There
Executive interview
iWedia ’ s
10 years
‘ accelerating TV ’
ATV spoke to Hans-Jürgen Desor , CEO about the changes over ten years of serving the broadcast industry , and what ’ s to come .
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’ s been a lot of change in that decade : over the years we have served customers in digital TV and that has evolved to hybrid and then OTT only , and now , some have a ‘ mobile-first ’ proposition . And the company itself has grown from a handful of people in 2011 to now over 250 engineers .
“ Our first deployment was with Swisscom in 2012 .”
Our first deployment was with Swisscom in 2012 when it began to abandon its satellite broadcasts and introduce an IPTV service . They chose open-source Android as the platform in the hope they could work with a large ecosystem of partners , and that was the first step in making Android an option as an operating system for the living room .
Soon after , we started to work with Google on Google TV , as it was then , and that has continued to this day ; back then it was Android version 2 and now we have Android version 12 . We were bringing them expertise in things like PVR functions , teletext , EPG , etcetera .
Eventually , other big telcos alighted on Android , the first being Bouygues Telecom in France , still one of our largest customers . They eventually had a comprehensive hybrid offering including DVB-T , OTT and cloud
PVR . Another interesting deployment was NTT in Japan in 2017 when they introduced redistribution of satellite channels over their IP network .
Coming to today , needless to say , the entertainment industry has had a boom time in terms of demand , though content production has been challenged . For the business side , finding new customers and engaging with existing customers is the biggest challenge in a distanced world . This is when
having reference customers is extremely valuable .
For audiences there ’ s been increasing fragmentation in the offering ; it is no longer one bouquet – they potentially need different services for different content offerings . Viewers get overwhelmed with choice . It used to be ‘ hundreds of channels and nothing on ’, now it is hundreds of apps you have to switch between – it is just as bad . That is now the challenge for the industry , to find a user interface and recommendations to help me find the content that really interests me .
To make content stand out , in Asia they are innovating with cross-promotion with shops or video gaming to promote TV shows . One of our customers is Thailand ’ s TrueVision and they have a brand called TrueID where you
“ A portfolio that goes beyond video services .”
can collect points from a particular retailer that can be redeemed for a VoD choice , for example . Or you can win assets in your video game that can be redeemed with the retailer .
This is the beginning of service providers delivering more than TV . This may include Fintech services , or , say , the ability to book a resort similar to one inside your gaming environment . It is building a portfolio that goes beyond video services .
Standards are certainly important to efficient and fast development . Android is widespread but is not dominant when you look at Amazon , Roku and the proprietary platforms from device makers and operators ; one of our biggest customers is Reliance Jio in India , for instance , and for maximum control and flexibility they decided to craft their own ecosystem .
The answer to some extent is pre-validated or ‘ canned ’ solutions – for example , we worked with Netflix and Google on Hailstorm , designed to help speed time to market and consumer familiarity . These are valid aims , but it illustrated the challenges – it narrowed flexibility for operators , requiring a certain chipset , or certain OEMs , and take up was limited . Typically , Tier 1 telcos want to own the product and choose their technology partners . We can help them design the service , its functionality and features , and
“ The journey might be all the way to TV as a service ”
then they can choose their technology partners . The move to cloud provision is inexorable . The definition is more between business models – capex or opex . Some of our biggest customers are migrating to cloud , but cloud they control themselves . For smaller operators , taking an opex approach , the journey might be all the way to TV as a service , where they own no infrastructure assets themselves .
The good thing about OTT is that the technology barrier is so low that anyone can ‘ join ’ – to create an app that will render your content onto my smart tv or set-top box is really easy . And on the content creation side you can use 5G mobile devices for content capture and distribution . And there ’ s a lot of investment in direct to consumer , look at the NBA or Olympics or Premier League , they all try to monetise their own content or provide bonus additional content through OTT .
More and more part of our work is developing technology frameworks enabling providers to work with , for instance , targeted advertising , audience analytics , gaming , and now , Fintech and smart home , all to make the provider ’ s service more useful and sticky for its subscribers .”
18 EUROMEDIA