Over the coming years it is likely that more regional media companies will feel confi dent enough to follow suit, creating a vibrant digital content marketplace.

This will be all the more likely as broadband penetration levels rise. The early move by Nokia will help to improve its case as the default provider of digital music when broadband reaches critical mass.

Nokia has also refused to rule out the possibil-ity of launching its ‘Comes with Music’ unlimited download service in the region as early as this year. ‘Comes with Music’ offers 12 months of free music downloads with certain Nokia handset purchases.

NOKIA BRINGS GLOBAL MUSIC STRATEGY TO THE MIDDLE EAST

25-40%Percentage of internet traffi c comprising of video and fi le sharing traffi c

50%Average percentage of population in the ‘net generation’, under 25 in territories included in PwC’s Arab Media Outlook report

Nokia’s music business manager for the MEA region, Ayman Chalhoub.

024 www.arabianbusiness.com/media_marketingMARCH 2009

COVER STORY

Abu Dhabi government backed satellite com-pany Yahsat may not have launched any of its proposed satellites as of yet, however it has de-veloped a service that will drastically improve the entire Middle East’s access to the internet. With content and advertising revenues both migrating to online sources, increasing broadband penetra-tion across the region is key to enabling a future generation of media consumers.

YahClick will offer satellite based broadband access across the MEA region for individual consumers and enterprises alike.

“It will be available through Y1B, Yahsat’s second satellite set for launch in mid 2011,” says Shawkat Ahmed, CCO, Yahsat. “The service has been developed to address the gap in the broad-band internet supply in the region. We are seeing growing demand for broadband internet driven by emerging applications such as YouTube, IP video services and the fact that dial-up can’t

handle rich web content.”Yahsat will use a Ka-

band multi-spot beam with

reusable frequencies to maximise this scarce resource, a technology only recently introduced in the US.

“The multi spot-beam technology means greater effi ciency on the ground, which enables use of a smaller antenna size with a low power amplifi er. The ability to re-use frequencies will enable faster, reliable and affordable broadband to urban and remote areas of the region.”

Broadband is currently limited to the main urban centres throughout the Middle East limiting penetration rates.

Yahsat will manage both the satellite and ground infrastructure with service partners focusing on customer acquisition and support.

“The YahClick business model has been well received by potential service partners. They will bundle hardware and software services, offering packages tailor-made for specifi c markets. User terminals will range between US $350 to $400 and service plans will start at $30. There will also be plans for more demanding consumers and enterprise.”

YAHSAT FACILITATES THE MIDDLE EAST’S ‘NET GENERATION’

BBC ARABIC UNIFIES OUTPUT AND EXPANDS ACROSS PLATFORMSThe BBC Arabic service has grown rapidly of late and now includes various mobile offerings available in an increasing number of markets in the Middle East and beyond, a redesigned website with video and audio content and a 24-hour TV news channel.

“We believe that our audiences in the Arab world should be getting a consistent stream of content on all our platforms,” says Hosam El Sokkari, head of BBC Ara-bic. “Our teams work collaboratively to make sure that each platform is used to its full capacity.”

El Sokkari points out that BBC Arabic is currently providing 72 hours of news content across three sepa-rate platforms and has also recently expanded its WAP platform.

“We have made sure that several providers in the region have added it to their landing page to offer easy access for their users. This has led to

four and sometimes fi ve-fold increases in the number of page impressions generated on this platform,” claims El Sokkari. “In addition to this we recently launched a news video bul-letin for mobile devices. It is currently offered by an operator in Saudi and we are working to forge more partnerships.”

El Sokkari identifi es the extension of the

TV channel to a 24-hour operation as a key development for BBC Arabic.

“The launch of BBC Arabic TV has received a positive and encouraging response from the Arab world. BBC Arabic journalists are main-taining on TV the same editorial values associ-ated with our radio and online operations for the past seven decades,” adds El Sokkari.

YahClick will be available in 2011 says Yahsat, CCO,

Shawkat Ahmed.

El Sokkari claims BBC Arabic’s multiplatform approach is essential.

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COVER STORY

026 MARCH 2009 www.arabianbusiness.com/media_marketing

ABU DHABI MEDIA COMPANY LEGITIMISES ONLINE CONTENT DELIVERYGETMO Arabia’s main credentials as an innova-tor come largely with the online content store’s business plan.

In recognition of the Middle East’s ram-pant piracy and counterfeiting activity, the Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) chose to look for ways to reduce or even com-pletely remove any cost for the consumer.

A network of commercial partners, typically well-known consumer brands, offer free credit for the GETMO store alongside purchases of their products. Fully subsidised content is also avail-able, offset by the advertising and sponsorship revenues generated on the GETMO portal.

“Brand owners can see the value of their brand being bundled with content to stimu-

late and increase their market share. In return they are underwriting the cost for us to provide content to the consumer for free. It’s a win-win situation,” says Ricky Ghai, executive director, digital, ADMC.

The platform includes music, movies and mo-bile content such as wallpapers. Critically, all of this content is rights protected offering a legal – and often free – alternative to illegal P2P fi le sharing platforms.

At GITEX 2008, the platform announced a tie up with Samsung mobile connecting cus-tomers who purchase Samsung phones directly into the site.

GETMO is just one part of ADMC’s digital initiatives, which also include football por-tal GoalArabia.com and the online homes of ADMC’s stable of print and broadcast entities, such as UAE daily newspaper The National.

ARAB MEDIA GROUP INVESTS FOR THE LONG TERMThe region now has a well-documented collec-tion of media free zones and production cities with more planned in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the coming years.

The advertised benefi ts of operating from these industry clusters generally include relaxation of certain labour laws and the convenience of being surrounded by potential partners and related service providers.

Moving operations to one of these dedi-cated centres also provides the opportunity to design and build the infrastructure required from the ground up, and in line with broader commercial strategies.

The Arab Media Group (AMG) portfolio includes newspapers, magazines, radio stations and TV channels based in several locations across Dubai. The network scored a major pub-licity boost for the entire region with the launch of MTV and Nickelodeon franchises. These drew international attention to the health of the region’s progressive media scene as a whole.

To support these launches, ATN moved into a new facility at Dubai Studio City (DSC) and has embraced the opportunity to operate from the free zone, with four of the group’s radio stations also relocating to DSC.

The company is currently leasing space in DSC but has already begun designing a purpose built complex that will become its long-term home.

“We want to ensure that we have the best technology and the most state-of-the-art infrastructure to support our creative and technical staff,” says Abdullatif Al Sayegh, CEO, Arab Media Group.

The new facilities are ready to switch to HD as the transmission technology to sup-port it in the region becomes operational. This demonstrates ATN’s long term planning and shows that a media free zone can of-fer substantial operational benefi ts above and beyond the plush offi ce space and tax breaks that appear .

AMG CEO Abdullatif Al Sayegh.

ADMC’s Ricky Ghai looks to undercut the pirates.

COVER STORY

MARCH 2009 027www.digitalproductionme.com

Mr. Khalid Al-Aamiri

Gulf Media Co. is achieving serious milestones in accom-plishing the restoration and archiving of Kuwait TV film li-brary. “The project is one of the leading projects in the GCC in the restoration and archiving fields; our motto is to move digital.” Said Mr. Khalid Al-Aamiri Gulf Media Vice Chairman & Managing Director. Moreover, he added that Gulf Media is copying the approach to other GCC countries such as Bah-rain, Qatar and Oman. Gulf Media Company is one of the largest providers of integrated turnkey media solutions in the Gulf Region for establishing, generating, managing, and allocating high-end media related affairs. Mr. Al-Aamiri add-ed “Our market segments are divided among governmen-tal ministries of information, private channels and studios, broadcasting networks, producers, gigantic private media libraries and high-tech advertising agencies.” With Harris Broadcasting Corporation as an exclusive strategic partner, Gulf Media slowly but surely is dominating the Gulf market in the field of film restoration and archiving due to its tactical planning and its high expertise effort in this field of interest.

“With a battery of professionals Gulf Media is planning insist-ently to expand through the MENA Region in the soon future.” Said Mr.Al- Aamiri. Gulf Media’s main concern is to unleash the power of innovation in order to circle the customer with the integrated media solutions appropriate for their strategic growth. One of the key elements of success for Gulf Media is Audio & Video broadcasting solutions whether steady loca-tions such as TV and Radio studios or mobile vehicles such as Outdoors Broadcasting Vans. During CabSat 2009 Gulf Media is conducting excessive meetings with clients and potential customers to elaborate about its OB Vans new arrangements. Mr. Al-Aamiri declared that Gulf Media provided a number of GCC national TV & Radio stations with fully equipped OB Vans, some with 6, 8, and 12 HD cameras during the last 18 months. “One of the biggest achievements for Gulf Media was winning the KTV OB Van project at 2005 with 12 camer-as, which was considered one of the biggest HD/OB provided by Gulf Media in the region.” said Mr. Al-Aamiri.

Talking Heads

www.gulfmedcom.com

“Gulf Media is spreading hori-zontally providing turnkey video and audio integrated sys-tems for steady and mobile broadcast such as studios and OB Vans”. Says Mr. Al-Aamiri

The Power of M e d i a

The region’s largest FTA TV network had a busy year and as usual, the Ramadan musal-sals attracted the highest ratings. To further exploit this unique annual opportunity, MBC and UAE telco Etisalat created an internet TV portal to expand the reach of its nine most popular drama series.

The service was an extension of the online portal available in 2007 when the company launched its mobisodes offering with the UAE telco du. Popular comedy show Tash Ma Tash and other content was edited down into four minute packages optimised for mobile phones.

In both cases the content was offered free of charge with MBC happy to market its program-ming and drive traffi c through its website and promote its brand while the respective telco part-ners see increased traffi c and data usage in the

case of the mobisodes as well as benefi ting from the positive brand association.

Both operations show that the region is not merely talking about these plat-forms but is actively pursuing them.

“The success of the venture will hopefully offer new opportuni-ties for our viewers to interact with our infotainment,” says Dr. Ammar Bakkar, head of New Media, MBC.

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COVER STORY


SAUDI ARABIA: MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND INFORMATION SECURES THE NATION’S FILM ARCHIVE

While the value and importance of original and entertaining content production is undisputed, the contribution of archival footage cannot be underestimated. When these recordings repre-sent the entire on-fi lm collection of a country’s history and heritage, the archive is priceless.

Earlier this year the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture and Information (MOCI) took considerable steps to digitise 750,000 reels of 16mm and 35mm fi lm.

Systems integrator Saudi technical Engineer-ing Systems Associated (STESA) together with

Thomson, NETIA and the French National Library of Radio and Television archives (INA) were given the task of implementing the technical infrastructure and workfl ow for the MOCI.

Thomson’s ContentShare2 media management and automation system have been installed to feed Thom-son Grass Valley K2 media servers with NETIA providing tools for restoration, digitisa-tion and preservation.

The deal for the project was signed in April 2008 and the system has now been fully implemented, according to a Thomson spokesperson.

The INA is supporting a team of 140 Saudi archivists which has already begun the process of digitising and indexing the material.

The MOCI hopes to have completed the entire process for all of the archive within the next two years.

S2M BRINGS ECONOMY OF SCALE TO MOBILE TV BROADCASTINGThe cost of building the new network infra-structure required to put a mobile TV service in place often proves prohibitive to mobile network operators. With many Middle East telecom operators working in a fragmented market and with the more profi table of these spread across the region, operators can often struggle to fi nd an audience large enough to justify the initial outlay required.

S2M has developed a satellite/terres-trial network architecture, which it claims eliminates much of these costs and the risks associated with them.

“S2M’s hybrid digital broadcasting platform includes an S-band geostationary satellite operating in conjunction with a terrestrial repeater network,” explains Wejdi Harzallah, vice president of commercial operations, S2M

Group. “This platform is technically and com-mercially proven to deliver high quality video and audio while sharing the infrastructure between several countries thus substantially reducing the costs of deploying and operat-ing the service.”

The repeater network is designed to boost signals in densely populated areas or where di-rect line of sight to the satellite is not possible.

“S2M will offer access to live broadcasts of 40 TV channels plus radio channels and interactive services on a variety of mobile devices covering a wide selection of brands and pricing structures. There will be some free channels and other public service appli-cations. Basic packages will start at less than US $10 per month for unlimited TV viewing,” says Harzallah.

S2M’s Wejdi Harzallah is confi dent the

platfrom will off er cost cuts to operators.

COVER STORY


ORANGE JORDAN LAUNCHES REGION’S FIRST TRUE IPTV SERVICEThere is much talk about the benefi ts of IPTV; the increased returns from targeted advertising; the marketing feedback that can be acquired from a two-way network; the increased functionality and services that can be offered. Despite all of this however, there is only one IPTV service in the Middle East, ‘TV from Orange’, in Jordan.

While many people may be receiving TV by IP, it is a stretch to consider these offerings as IPTV services.

While Hong Kong’s PCCW was once viewed as the IPTV pioneer, Orange’s ‘TV from Orange’ service offering in its domestic French market is now the world’s largest.

According to some sources, TV from Orange now has 2.3 million subscribers in France and has been rolled out in several other markets.

Not least of these is Jordan, where the Jor-dan Telecom Group, under the Orange brand, launched the Middle East’s fi rst IPTV service. The TV from Orange service has been opera-tional for almost six months. The premium package (priced at around $35 per month) offers 25 channels plus many of the benefi ts

that cannot be provided by satellite DTH services. These benefi ts include initiating user profi les to offer a degree of parental control and a VOD platform offers movies and fi lms for just over $2.

“The launch of the service was a response to Orange’s understanding of the needs of the telecommunications market and keeps us up to date with the inter-national trends,” Mickael Ghossein, CEO, Jordan Telecom Group.

Combining internet, voice and TV ser-vices has proven lucrative in other markets. In the UK, dominant broadband supplier BT has attracted almost 400,000 subscrib-ers to it’s BT Vision IPTV service and pay TV leader BSkyB is fast approaching two million broadband subscribers.

Triple-play packages are nothing new for the region and are available in several markets, however the additional revenue streams that IPTV offers and the potential to offer marketers targeted advertising marks out the Jordan Orange package for particular recognition.

QTEL ON THE BRINK OF NATIONAL DVB-H MOBILE TV LAUNCHAlthough the accolade of being region’s fi rst commercial DVB-H service may now be snatched from under their noses by the Mo-bision platform in Iraq, Qtel’s own mobile TV offering expected later in 2009 will still be highly signifi cant.

As well as being a larger network than proposed by Mobision, the Qtel roll-out will also crown a sustained period of research and development into mobile TV, regardless of platform, by the operator.

Qtel has pursued TV services based on its 3G network more aggressively than many of its rivals recently expanding it’s offering to 23 channels and developing subscription by SMS. The company invested

more than $60 million at the end of 2008 to upgrade its 2G and 3G network infrastructure

to double the network’s capacity.

Jordan Telecom Group CEO Mickael Ghossein says the service keeps the fi rm up to date with international trends.

CEO Dr. Nasser Marafi h is leading

Qtel towards increased content delivery services.

see Hitachi at Cabsat 2009 on stand LC-1


PLATFORMS: FOX

034

L aunching FTA TV channels in a market

populated by more than 400 rivals all

vying for eyeballs and advertising dollars

would seem a risky move given the current

economic climate.

But when those channels result from a partner-

ship between the one of the region’s most successful

media organisations and one of the world’s biggest

media companies outright, the chances of success

would seem to increase dramatically.

Th e launch of Fox Movies last May marked a

major signal of intent on behalf of Rotana and News

Corporation to aggressively pursue a television

broadcasting niche peculiar to the Middle East

– the FTA movie channel market.

Th e once-dormant sector had been dominated

to date by Saudi-based pan-Arab broadcaster MBC,

whose formula of broadcasting Hollywood feature

fi lms 24 hours a day via its MBC 2 channel had

proved a major hit with viewers across the region.

It was also one laced with commercial op-

portunities previously unheralded by a pan-Arab

broadcaster. Following its launch in 2001, the

broad multinational appeal of the channel quickly

translated into advertising dollars with English and

Arabic-language commercials combining relatively

seamlessly during programming breaks.

Th is scenario prompted a dramatic shift in

regional TV marketing strategies, which had previ-

ously been segmented largely by way of language

and cultural boundaries.

Seeing an opportunity to snare their own share

of these revenues, Rotana and News Corp, by way of

its Fox International Channel subsidiary, settled on

leveraging the best of their respective strengths to

launch Fox Movies.

“Following an initial round of discussions we

With the launch of Fox Movies and Fox Series, Fox International Channels (FIC) is going head-to-head with pan-Arab free-to-air TV juggernaut MBC for a share of the lucrative English-language FTA movie and serial market. Aaron Greenwood spoke to FIC Middle East GM Rohit D’silva about the company’s expansion strategy for the region.

OUTFOXED

PLATFORMS: FOX

www.digitalproductionme.com MARCH 2009 035

both came to the conclusion that our mutual

interests would be best served by way of a

partnership,” explains FIC Middle East general

manager Rohit D’silva.

“Rotana operates a very successful Arabic-lan-

guage TV portfolio consisting of music, general

entertainment and reality channels. Th e company

has been keen to get into the English-language

market for some time and saw an opportunity to do

so working with us.”

D’silva, who is also responsible for managing

Fox’s pay TV portfolio of channels in the region,

which includes Fox Sports and Fox News, says the

FTA market arguably holds greater long-term com-

mercial opportunities for the company’s planned

expansion in the region.

“FTA viewer numbers in the Middle East are mas-

sive compared to pay TV, hence the number of satellite

television channels vying for attention,” he says.

Given this scenario, D’silva concedes the process

of launching the Fox-branded channels in this com-

plex environment has proven “very challenging”.

“In saying that, the key to our success has been

teaming with a very strong partner,” he says.

“Rotana is one of the biggest media organisations

operating in the region and is one of the few to have

adopted an international mindset in the way they

do business.”

“We are leveraging each other’s strengths – ours

lies in our brand, Rotana’s lies in its experience in

this market and the sheer scale of its presence.”

Th is inherent strength extends to Rotana’s ability

to snare advertising dollars for its media portfolio,

including the Fox-branded FTA channels, D’Silva says.

“It makes it much easier – particularly given

these channels are start-ups – when they are part of

a major portfolio of channels, in securing advertis-

ROHIT D’SILVA CVRohit D’silva was appointed general manager of Fox International Channels (FIC) Middle East in January 2008.

D’silva’s promotion followed a three-and-a-half year tenure at FIC and its sister company National Geographic Channels in the Middle East & India.

Before joining FIC in 2004, D’silva held marketing and promotional positions with a variety of companies in India including Radio City 91.1FM and Gillette.


CARRIAGE CHALLENGESOne of the more unlikely chal-lenges facing new free-to-air (FTA) channels entering the market centres on the nego-tiation of carriage agreements with pay TV networks operating in the region.

A report published on Digital-ProductionME.com on January 27 highlighted this situation in relation Fox International’s efforts to negotiate a carriage agreement with UAE-based IPTV platform provider, du.

The channel, which airs a number of high-profi le and fi rst-run US series including The Simpsons, Boston Legal and Desperate Housewives, launched across the region on December 1.

At the time of the report, Fox’s D’silva said Fox Series would likely debut on du’s Showtime IPTV service by the middle of February. Yet, at the time of press, the channel had yet to be added to the platform.

It is not the fi rst time du has been slow to act in this regard – a near two-month gap sepa-rated the offi cial launch date of Fox Movies and its appearance on the Showtime IPTV bouquet in the UAE, while a similar timespan separated Showtime securing the broadcast rights to Sky News and its addition to du’s broadcast slate.

In the initial report, D’Silva attributed the time lapse to “the nature of the broadcast business” in the Middle East.

“We expect to have the situation resolved in the coming weeks,” he said. “Fox Series should be available to Show-time IPTV subscribers before the end of February.”

A du customer service rep-resentative was unavailable for comment at the time of press.

BREAK

ING

DO

WN

BARRIERS

ing dollars,” he explains. “It draws advertisers in

from the outset, which is hugely important in the

free-to-air market.

“In the past three to four months, the response

from advertisers has been very encouraging.

We’ve been receiving a lot of interest from new

advertisers in particular.

“We are very much on track in terms of our

commercial ambitions,” he continues. “We are

defi nitely reaping the benefi ts of being part of

Rotana’s channel bouquet.”

D’silva argues the strength of the Fox brand,

which is attached to at least one FTA or pay TV

channel property available in more than 80 percent

of the world’s developed markets, provides a mas-

sive boost to the local operation’s regional profi le.

“Globally, we operate 20 channel brands, and we

have 95 feeds of these channels in various markets

worldwide. Th ere is strength in these numbers,

particularly in terms of branding,” he adds.

“As a result, Middle East viewers can easily

identify with the Fox brand, which gives us added

value in the marketplace.”

Th e allure of the brand is further enhanced by

FIC’s ‘youthful’ marketing approach, D’silva claims.

“From a marketing perspective, the Middle East

boasts a very young viewer demographic com-

pared to other markets worldwide,” he says.

“Th ere is a considerable consumer appetite for

Hollywood movies and television content in the

Middle East. Television consumption in the region

is very high, particularly in the GCC countries.

“Yes, there are 400 channels operating here, but

we have a distinct advantage over our competi-

tors both in terms of branding and the content we

off er. We’re very positive about the future, given the

success we’ve achieved in a relatively short period

of time.

“Th e other major point that needs to be made

relates to scheduling and branding this content.

We have the experience to leverage our content

to achieve maximum impact. It’s a sophisticated

approach which diff ers greatly from many other

regional broadcasters.”

D’silva also argues that the combined experi-

ence off ered by the various FIC subsidiaries oper-

ating worldwide provides signifi cant advantages

when it comes to branding and programming

strategies implemented locally.

“We launched Fox Series on December 1 and

on the same day Fox Life launched in Greece,”

he notes. “Th ere are new Fox-branded channels

launching somewhere in the world every single

month. We are competing internally and learning

MARCH 2009

PLATFORMS: FOX

D’silva says FIC is has no privileges when it comes to acquiring broadcast rights of content, such as 24, produced by fellow News Corp subsidiary Fox.

PLATFORMS: FOX

037www.digitalproductionme.com

from one another: which scheduling, branding and

packaging strategies work best both in individual mar-

kets and across the board.

“We are very confi dent that this collective experience

will benefi t our business in this region.”

D’silva says the launch of Fox Series last December

marked a major step in the implementation of FIC’s

regional strategy. Th e channel is the fi rst dedicated 24-

hour US series TV channel operating in the Middle East.

Interestingly, and despite the initial branding rights

association with Fox and its various production divi-

sions, D’silva denies FIC and Rotana receive any special

privileges to Fox programming or related content.

As if to provide further evidence to this claim, he

points to the fact both Fox Movies and Fox Series

broadcast content produced by any number of Fox

rivals, including NBC Universal, Paramount and Ameri-

can television networks ABC and CBS.

“We have deals with all the major studios, not just

20th Century Fox,” he says. “We do have an output

deal with Fox, which comprises of fi rst-run movies

and CDs. We managed to secure this deal from a

competitor [MBC] when we fi rst launched the [Fox

Movies] channel.

“But other than that, we have no other privileges

when it comes to Fox-produced content. We still

have to compete with all our rivals in the region

for content.”

D’silva stresses that despite the current economic

slowdown, FIC and Rotana are committed to

launching new Fox-branded channels in the region

over the next 12 months.

“We do have other channels in the pipeline,

some of which we’ll launch this year,” he confi rms.

“Th ere are a lot of similarities between us and our

competitors. Rotana has multiple channels in vari-

ous markets, as does MBC and LBC. Th e key lies in

diff erentiating our off ering from theirs.

“Th e Middle East is still an evolving market, so

there’s plenty more growth here, for sure.”

There is a considerable consumer appetite for Hollywood movies and television content in the Middle East. Television consumption in the region is very high, particularly in theGCC countries.ROHIT D’SILVAGeneral manager, FIC.

MARCH 2009

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2. Flexibility ECO has been developed to address the requirements of all operators from those with low volume subscribers and scaling up to several million, which is why Latens has created 3 levels of customization. Level 1

for small operators wishing to carry out basic changes to ECO, Level 2 medium sized operators wishing to have a higher level of customization done by Latens themselves, and lastly Level 3 with a SDK that allows the operator to perform their own customizations.

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SummaryLatens is the only provider of a fully DVB compliant software CAS for cable, IPTV, DTH and DTT together with its ECO product – (single application software comprising of Middleware and CAS), Latens has solutions for all Pay TV broadcasting and broadband segments. Latens CAS is now installed in over 20 countries around the world protecting high value and premium content from all the major Hollywood and regional studios.

FirstlyECO is the only integrated middleware that includes award winning software CAS as part of the application. This provides great advantages as it removes one of the most problematic stages of getting an IPTV service running – the integration between middleware and CAS. Based on low cost servers, operational costs and future support issues including upgrades are removed in an instant with ECO, as it eliminates the issues caused by dual suppliers and constant interoperability testing. Selected by Echostar in the US for its ViP-TV services, Latens ECO is a middleware platform secured by Latens CAS is proven to work.

SecondlyECO offers an extensive set of features and functionality that enables high viewer retention. These features include, DVR, Timeshift TV, VOD, regionalization, series linking, local services, Web TV and many more. Integrated with the leading industry suppliers for head-ends, VOD and STBs, ECO provides a proven solution that allows operators to launch services quickly.

ThirdlyECO provides operators with the opportunity to offer their customers a Home Networking Solution. ECO’s functionality allows any device which is DLNA enabled in the home to share content across these devices, for example a DVR in the lounge sharing its content with a PC, wireless application or basic STB in the same home.

Our products are open standards compliant which allows operators to easily integrate to external or back offi ce systems such as SMS or billing systems.

e


INDUSTRY SERVICES: KIT DIGITAL

040

041

L ast year IP video technology provider KIT

Digital relocated its executive offi ces to

Dubai as part of its ambitious plans to

establish itself as the leader in its fi eld.

“We moved it here for a number of reasons, we

think the region is incredibly strong for a business

like ours, it is a much better place to run a global

company from given as our regional offi ces are

spread across the world. In the process we have basi-

cally ramped up our customer, sales and technical

support for our Middle East clients.”

Since then the KIT Digital has also invested

heavily acquiring three companies in related fi elds

(Australian content management systems vendor

Morpheum, Czech IPTV solutions provider Visual

Connection and Swedish mobile TV fi rm Kamera) in

deals worth a total of more than US $21million.

“We acquired Kamera in the second quarter of last

year. Our mission is to be the number one, end-

to-end technology supplier in our

space but to achieve

that we

needed to

acquire a few assets to build out the business,” says

Gavin Campion, president of KIT Digital.

“Kamera focused on mobile capability and content

repurposing. So this acquisition has given KIT the

mobile capability and hardcore content digitisation

credentials. A lot of our relationships with clients

begin with digitisation and we have that capability

from end to end now.”

Kamera has been fully integrated into KIT Digital

and the old Kamera brand discontinued.

“It was an important acquisition. Our global head

of content, Ola Scholander, came here from Kamera

and is now based within the executive, which shows

the quality and extent of the integration between the

two companies.”

Campion says that the company now has the right

structure in place to provide the full array of services

required by its clients, but he refuses to rule out the pos-

sibility of KIT making further acquisitions in the future.

“We have an ongoing, active merger and acquisi-

tion process in the company and we will always seek

best practise, pioneering, market leading technol-

ogy that allows us to monetise a client’s business,

connect their brands and their consumers and do

so at a profi t. Having said that, the world has now

changed economically and that in itself presents new

opportunities for a company in our position, leading

the market place with a profi table business.”

Campion says the company is well

placed fi nancially, and is “run-

ning on its own fuel”, which he

points out is unusual for technol-

ogy fi rms in this sector.

Th e three companies

acquired have also extended the

KIT Digital’s global reach.

“We said that 2008 would be the year that

we became a global company and we have achieved

The quality of broadcast services in this region is fantastic. Many of them literally have warehouses full of content. We are helping them to digitise that and then extend it out into the world on new platforms.GAVIN CAMPIONPresident, KIT Digital.

Whether it is being used as a marketing tool or a mainstream distribution method, consumer demand for online video is rising. KIT Digital president Gavin Campion tells Digital Broadcast how his company looks to turn this demand into revenue.

KITTED OUT


www.digitalproductionme.com MARCH 2009

042

that. Around 35 percent of our business is from the

Asia-Pacifi c region, 56 percent from Europe and 10

percent from the US, which is a good position to be

in. Th e acquisitions made a considerable contribu-

tion to this.”

With the company having moved its headquar-

ters to Dubai the Middle East is now set to become

a key territory for KIT. According to Campion, the

company’s business in the region is likely to be more

focused than in other territories.

“We work with print publishers and other verticals,

but here in this region we are focused more fi rmly on

the broadcast and telco markets. Th at is a function of

a number of factors. Th e quality of broadcast services

in this region is fantastic. Many of them literally have

warehouses full of content. We are helping them to

digitise that and then extend it out into the world on

new platforms.”

Campion cites underdeveloped internet penetration

and the lack of sophistication in many of the existing

browser based services as the main reason behind the

company’s current position in the Middle East.

“Web traffi c hasn’t reached critical mass here,

despite tremendous growth. Mobile revenue is tied

directly into the operators, and we have companies

like Sony Ericsson launching an on deck TV channel.

Sadly these services are often only an extension of

portal-based capability. I think there is huge scope

for more advanced mobile services here. It is inter-

esting that in the US these services are all browser

based and the infrastructure for mobile is rather

antiquated. In this region we are looking at leapfrog

technologies and mobile video will be a key driver for

those,” claims Campion.

With more of these new services coming online

all the time, Campion believes that the company’s

tailored approach could prove attractive, off ering

operators more fl exibility with the option to launch

new services “with the fl ick of a switch”.

“Generally, most of the enquiries we receive at the

moment are about STB and browser based technolo-

gies with most people defi nitely fl agging mobile for

the future,” says Campion.

Th e slowdown has led some to believe that spend-

ing on new technology will be prioritised over the

next few years and that established, traditional ser-

vices will take precedent over what some may view

as untried, experimental off erings.

“In times of trouble the fi rst budget that gets cut

is the advertising budget and a lot of our clients view

advertising as a primary source of income. Excitingly

they come to us and say ‘our revenues are dropping,

what can we do?’ Th ey are not coming to us and ask-

ing to cut their costs, they want to fi nd new revenue

streams. Th e other positive trend we are see is that

in times of trouble people move their advertising

budgets into more accountable media. People tend to

put more focus on the numbers,” says Campion.

In order to ensure KIT’s marketing video solutions

meet these criteria, the company has developed a full

set of analytical tools, which Campion says can dem-

onstrate and quantify the value of the services on off er.

“Th ere is an underlying truth, behind all this, the

consumer demand for IP-based video far outweighs

the scale that it is being supplied in. So there is a huge

opportunity gap. I don’t think consumer demand for

IP video solutions is going to drop, they are going to

keep consuming it and the market will keep growing

so the only question is how fast can we monetise that

opportunity on behalf of our clients and that – to

some degree – insulates us from the more mature

industries,” claims Campion.

As well as the consumer demand being high, tech-

nology tastes are also increasingly sophisticated.

“A lot of our clients believe they can stick a

video player on their site and that will be adequate.

Consumers now demand a certain set of tools to go

alongside that player; they want to drag the player

onto their MySpace site; they want to have sharing

tools; they want to be able to set up their own playl-

ists; to have in video chat and so on. If you look at the

list of applications available for Facebook then you

get an idea of just what is available and that should

make some people ask questions about their own

players,” claims Campion.

Th ese tool sets and the analytical support behind

them are a large part of the company’s off ering with

the remainder comprising of its content business.

“We repurpose content for people with large

archives including AP, Disney and ABC, essentially

making it web and mobile ready. Th is can involve

digitising, repurposing, making it web or browser

ready, translating and publishing. We translate into

12 languages, including Arabic.

“Arabic is a key language for us moving forward.

Partly because of the demand and also due to the

desire of the operators in the region to embrace new

services and be pioneers.”

I think there is huge scope for more advanced mobile services here. It is interesting that in the US these services are all browser based and the infrastructure for mobile is rather antiquated. In this region we are looking at leapfrog technologies and mobile video will be a key driver for those.GAVIN CAMPIONPresident, KIT Digital.



Accessing video content is now

possible via a vast number

of methods. Networks born

on the web – particularly

YouTube – are increasingly available on

diff erent platforms including TV STBs and

traditional broadcasters are continually

expanding their accessibility online.

Th e technologies enabling these cross-

overs are adding improved functionality

and better user experiences. Microsoft’s

Xbox 360 platform has internet con-

nectivity (by WiFi if you like), a hard

drive, HD capability, a proprietary social

community platform (Xbox Live) and

a dedicated online content store (Xbox

Live Marketplace).

While all this might sound like a PVR,

VOD platform and more all rolled into

one the company maintains that it is

not looking to position the Xbox 360 as a

home media hub.


With a number of new parties entering the set top box (STB)

space recently, threats from games consoles and internet

based platforms are asking questions of the STB market.

Digital Broadcast investigates.

BOXED IN

INFRASTRUCTURE: SET TOP BOXES

044

“Th e Xbox is a gaming device. Microsoft has been

very clear in positioning the Xbox as just that,” says

Gabrielle Di Piazza, managing director, Microsoft

media, entertainment and communications. “We

also provide entertainment through the Xbox but

we are not confusing the two things. Th e Xbox is a

gaming device fi rst, but we also want to provide an

entertainment off ering as part of the experience.”

Di Piazza claims that the Xbox Live Marketplace

portal off ers the largest supply of downloadable HD

content in the US and currently boasts 16-17 million

users daily. Th e company is also continuing to add

to the number of applications.

“We have announced that the Xbox can be used

as a STB for our IPTV Mediaroom off ering but I

don’t think we should be talking about exchanging

the STB for an Xbox,” concedes Di Piazza.

So although other devices are gaining STB

functions, even the manufacturers of these new

platforms admit that the STB is not about to be

superseded with an all-in-one solution.

“Creating a single home entertainment hub is

preferable from a consumer perspective, but has the

potential to present problems for the service provid-

ers involved,” says Shane McCarthy, group account

director, Pace. “Th ere is certainly some attrition

now between the PC, games console and the STB in

terms of which is in the best position to take home

entertainment to the next level. But the real benefi t

of the STB is that it is designed to manage content

whereas the PC and games console are not.”

As consumers continue to receive their principal

TV service in ever diversifying methods, the ability of

a separate device to cater for all these diff erent signals

remains limited. Th e Xbox’s ability to act as a STB is

not just restricted to IPTV services, but to those IPTV

services using the Microsoft Mediaroom platform.

“I think consoles and STBs will coexist; neither

will be the dominate player. Game devices such as

the Nintendo Wii, Xbox360, and Playstation 3 have

all been made network capable to create networked

gaming communities,” says Mike Tometzki, senior

director, client device strategy, Irdeto.

“Th is also enables them to become media servers

and therefore allows push content via fi re-walled

player portals. In some systems like the PS3, DVB

tuners via USB connections are being added allow-

ing for freeview only content.”

Tometzki expects to see both types of devices

Creating a single home entertainment hub is preferable froma consumer perspective, but has the potentialto present problemsfor the service providers involved.SHANE MCCARTHYGroup account director, Pace.



embrace increased storage with both pursuing 1Tb

capacities. He also expects to see more STBs includ-

ing Blu-ray drives as the available catalogue expands.

However, he believes that connectivity will be the key

diff erentiator for the STB moving forward.

“Wireless home media hubs are likely to be the

STB of the future, the home gateway with more

than 1Tb of storage, several DVB tuners, catering for

multiple devices for local viewing around the home

and place shifting, and a broadband pipe in excess of

10 Mbs – allowing push content and targeted content

based on the viewing habitats,” predicts Tometzki.

Pace’s McCarthy says that viewers are already

beginning to demand such functionality making it

harder for one currently available device to perform

all of these roles.

“Operators provide services for an extremely

large variation in consumer needs – one size cer-

tainly doesn’t fi t all. Th e way people view content

has dramatically changed in recent years. New

services such as HD, VOD and live replays have

been adopted in markets around the world. Th e STB

is instrumental in facilitating the delivery of new

content services and as consumers’ expectations

continue to grow, the STB and its place at the centre

of the TV experience will continue to play a key role

in driving further innovation,” says McCarthy.

One of the most important features on STBs that

could ensure their continued necessity is the in-

built ability to comply with DRM protection.

“Delivering content to a range of devices

– consoles or computers – makes content security

extremely diffi cult. In view of this, the digital home

environment is likely to remain dependent on a

number of connected boxes with secure content

managed by a dedicated STB,” assures McCarthy.

“Th e pay TV market has evolved rapidly over the

past decade and this has been driven by STB devel-

opment, which is continuously enabling improved

entertainment and content delivery. Traditionally,

innovation took place with the TV although now this

has largely shifted to the STB,” claims McCarthy.

Th is switch in the leader of innovation has not just

been from one device to another. Th ere has also been

a switch in the industry behind these services. Sever-

al companies with core business interests elsewhere

have developed media products and specifi cally user

interfaces (UI) that have surpassed what was previ-

ously on off er, raising expectations along the way.

045

046

“Th e Apple UI is without doubt the best and most

recognisable in the marketplace,” says Alex Borland,

business development director, Latens. “Now the

operators need to be able to keep up with that. Th at

means releasing a better product into the market, with

better graphics capability, suitable UIs that can com-

pete with Apple plus all the additional functionality.

At the moment, the operators are somewhat behind.

Th ey haven’t faced these challenges before and they

have been hampered with legacy infrastructure.”

Despite this, Borland believes that the operators

could have done more in order to lead development

of the technology.

“Th ey need to think more about home network-

ing, DNLA support (the standard associated with

the Digital Living Network Alliance) and distri-

bution to other devices and continuing to secure ex-

clusive rights to content. Th is means that the digital

rights of this content must also be transferred

between devices,” explains Borland.

Th is is less complicated than it may sound, ac-

cording to Borland. AES encryption algorithms – of-

ten used to secure Wi-Fi networks – are compat-

ible with a number of portable devices and games

consoles and installing DRM software over the top

of these is straightforward, says Borland.

For the Middle East specifi cally, Borland believes

that a combination of attitude and broadening fi bre

networks, put the region in a strong position to be

fully exploiting all the capabilities of a future STB or

home gateway. Th ere are diffi culties however.

“Th e biggest challenge facing the Middle East pay

TV market is the growing availability of high qual-

ity FTA channels, which makes consumers reluc-

tant to spend unnecessarily.” says McCarthy. “Th is

makes the Middle East an important growth region

for STB manufacturers, as providing innovative

services beyond those of the FTA platforms is likely

to be the key factor in driving consumer adoption of

pay TV services.”



10%Worldwide growth in STB

shipments in 2009 versus 2008

20%Global increase in number

of ‘digital households’ in the same year

US $19bnPeak of STB revenues,

estimated to occur in 2011

10%Predicted annual decline in STB

revenue from 2011 onwards

SOURCE: IMS Research 2009


Digital Broadcast takes a look at the

satellite newsgathering network provided

for Iraqi channel Alsumaria during the

recent Iraqi national Election.

POLLTO POLL

CASE STUDY

048

T he diligent planning and execution of the

logistics supporting any TV broadcast

determine the success and cost of the

production. When that broadcast is live,

any margin for error is removed.

When that broadcast is taking place across fi ve

fi eld locations as well as the studio and must be

organised and deployed in under four weeks, the

ease of use and simplicity of the technology at

work, are paramount.

One of Iraq’s largest TV stations, Alsumaria,

wanted to cover the nation’s election on January 31

from fi ve major cities simultaneously. Th is off ered

them the fl exibility to ‘follow the news’ over the

course of the day wherever it broke.

“Th e major challenge for Servicesat and Al-

sumaria was having to work within a tight time

frame,” says Alex Oikononou, technical director

Servicesat. “Th e contracts were awarded late and

we also had to ensure large quantities of hardware

arrived in Iraq from numerous ports around the

world. Fortunately some excellent logistical coor-

dination coupled with the cooperation of various

shipping companies made this possible.”

Alsumaria had requested a tailor-made digital

broadcasting solution that sat in line with its

resources. Once the US $200,000 deal was agreed,

Servicesat faced the signifi cant challenge of bring-

ing together all the necessary hardware compo-

nents within the narrow timeframe.

“Fortunately we have suffi cient equipment sup-

plies of our own to release inventory immediately.

The major challenge for Servicesat and Alsumaria was havingto work within a tight time frame... The systems were being set up just one day prior to the elections.ALEX OIKONONOUTechnical director, Servicesat.

CASE STUDY


We also have excellent relationships with a produc-

tion unit in the United States which has the quick-

est turnover for these kind of products anywhere

in the world,” claims Oikononou. “Although the

systems were being set up just one day prior to the

elections – and despite the last minute activation of

the service – the project was an immense success

and a huge accomplishment for Servicesat.”

At the heart of the Servicesat implementation

were three core items of equipment.

“Th e Direcstar auto-deploy antenna is a one-

touch self-aligning auto deploy antenna that

requires no technical training to operate and is

deployed and locked on to the satellite in about

three minutes,” explains Oikononou.

“In conjunction with this, Servicesat teamed up

with Quicklink gaining access to its latest com-

pression techniques, enabling live MPEG4 video to

be sent at speeds under 400 kb/s.”

Together with the Hughes Network Systems

HN 7000s broadband satellite router, these key

components combine to represent what Oikononou

describes as the “lowest priced product of its kind”.

Servicesat claims to have already begun discus-

sions with Alsumaria regarding future collabora-

tions after the broadcaster was highly satisfi ed

with the end results.

“We evaluated many options before settling on

Servicesat solution and we are very happy with our

choice... an impressive video and audio quality has

been reached using 360 kb/s dedicated bandwidth,”

says Jad Atallah, CTO, Alsumaria TV.

049

Alsumaria used Servicesat’s system to broadcast live from fi ve cities across Iraq on election day. Delays in the tendering process gave Servicesat just one month to assemble, design and implement the network.

TECHNOLOGY

050

Driven by the demand of ‘instant access’ to media, the streamlining of workfl ows and the perceived fi nancial savings that this would bring, content owners and broadcasters alike are embracing the concept of fi le-

based technology, writes Greg Hoskin.


GO WITHTHE FLOW

T he media industry has processed videos

as fi les for some time as fi le-based

editing, digital graphic creation and

other special eff ects, as well as more

recently playout, have been the early adopters of

this technology. However these have historically

operated as isolated islands of technology. Today’s

challenge is to link these independent islands

together to provide a truly seamless and transpar-

ent workfl ow throughout the content distribution

chain from acquisition and ingest, right through

to transmission.

However to embrace the real benefi ts that fi le-

based workfl ow solutions can deliver, the media

industry needs to move away from its tried and

trusted current operational practices which have

been derived from years of working in tape-based

environments. Instead to ensure the design will

deliver the fi nancial benefi ts of such a solution,

companies need to engage in developing new

workfl ows practices and harnessing the advan-

tages that these technologies bring.

With traditional tape-based workfl ows, the

physical media brings with it a level of familiarity

and recognition of the content. Th is is often lost in

a fi le-based environment, as the physical media is

replaced by fi les within a computer system. Th is

can lead to a perception, often amongst opera-

tors, of ‘losing’ content. Th is can easily become the

outcome as the simplest typing or naming error

to the fi le can result in the media ‘disappearing’

into the system. To prevent this requires rigorous

discipline at every stage, especially in the naming

and cataloguing of media.

Key to this process is the choice of user-tool

and hence the media management or asset

management system that becomes extremely sig-

nifi cant to the success of a fi le-based operation.

Systems must provide a user-friendly and intui-

tive desktop experience combined with superb

media delivery. Broadcasters will need to allocate

time and money to train their staff while manu-

facturers must develop systems that can be easily

and quickly adopted across a facility – while at

the same time meeting the workfl ow requirement

and company’s business needs. Ultimately they

need to simplify the business process of content

management and bring clearly identifi able cost

and revenue benefi ts.

However clients often make these fundamental

decisions without obtaining the true facts or set-

ting realistic expectations. It is at this stage that

a trusted and respected systems integrator (SI)

comes into it own. SIs can provide an objective

view to evaluate the operational needs and expec-

tations, and then review and evaluate potential

applications with their corresponding confi gura-

tions. Th ose SIs not aligned to any particularly

manufacturer, will choose the best-of-breed

solutions to meet the customer’s individual needs.

Failure to do this may produces designs that fall

far short of meeting the business and operational

objectives of the client’s management teams.

In practice, the implementation of fi le-based

workfl ows is no trivial task since the media can be

encoded (digitised) in any one of many diff erent

formats and resolutions – each delivering a specif-

ic benefi t, although often incompatible with each

other. Furthermore equipment interoperability

is paramount. Today we see diff erent equipment

vendors each putting their own interpretation on

the industry’s best eff orts to standardise interfac-

ing thus hindering the true implementation of

seamless fi le-based workfl ows.

Th at said, the industry has for many years been

striving to develop workable interoperability stan-

dards. For instance, it produced MXF to replace

the SDI and tape formats that have been refi ned

over many years. Nonetheless as soon as MXF was

born, variants were developed to meet specifi c

technology and operational needs. Th is in itself

created its own issues for those designing a system

that required interoperability. In fact Turner

Broadcasting Systems, along with a selection of

equipment vendors, has developed an initiative to

attempt to cut through the interoperability issues

and to provide proposed, real-world solutions for

key workfl ows, focusing on creating a single MXF

master fi le from which multiple versions of a pro-

gram may be created.

Last year Harris opened the fi rst “Interoperability

Lab” seen in the industry at its Toronto headquar-

ters to ensure that interoperability issues amongst

its own products, as well as those with third party

products, were identifi ed before they popped up

in the fi eld. Th ese initiatives are all heading in the

right direction as they ultimately provide best

working practices for everyone in the business.

TECHNOLOGY

MARCH 2009 www.digitalproductionme.com 051

With... the increasing expectation from the viewer for immediate results, a fi le-based workfl ow is the only practical way for content to be simultaneously delivered in today’s multi-platform environment.GREG HOSKINManaging director, MHz Broadcast.


COM

PAN

Y PROFILE

MHZ BROADCASTPart of the AZCAR Group, MHz plays a signifi cant role in design-ing and delivering innovative solutions to the world’s leading broadcasters, telecommunication and digital media companies.

MHz boasts more than 25 years of experience and encompasses every aspect of systems imple-mentation from engineering planning, project management, design, product evaluation, com-missioning through to training, support & IT services.

Furthermore, through its partnership with Feltech, one of the leading UK-based digital broadcast and Audio Video Information Technology (AVIT) equipment suppliers and systems integrators, MHz is also capable of supplying broadcast AVIT equipment, IPTV, and digital signage solutions within the government, corporate, venue and education sectors.

Some recent fi le-based installa-tions from MHz can be found at The Times Group in India and eTV in South Africa.

MHz completed the installation of the server-based infrastructure and broadcast system for the South African broadcaster eTV’s 24-hour news channel. Alongside the state of the art fi le-based workfl ows, the project also included two new DSNG trucks to handle the news coverage in and around Cape Town, Johan-nesburg and Durban. These were designed and built at MHz’s UK headquarters and incorporate MHz’s internally-designed in-novative satellite remote-control system, M2RC, which offers cost-effective and simple remote control capabilities.

MARCH 2009

TECHNOLOGY

With all this in mind, it is possible today to

design and deliver operational benefi ts from fi le-

based workfl ow solutions. In fact with competitive

challenges to the traditional broadcast model, and

the increasing expectation from the viewer for im-

mediate results, a fi le-based workfl ow is the only

practical way for content to be simultaneously

delivered in today’s multi-platform environment.

Examples of this can be found in the home where

time-shifted recoding from downloading Internet

media players (such as iPlayer), personal video

recorders (PVR’s), web and other mobile devices.

Th e process of determining the optimum work-

fl ow for a facility therefore involves various con-

siderations. Improved workfl ows and the resulting

effi ciencies may in fact enable a content owner

and broadcaster to use less physical space, there-

by reducing their overheads for rent and related

costs. Although it might appear a simple task,

the choice of technologies requires considerable

deliberation about the longer term business and

strategic goals of the client. But before this can

happen it is necessary to ensure that the reliabil-

ity levels and robustness of a complete fi le-based

Newscasters have been particularly keen to embrace digital workfl ows due to the improvements they create when handling there large archives.

solution is at least on a par with the “perceived”

security off ered by the use of traditional tape.

Consideration must be given to the source

of the content and the formats as well as what

vehicles will be used to deliver them. Also thought

must be given to the type of content and com-

mercial opportunities presented by that content

and the markets being served today and well into

the future.

It is also paramount to ensure that the level of

training to operate and maintain the fi le-based

new systems is implemented and maintained

across the board. And of course there needs to

be a business plan underpinning this change to

ensure its ongoing success. Th e choice of an expe-

rienced systems integration partner is a funda-

mental part of this equation – not only to provide

best-of-breed, integrated turnkey solutions which

deliver the business plan but also to ensure that

cost effi ciencies are maintained across the opera-

tion and the potential revenue streams, which the

adoption of new technology enable, are optimised

now and into the future.

Greg Hoskin is managing director of Megahertz Broadcast.


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au/broadcasting2009

BROADBAND GLOBAL SUMMIT 10 – 11 March Dubai, UAEwww.broadband-

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IPTV WORLD FORUM 25 – 27 March London, UKwww.iptv-forum.com

MIPTV 2009 30 March – 3 April Cannes, Francewww.miptv.com

INDUSTRY EVENTS

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DATA

T elecoms analyst Northern Sky Research

(NSR) recently released the fi fth edition

of its Global Assessment of Satellite

Demand study.

Th e report forecasts an increase in HD channels

in the Middle East and Africa of 2400 percent

between 2007 and 2017. Th e number of channels

added each year will vary with an average growth

rate of 38 percent till 2017. Th is equates to an aver-

age of 13 new HD channels launched per year.

Restrictions on the rate of this growth are

acknowledged by NSR with the latest report

claiming that Ku band utilisation for the MENA

region at the end of 2008 was well in excess of 90

percent, with C band utilisation between 60 and

70 percent.

Th e methodology used in the study classes a

‘MENA’ HD channel as one that can be accessed

from within the region rather than a channel that

is uplinked from the Middle East or marketed

towards its population.

Given the number of satellite footprints in

neighbouring regions that are already carrying

HD content, many of the HD channels included in

the report do not originate from broadcasters in

the region itself. SES Astra’s 19.2 and 23.5 degrees

A new report predicts 2400 percent growth in the number of HD channels in MENA over a ten year period.DEFINED GROWTH

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

150

120

90

60

30

0

TOTAL HD CHANNELS

TOTAL TPEs LEASED FOR HD

CHAN

NEL

S

50

40

30

20

10

0

TPEs

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA HD CHANNELS AND TPE TRENDS

DATA SOURCE: Northern Sky Research

East spots, the Eutelsat’s 13 degrees East Hotbird

fl eet and the Turksat fl eet are responsible for much

of this overlapping coverage.

Even when accounting for these channels, the

level of growth remains strong and NSR recognis-

es that it will be necessary for the satellite sector

to match this performance if it is going to provide

the capacity required to meet the unquestionable

demand for HD services.

According to NSR the impressive forecasts for

the number of HD channels in the MENA region

are not so great that they cannot be supported by

the existing and planned fl eet of satellites that will

serve the region by 2017.

Th e report also points out the signifi cance of the

improved signal compression of HD signals stat-

ing that research at the end of 2007 had found that

2.5 HD channels could be housed on a 36 MHz

transponder equivalent (TPE) across the MENA

region. As part of the new NSR forecast however

this number is expected to rise as high as 4.1 HD

channels per TPE.

Th e resulting 60 percent gain in effi ciency will

provide a signifi cant boost to the ability of the

region’s satellite hardware to provide the highly

sought after capacity.

87 millionNumber of households

worldwide with HDcapable TVs in 2007.

500 millionNumber of households

worldwide with HDcapable TVs in 2012.

110 millionNumber of those that

receive only SD services.

SOURCE: Screen Digest.

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