With the continued rise of, and appetite for VOD and streaming services, traditional broadcasters are under great pressure to stay ahead of the curve, or at the very least to deliver a service that meets consumer expectations. As such it is incumbent on broadcasters to provide a diverse catalogue of viewing options that include linear and non-linear offerings, across traditional broadcast, cable, satellite and OTT. However, when it comes to managing both linear and non-linear operations there are still hurdles and headaches to overcome.
Traditional broadcasters often have disparate teams managing their linear and non-linear offerings, with the “digital” teams generally operating outside the central meta-data and broadcast management eco-system of the linear operation. Typically, this is a situation born out of necessity and a need to be flexible and adaptable during the early days of developing a non-linear offering. Yet, as these non-linear services have evolved, stablised and become more focussed over time, the management of them frequently remains somewhat disconnected.
This has meant that content, acquisition, rights and media information etc. is not properly shared across the separate teams, leading to data duplication, mismatch and a difficulty in tracking content availability and performance across all of a broadcasters outputs.
MSA Focus saw an opportunity to streamline both the workflow and meta-data management overheads associated with these operational structures, without the need for wholesale restructuring and while still providing a greater flexibility for integration.
With this in mind MSA Focus has developed an alternative solution for VOD package management, one that will not require digital teams to completely abandon their current operational situation and as such enable them to remain slightly “outside” the core broadcast management eco-system, yet with closer and more defined data links to it.
The solution provides a cross platform web application, with a micro-services architecture and in-built API integration, allowing non-linear packaging to be independently managed using meta-data directly from a central BMS (Broadcast Management System), such as MSA Focus’ ForeTV Pulse.
With core content, acquisition, rights, and media information etc. flowing from the central BMS to the new VOD packaging platform, digital teams can manipulate that meta-data and re-package content within the permitted rights windows, to serve the needs of multiple VOD platforms with differing business rules. As this is all controlled through the packaging platform and subsequently published to third party headend systems via the native API; BMS master records are not jeopardised while all necessary ID and core data links are maintained between e-VOD and the BMS.
“This alternative VOD packaging development was born out of discussions with many broadcasters, each of whom expressed similar frustrations and roadblocks with the management of their non-linear offerings” – explained MSA Focus Regional Manager, Phua Lik Chin – “It was designed specifically to help connect disparate digital and VOD management teams with their core broadcast management eco-systems, and to help streamline workflow and improve data integrity across the business. This initial work will form the basis of a continued development to offer more functionality and greater flexibility moving forward”
