viewsat_viewsat 30/08/2013 12:24 Page 2
COMPANY PROFILE
“We deal with a lot of start up channels.”
one region and then they want to expand into other regions and we are helping them to achieve that.” “Another key ingredient we have a lot experience with is speed to market. Often, particularly in the Middle East, channels want to be on air very quickly. Sometimes you can have a negotiation in the morning and they want to be on air by lunchtime, so our aim is to turn around services as quickly as possible; sometimes even before a contract has been sent back.” “With the African start ups there’s often a lot of input needed on content and reformatting and training in things like remotely controlling their play-out servers. That’s the culture of the business, we have to understand our client’s needs and look at things from the client’s perspective. We can’t take a standardised approach, and that means a flexible way of working that all of our staff have to adapt to.” “Of course, not all start-ups succeed but we understand the process, we were a start-up ourselves. Some do fall by the wayside, but sometimes they come back again having the learned the lessons of why they failed the first time. We recently had a channel come back
like to enter an emerging market but there is a lack of understanding and a nervousness about those markets. This is mainly because the kind of market research they are used to relying on is scant or non-existent.” “The other big challenge is often the absence of a licensing and regulatory framework, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. What we provide – based in the UK and part of the European Union – is a stable base to work with stable regulations upon which their contracts can be based. It gives them a clear framework to work with. This is also important in the Middle East where regime changes mean channels can suddenly come under pressure, by uplinking from here it gives them an opportunity to continue so long as they comply with European regulation.” “All this experience now gives us the opportunity to target ‘blue chip’ channels looking to expand into these emerging markets. Of course, the main issue is that most of them prefer to go in on a pay-TV
“Another key ingredient is speed to market.”
basis, not FTA. We can provide their signal to a pay-TV operator but we are not in a position to distribute them ‘on the ground’.” “Looking ahead, we currently play out about sixty channels and distribute over one hundred, all of them 24/7, within the next twelve months we aim to make that over two hundred. We’re expanding the facility to handle over two hundred and fifty channels immediately. Channels can deliver to us in a variety of ways – IP, satellite, fibre, - and we encode, multiplex and deliver on to our uplink site for onward transmission. We have everything needed to ensure continuity of service; generators, UPS, diverse fibre optics, redundancy in encoders and multiplexers, and 24/7 support staff.” “The only thing we don’t do on site at the moment is the uplink, but we have just installed and commissioned a nine metre antenna and we’ll have second one within the next year to provide service to our Middle East customers, so then everything will be in-house.”
emerging markets
that dropped off the air about a year ago and it is much more stable, both the content and the delivery of the service are much better.” “There certainly are challenges working in these emerging markets but we have a lot of experience now and we can definitely pass that on to our customers. The real concern is with channels in developed markets like Europe and the US who would
“There certainly are challenges in these emerging markets.”
You can watch a video profile of Viewsat at www.advancedtelevision.com
EUROMEDIA 29