IBC.org
Summary
Uncompromising
Vision Mr Ang Lee on taking filmmaking technology to new levels
“It will be a world of audience planning rather than media planning”
“Immersive technologies are more likely to be a success now than at any time in history”
“We need to improve the awareness of European cinema by using digital media”
Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP
Alex Mahon, The Foundry
The Lord Puttnam CBE
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theibcdaily
Executive Summary 03
Inside Mr Ang Lee Film Director
Page 04
The Lord Puttnam CBE House of Lords
Page 05
Sir Martin Sorrell WPP
Page 06
Erik Huggers CEO, Vevo
Page 08
Naomi Climer Page 09 Institution of Engineering and Technology; Chair of the IBC Council
Managing transformation We gave the IBC2016 Conference the overall title, ‘Transformation in the Digital Era: Leadership, strategy and creativity in media and entertainment’. There are forces all around us, driving change in our industry. On the one hand there is renewed interest in completely immersive formats with VR rapidly gaining support; but equally consumers are keen on snacking content, often via social media. We expect any content to be available at any time on any device; yet we are also seeing appointment-to-view television growing in importance as we provide Ultra HD to the large screen in the corner of the living room. Media companies have a technical transformation in the move to IP interconnectivity and interoperability through software-defined workflows. But at the same time they have to be ever more vigilant in the protection of that other IP, intellectual property rights. New revenue streams have to be developed while nurturing the established sources of income. We have the potential to target advertising ever more closely to the individual, provided of course we can find ways to tame big data. And of course there is the potential of the cloud: what services can benefit from virtualisation to run on processors rented by the minute? These are the transformations, but that was only half of our conference theme. We met in Amsterdam not to list the challenges, but to share experiences and expertise on leadership, strategy and creativity. IBC provides the unique opportunity to debate these issues. Broadcasters and media companies are not alone in managing these transformations, but sharing knowledge and learning from experience takes time, something that the structure of the IBC Conference allows. Within the conference, the IBC Leaders’ Summit is now an established date in the calendar, a day for C-level executives to get together, behind closed doors, to develop the top-level thinking that will carry the industry forward. This publication brings together a collection of interviews with many of the participants in the Leaders’ Summit, together with keynote speakers in the conference. Their thoughts are authoritative, but are given to spur further thoughts and further debates. I hope you find it interesting, and I hope it develops your own leadership, strategy and creativity to help you prosper in this new digital era. Michael Crimp, CEO, IBC EDITORIAL Editorial Director: James McKeown Editor: Michael Burns Editorial Consultant: Fergal Ringrose Reporters: Kate Bulkley, Ann-Marie Corvin, Chris Forrester, David Davies, Carolyn Giardina, Monica Heck, George Jarrett, Ian McMurray, Anne Morris, Adrian Pennington, Neal Romanek, Will Strauss, Catherine Wright Photography: James Cumpsty ART & PRODUCTION Design: Adam Butler Production Manager: Alistair Taylor SALES Sales Manager: Peter McCarthy Tel: +44 (0)20 7 354 6000, Email: pmcarthy@nbmedia.com Richard Carr Tel: +44 (0)20 7 354 6000, Email: rcarr@nbmedia.com US Sales Michael Mitchell Tel: +1 (631) 673 3199 Email: mjmitchell@broadcast-media.tv IBC Chief Executive Officer: Michael Crimp NewBay Media Managing Director: Mark Burton Published on behalf of the IBC Partnership by NewBay Media Ltd, The Emerson Building, 4-8 Emerson Street, London, SE1 9DU © The International Broadcasting Convention 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. Printed by Pensord Press, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood NP12 2YA, UK.
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Elisabetta Romano Ericsson
Page 10
Dominique Delport Havas Media Group and Chairman of Vivendi Content
Page 13
Benjamin Faes Google
Page 14
Hendrik McDermott NBCUniversal International
Page 15
Dr Manuel Cubero Vodafone Germany
Page 16
Christopher Whiteley Netflix
Page 17
Saul J Berman IBM Global Business Services
Page 18
Alex Mahon The Foundry
Page 19
James Rosenstock Vice Media
Page 20
Raymundo Barros TV Globo
Page 21
Michael Zink Warner Bros.
Page 22
Anna Winger Writer-Producer
Page 23
Kevin Baillie Atomic Fiction
Page 24
Charlie Vogt Imagine Communications
Page 25
Derek Bradley Disney Research
Page 26
Ingrid Deltenre European Broadcasting Union
Page 27
Kelly O. Humphries NASA
Page 28
Carlos Fontanot NASA
Page 29
IBC Leaders’ Summit
Pages 30-31
Dave Ward Cisco Systems
Page 32
Wenbing Yao Huawei Technologies
Page 33
Eric Black NBC Sports Group Digital
Page 34
Jon Karafin Lytro
Page 36
Patrick Spence Fifty Fathoms
Page 38
Efe Çakarel MUBI
Page 39
Kerris Bright Virgin Media
Page 41
Andy Bryant Red Bee
Page 42
Mark Kendall NEC Display Solutions EMEA
Page 43
Andy Quested BBC Design and Engineering
Page 44
Claudia Vaccarone Eutelsat
Page 45
Dr Fares Lubbadeh SpaceTech TV Engineering
Page 46
Jim Chabin Society/The VR Society
Page 47
Fabrice Mollier TF1 Publicité
Page 48
Dr Rich Chernock Triveni Digital
Page 49
Alexandre Jenny GoPro
Page 50
David Atkins Suitcase TV
Page 51
Curt Behlmer Dolby Laboratories
Page 52
Ingrid Silver Dentons
Page 53
Nart Bouran Sky News Arabia
Page 54
Spencer Stephens Sony Pictures Entertainment
Page 55
Tom Bert Barco
Page 56
Peter Kerckhoff Deutsche Telekom
Page 57
Gidon Katz Now TV (Sky)
Page 58
16/09/2016 12:37
04 Executive Summary
theibcdaily
Big Screen Keynote Mr Ang Lee Film Director Region: Taiwan ROC
“Filmmaking needs to change, and the culture of watching a movie needs to change”
Uncompromising vision Awards buzz is building around wartime drama Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, not just because of the film’s groundbreaking technical production, but because it is crafted by two-time best director Oscar winner Mr Ang Lee. “The reality of it triggers your mind to react so differently to the way we are used to seeing,” said Lee, of the picture’s unprecedented visual format, which was presented in 3D 4K and 120fps at an electrifying keynote to a packed house at IBC. However, Lee is the first to admit that pioneering extreme frame rates in 3D was a gruelling experience, which caused the whole creative team to question what they were seeing. “I shot 12 movies before this, so I’m a pretty experienced
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filmmaker, but this has been humbling,” he says. “Every answer we stumble on opens up ten questions. The shoot has been about survival.” Even basic decisions like pulling focus were a problem, given that the amount of data – 40 times that of a conventional shoot – meant there was no way to play back the high fidelity images on set, or to edit them at 120fps in post. “It was impossible to see what we were shooting,” he reveals “How should actors look at each other – since the way we engage with a face is entirely different at 120? How do we light anything? The amount of information getting to your eyes makes you question everything you think you know about filmmaking.” He adds, “When we saw dailies at 60 frames we could
only guess what it might be like at 120. In reality, the look of 120 is different even to what we see with our own eyes.” Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, released by Tristar Pictures on November 11, and starring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart and Vin Diesel, centres on the celebration of a soldier’s homecoming from a tour of Iraq at an NFL football game. “Coming back to Dallas from war must have been a crazy adrenalin-driven situation,” says Lee. “Real life must have seemed so unrealistic to them. So there was a parallel, for me, in telling this story and getting inside the soldier’s mindset, with changing the way we are used to seeing movies.” Lee studied theatre at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, and then film at
NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He directed the international hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and films as diverse as Hulk and Sense and Sensibility, winning Best Director Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi. He also picked up IBC’s highest award, the International Honour for Excellence. “In the past few years, I have come strongly to believe that new technology will upgrade filmmaking in terms of storytelling,” he adds. “I made Life of Pi in 3D not just to immerse the audience in the world on screen, but as a way of adding depth to the characters and the ideas which move them.” However, Lee was keen to shoot at high frame rates to overcome the 3D strobing which
he felt blighted the translation of actor’s performances on screen in sections of Life of Pi. “I believe that [high frame rate productions] will eventually become the norm but to get to that point, filmmaking needs to change, and the culture of watching a movie needs to change.” Only a handful of cinemas will be outfitted with the dual projectors required to present the film at it fullest specification, with the majority of cinemas able to screen either 2K 3D 60 or 2K 2D 120. IBC delegates were treated to sequences from the film in full quality, thanks to a special installation of technology from Christie and Dolby. “We are still experimenting with this new language,” he adds. “I am dumb about technology to be honest…”
16/09/2016 17:00
theibcdaily
Executive Summary 05
Keynote
On a mission to educate David Puttnam has always embodied the spirit of excellence in UK-based cinema. As producer of some of the great British films of the 1980s, including Chariots of Fire, Local Hero, The Killing Fields and The Mission, he was at the nexus of a renaissance in British cinema. He continues to exert a powerful influence on British media, not just as producer, but through his work as a peer in the House Of Lords and his efforts to raise public consciousness through culture and education. Lord Puttnam, in his IBC one-on-one conversation with journalist Raymond Snoddy, sought to draw attention to solutions needed in a time of European – and global – challenges. “What’s missing in Europe is confidence,” says Puttnam, when asked if Europe can become a global film and TV centre independent of US influence. “I think the reason is the European industry doesn’t regard itself as an industry, whereas Hollywood in its own way sees itself as an industry. It’s a huge frustration. “When I look at the New York Times, there is always a pop-up offering me a new US movie trailer or showing me what is going to be at Sundance – it’s constant. I don’t see anything like that out of Europe. We need to improve the awareness of European cinema by using digital media. We ought to have some way of being able to track projects and talent.” With 2016 the year of VRmania, Puttnam sees VR as a valuable technology, but one that will have its own path separate from TV and movies. “VR will allow a very different type of storytelling. I think it will be a bit like video games and have to evolve its own form of storytelling. It will end up being as good as the people grappling with it can make it, but I don’t see it as a narrative form. I see it as an experiential form.” And the question on
05 Executive IBC2016_v1 - David Puttman.indd 1
everyone’s mind at IBC2016. How will a potential British exit from the EU affect the media business? “It will affect Britain negatively without any doubt at all. Britain has become the pivot of the digital environment around which the whole European creative sector was operating. It meant that people were being attracted into Britain and becoming part of a mélange that was very successful. “If you’re a Spanish animator or VFX expert and you start worrying about whether or not you’re allowed to stay, you’re likely to just go back to Europe and see what you can find there. “The problem is that once that European talent starts to peel away, the UK talent will necessarily follow. I think capital and UK talent will become much more fluid. Things have been thrown up in the air. I think Berlin will emerge as an alternative, or maybe Barcelona again. And I know right now there are also enormous ambitions to attract those businesses to Dublin. I’ve had conversations with ministers. There’s no question, the Irish are looking to see how they can grab some of that business.” The importance of public information is becoming more and more an issue for Puttnam as he sees the lack of independent news resources dwindling. “I’m very concerned about the lack of a public space and the lack of trusted sources. As the world of cinema and media slides into just being a P&L account, we cease to have
trusted sources in public spaces that we can look to.” Puttnam is the UK’s cultural envoy to Southeast Asia, and spends parts of every year in the region, which will be particularly affected as sea levels rise. He has become especially frustrated with the lack of care given to educating the public on climate change disaster. “It seems ludicrous to me that I’ve reached the age of 75 and still I’m trying to convince people of the same things I was when I was 40. But I do think human beings suffer deeply from the boiled frog syndrome. We’re brilliant at dealing with crises and disaster – that’s been in our DNA for hundreds of thousands of years. We’re just not that good at thoughtfully addressing issues that are inexorably creeping up on us.”
“We need to improve the awareness of European cinema by using digital media”
The Lord Puttnam CBE Film Producer, Educator, Member of the House of Lords Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Neal Romanek
16/09/2016 12:35
06 Executive Summary
theibcdaily
Keynote
There’s life in linear TV yet Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of creative agency WPP and a star speaker at IBC, says that the much discussed ‘death’ of linear TV should be treated with “extreme caution”. Speaking just prior to his IBC Conference Keynote he said the latest forecast from GroupM, WPP’s media investment management arm, shows that TV is pretty resilient in the face of the digital revolution. “Traditional TV’s share continues to hold up, losing about a point a year since it peaked at 43 per cent in 2010-2014.” He also believes that the word ‘digital’, when used as a differentiator between ‘traditional’ advertising and the online categories, is fast becoming obsolete. “Digital continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate than before,” he says. “Digital advertising will account for almost all of net advertising growth globally in 2016, according to GroupM. But the boundaries between categories of media will
“It will be a world of audience planning rather than media planning”
Sir Martin Sorrell Chief Executive Officer, WPP Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Chris Forrester
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continue to blur and the word ‘digital’ is likely to feel rather oldfashioned, and even obsolete. It will be a world of audience planning rather than media planning – a world in which data, technology and analytics will be even more important than they are today.” Sir Martin, who three months ago admitted he was shocked by the UK’s decision to quit Europe, says he is still concerned by the prospects of Brexit. “Corporates are already over-cautious and riskaverse, and Brexit provides a raft of new reasons to delay or cancel investment decisions. As a result of the referendum we are placing an even greater focus on growth in Western Continental Europe,
which includes four of our top ten markets: Germany, France, Italy and Spain.” WPP now employs some 194,000 people in around 3000 offices around the world, and it owns some powerful TVrelated advertising agencies including Grey Advertising, Burson-Marsteller, Hill+Knowlton, JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, Wunderman, TNS and Cohn & Wolfe. In June WPP was voted the world’s Most Creative Holding Company at the Cannes Lions for the sixth year running. WPP’s medium to longer-term focus for some time has been outside of its UK home base. “Fast-growth markets [the BRICs and Next 11] will be the source of much of the world’s GDP growth, and therefore WPP’s own growth, in the medium-to long-term as their middle classes swell and demand for goods and services increase accordingly. This is despite the fact that growth in Brazil, Russia and China has slowed – while India remains the jewel in the BRICs crown. “In the last year or so, mature markets like the US and UK have been the main drivers of our growth, but one of our core strategic goals is still to increase the share of revenues from fastgrowth markets to between 40 and 45 per cent over the next five years. In the last year we entered two new markets – Cuba and Iran – bringing the total number of countries in which we operate to 113.” Sir Martin stressed that WPP would not be leaving its London HQ. Nor will WPP cut British jobs, but it would likely increase the number of people WPP employed in key European markets faster than the UK. Indeed, he recognised that the recent weakness in the Pound sterling would result in a net positive impact on revenues because 90 per cent of WPP’s business was outside the UK.
16/09/2016 12:35
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8/4/16 12:38 PM 16/09/2016 17:02
08 Executive Summary
theibcdaily
Keynote “Media platforms are evolving to allow anyone to find an audience”
More than just the music Erik Huggers is no stranger to IBC, having spoken or visited while taking on a variety of responsibilities. He was also the BBC’s ‘man on the spot’ at London’s City Hall in 2008 when he made a live transmission into IBC of NHK’s 8K Super Hi-Vision technology, complete with 22-channel audio. Today he is CEO at music specialist Vevo, and delivered a Keynote at IBC 2016 itself. Speaking just ahead of his speech, titled ‘Online Broadcasting Evolves’, Huggers happily told us that he had just added content from Warner Music to his portfolio, and relaunched the service. “Over the last year we’ve increasingly taken steps
Erik Huggers President and CEO, Vevo Region: USA Interviewed by: Chris Forrester
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to prioritise our owned and operated Vevo experiences for mobile, web and connected TVs,” he says. “Our recent relaunch was the culmination of these initial efforts, as we introduced a revitalised brand, product and approach to our content and programming. We’re re-focusing our brand to ensure that we’re putting our artists first in everything we do and let their content shine with the audience. “For our product, we’re building a highly personalised experience that’s anchored in creating a community where music video lovers can enjoy and share their favourite content, while discovering new artists relevant to their tastes. For our original content, we’re introducing a distinct editorial voice for the first time, through bringing a compelling roster of hosts and curators onto the platform. “We’re balancing this with high quality production for our dscvr, LIFT and Vevo Presents programmes. The addition of Warner Music Group rounds out our content offering beautifully, through adding an incredible roster of artists.” Huggers admits that
Vevo, while very important, is not the only game in town. “Our audience has a finite amount of time every day,” he says. “We have to offer an experience that’s distinct enough to become a daily habit. We also see the audio and video streaming spaces as very different experiences, so it’s difficult to make these comparisons as a result.” While Huggers was a key player in the introduction of the BBC’s iPlayer service, he observes the world has evolved considerably since then. “The world has increasingly moved to an ondemand digital environment where connectivity is ubiquitous and consumers get the content they love when they want it and how they want it, through smartphone, TV or web. “This new world is ushering in an era of personal broadcasting, where media platforms are evolving to allow anyone to find an audience, and even become a star if they can tell stories in a compelling way. It’s changing the fundamental way we look at building products in the digital media space.” Huggers recognises that there is still much to do, not least geographic expansion. “80 per cent of our views are generated outside the US, and moving forward for us it’s important we capitalise on growing market opportunities in regions like Latin America and selective expansion in Europe and Asia. Core to our success here is ensuring we have the right regional content, local relationships and business model to appropriately develop and nurture these opportunities.”
16/09/2016 12:33
theibcdaily
Executive Summary 09
Business Transformation
Reverse mentoring and fresh talent
“The inherent creativity that is in engineering, which is often forgotten, has a real chance to flourish”
Naomi Climer
President, Institution of Engineering and Technology; Chair of the IBC Council Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: George Jarrett
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Naomi Climer had a busy IBC2016. She spoke in the ‘New Era, New Skills in Broadcast and Media’ session on attracting new talent to the industry, again at the ‘Power Lunch: Ask The Experts’, and then at an IBC Future Zone session discussing the best IBC publications. Her main objective was to verify her belief that the industry has a skills issue. “I wanted to get a sense of whether it is something with a sense of urgency around it that demands urgent action,” says Climer. “It is a double edged sword in terms of existing rich veins of skills and real issues,” she adds. “I am a big fan of reverse mentoring but you cannot, on a sweeping basis, say yes we can retrain everybody, or no we cannot. We certainly need people coming in who have grown up with different technologies.” Climer believes that retraining must not be written off. “Frankly if we have got a shortage we need everybody we can get, but equally we should not be clinging onto all the traditional experience, saying nobody else ought to be able to do it. That is not a sustainable attitude. We have to get fresh people.” Nobody should press the panic button yet, however. “When it comes to IT savvy minds, the broadcast industry’s needs are pretty small. There is such a vast array of IT savvy jobs out there, and in a way that is one of the threats. There are so many other very exciting places that people with the right skills can go careerwise, but then they are out there because other industries need vastly more of them. “It used to be a nobrainer that going into broadcasting would be a fun, exciting, creative life, and it’s odd that it is not as obvious as it
was,” she adds. “Finding ways to restimulate the idea that it is a very good place to work is something we need to work on.” Climer is a big fan of the notion that the artist and the engineer are growing closer together. She emphasises that some of the most extraordinary creative output that we have seen lately has happened when engineering and creativity have worked together. “It is a kind of convergence. These days creative people need a bit of technical savvy about them, and engineers need to appreciate more of the processes of creativity,” she asserts. “The boundaries between different disciplines and different craft skills are definitely blurring, so the inherent creativity that is in engineering, which is often forgotten, has a real chance to flourish.” So what did she look for at the show, and how has IBC changed since she first visited? “As a very junior engineer, it was very easy to navigate the show because it was obvious from twenty paces what you were looking at,” she recalls. “The show is now softwarebased and you need to engage much more to understand what people are showing. “What caught my eye was the huge amount of open source software. That is an exciting enabler. I was very interested in cloud, but because I think it creates whole new ways of being able to do things, like different ways to collaborate. I was interested in the impact on workflows and the way the creative processes are expanding, rather than getting deep into the technology.” Climer fears that open source will blow all sorts of business models and be disruptive. “A bit of disruption though is likely to create something new that we were not expecting,” she adds. “I am interested to see what IBC does in terms of all-year round digital engagement. The world has changed since the big single annual trade show, so I am interested to see it in the social media world that we live in. “The show is likely to migrate in some way, and I watch with interest to see how that happens.”
16/09/2016 12:33
10 Executive Summary
theibcdaily
Rising Stars
Rise of the robots In her role as VP and Head of TV & Media at Ericsson, Elisabetta Romano is charged with helping content owners, broadcasters and TV service providers to select the most forward-looking TV and video offerings. Logically enough, the session that she chaired at IBC, ‘New Skills for the Robot-Dominated Future’, addressed one of the thorniest technological issues currently confronting broadcasters and service providers: namely, the prospect of greatly increased automation. While it is clear that we are in a fairly early stage of the transition, Romano is in no doubt that major change is on the way. “I am a firm believer in the potential of automation in general for industry, and then of course for media in particular,” she remarks. Romano expects automation to impact on broadcast production and consumption in several primary ways. Firstly, there will be greater adoption of sophisticated “machine learning” that will enable enhanced personalisation of content for viewers. Romano sees this as vital. “More and more content is being held in the cloud,” she says. “Within the digital world as a whole, what people want is a certain level of interactivity and personalisation. So obtaining the [necessary] analytics and machine learning will be very important.”
The level of awareness about these new technologies remains variable across the industry, suggests Romano, but adds, “more and more people are [realising what it can bring] to their clients and customers.” In time, she says, automation is something that we can expect to see having an impact all the way up the value chain, although it will require careful decisions to be made about metadata discovery, managed services, bandwidth availability, and much more besides. Then there is the problematic issue of the effect upon labour and future recruitment – no easy subject, confirms Romano, although as she points out it is hardly limited to media: “It is a society issue, let us be honest.” There was no shortage of material for Romano and her guests – MUBI’s Alexander McWilliam, Cisco’s Dave Ward, RTL’s Geoffrey van Meer and Adobe’s Laura Williams Argilla – to grapple with, then. But Romano also made a further conference appearance during the ‘Wrap-Up’ session entitled ‘Identifying the Key Trends’ on 12 September. “We have had a very
exciting IBC,” says Romano, whose previous roles during a three-decade career in telecoms, IT and media include VP and Head of OSS & Service Enablement at Ericsson, and President of Pride (an Ericsson company). “We see so much activity around the issue of creating new applications and developing functionality, and that was much in evidence at IBC this year. There is a great interest in finding out how to make a success of the new technologies and to realise their full potential for both improvement of business and the customer experience – and that is certainly a priority for us at Ericsson.”
in the potential of r ve lie be rm fi a “I am sform media” automation to tran
Elisabetta Romano Vice President and Head of TV & Media, Ericsson Region: USA Interviewed by: David Davies
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16/09/2016 12:32
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16/09/2016 17:04
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16/09/2016 17:05
theibcdaily
Executive Summary 13
Keynote Dominique Delport Global Managing Director, Havas Media Group and Chairman of Vivendi Content Region: France Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley
Building bridges to support content connoisseurs Dominque Delport is a man on a mission. He not only appreciates how fast the media business is changing, but particularly how powerful the big digital players like Facebook and Netflix are becoming. As the media business moves into what he calls an age of ‘content connoisseurs’, where audiences have buckets of choice, the traditional media has to work harder and smarter. His worry is that traditional media and brands are not acting fast enough in the face of what he calls ‘the GAFA’, the acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. As a senior executive at Vivendi and Havas, with roles across both content creation and distribution as well as in global advertising, Delport has a unique perspective on TV, advertising, and audiences, and these tech giants have both deep pockets and big
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ambitions in the media space. “The only way to compete with the GAFA is to work together as broadcasters and as telcos, otherwise it’s going to be really hard to compete,” he says. Not only are the digital giants, along with Netflix, reaching out directly to the consumer, he says, but they have control of the data about their audiences and are able to serve their needs and tastes much more directly. However, it is also providing a challenge to brands and advertising agencies, and the traditional business model of free to air broadcasting. “Programmatic [delivery] has literally transformed digital advertising in less than three years. It has been a complete pivot,” says Delport. “The TV networks are not ready for this and yet it is coming and we can’t stop it. You only have to look at the Olympic audiences on NBC where 30 per cent of the total
audience was not live, either watching recorded or on some kind of asynchronous feed, to see that the advertising can be completely automated. And that is a big challenge for traditional broadcasters.” Delport points to the combined market capitalisation of the big digital tech companies – it’s over $23bn – as a threat
series on 25 projects that are planned to be available in 30-40 different countries by the end of the year. A deal has been struck for a roll out across several Latin American countries beginning at the end of September. “It’s the first global mobile premium content offer,” says Delporte. “For telcos that are pushing video content, it’s a way
“Advertising can be completely automated … and that is a big challenge for traditional broadcasters” that must be countered with more ‘bridge building’ by traditional media companies and telcos. An example of this is Vivendi’s recent launch of STUDIO+, a new content creation company that is making high-quality, shorter-form programmes destined for mobile telecom companies. STUDIO+ has already spent €1million per
to help them package better offers for their users.” Delport is also a big believer in creating a European media powerhouse. Although Vivendi’s much reported deal to expand its European footprint by buying the premium pay business of Italy’s Mediaset was derailed during the summer over valuation issues, Delport says
the two sides are still talking. Meanwhile, Vivendi’s Canal+ free- and pay-TV business is going though a re-casting of its executive team and its business model. The point for Delport is that traditional media companies have advantages in creating content that resonates well with local audiences, and these need to be leveraged across many platforms and with better use of data intelligence. “What is the future for aggregated audiences beyond big live sports and big political events?” he asks.“However when it is about meeting everyone’s desire, then you move into the ‘my device first reality’ where I want to see the content I want to; it has nothing to do with live aggregated audiences. It is the little speedboat and not the big armada, and we have to find that business model.”
16/09/2016 12:32
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Platform Futures
Different devices, different viewers Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006 was arguably one of the first substantial manifestations of the company’s serious intentions towards broadcast and content creation. Since then a number of major initiatives have followed, not least the creation of the Google TV smart TV platform in 2010, which was succeeded by Android TV four years later. At IBC, MD Partner Business Solutions Benjamin Faes reflected on the company’s current and future plans in television in a dedicated conference session, ‘Google’s Plans in Television’. “We aim to be a technology partner to broadcasters across all elements of the TV ecosystem,” says Faes. “From content creation, to distribution, to discovery, to monetisation, technology and the internet are becoming more and more important in the world of broadcasting.” The implementation of the Google-developed Android mobile OS is a case in point. “Today we have over 400 OEM and 500 carrier partners who produce over 4,000 distinct Android-powered devices. And because they all use the same core operating system, developers only have to build one app to reach consumers across all 4,000 devices. These developers include many of Europe’s major broadcasters, such as the BBC, ITV, Sky, TF1, RTL and RAI, who partner with us to use Android to build their catch-up and on-demand apps.” Indeed, Faes repeatedly stresses the importance of collaboration in this brave new world that is now taking shape. “We built our business on a partnership model, and we’ve seen some
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fantastic partnerships with top broadcasters this year, such as Olympics highlights and clips from official broadcasters on YouTube. Take RTL Group, for example, who acquired two of YouTube’s multi-channel networks and are now our biggest YouTube content partner globally.” The development of the YouTube platform continues apace. A London YouTube store – described as “a place where our creators can come to create, collaborate and learn” – was opened in August, while Faes highlights the increasing tendency of “many ‘traditional’ broadcasters [to] use the YouTube platform to broaden the reach of their programming and find new audiences, who use different devices at different moments of viewing. Earlier this year, BT Sport screened two big football finals on YouTube and drove up audience numbers as a result.” Faes also draws attention to the development of such technologies as dynamic ad insertion, allowing broadcasters to deliver personalised ad experiences across devices. TF1 France used the technology during both the 2015 Rugby World Cup and 2016 Euros, he notes. “If I look ahead I see even more opportunity for Google and the broadcast industry to work together. For example, virtual reality is an area where we’ve already made several investments. But this technology only comes to life with amazing content, and this is where it’s critical that we work together with the industry to ensure the tools are understood and can be leveraged to create amazing stories in this new exciting genre.”
Benjamin Faes MD, Partner Business Solutions, Google Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: David Davies
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Executive Summary 15
Platform Futures
Keeping up with reality TV If you want to keep up with the Kardashians, not just with their latest TV adventure, but in any past episode and on social media too, then there’s a service just for you. hayu, delivered via multiscreen app, is much more than this. NBCUniversal International’s all-reality subscription video on demand (SVOD) service contains 3000 episodes, with 500 added a year, direct from the unscripted content creator behind The Real Housewives franchise, Made in Chelsea and The Millionaire Matchmaker. The service – which has now rolled out in the UK, Ireland and Australia – distinguishes itself with a comprehensive search function that identifies all material related to particular stars. Users can directly access the social media feeds of the shows’ stars within hayu. Hundreds of specially made short-form content ‘snippets’ can be shared directly via fans’ social media accounts. The service also links to third-party news sites with relevant content for reality consumers, such as OK! and MailOnline. “This is next-generation VOD,” says Hendrik McDermott, who steered the service to its launch in March. “All the cast members of our series have Twitter or Instagram accounts, which viewers can follow visually along with the broadcast, and interact directly with them on social media. The news feeds are curated, not fed by an automatic news robot. We haven’t seen this type of innovative integration on any other product.” McDermott began his
“We have to take our content where the demand is, which is anywhere, anytime viewing”
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Hendrik McDermott
Senior Vice President - Branded on Demand SVOD, NBCUniversal International Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington career as a business analyst at Rogers Media in Toronto, completed his MBA at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and, as MD of KidsCo, led the business activities and growth opportunities of the children’s pay-TV channel across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. He joined NBCU in 2006, spending six years as a founding member of the international corporate development team with responsibility for all territories outside the US and Canada. “SVOD is opening up new markets led by new consumption patterns,” he told the IBC Conference, in a session at which hayu was presented as a case study, ‘The New Broadcasters: Next Generation Video On Demand - NBCU and hayu’. “We have to take our content where the demand is, which is anywhere, anytime viewing, and while this is driven by the younger generation, we don’t see this trend as exclusively about millennials. “A key element for users is the speed at which can they view content on the service,” explains McDermott. “When the latest Keeping Up with the Kardashians episode airs in the US, fans have typically had to wait many days to watch it on TV,
whereas we get it just hours after the US broadcast.” For avid reality TV fans this has the benefit of swerving spoilers. “When newspapers write eight stories a day about the Kardashians, it’s pretty hard to avoid details of what’s happening in an episode,” he adds. “We are seeing Monday morning spikes in viewing, just hours after the shows are aired in the US, which seems to prove the concept.” With a rolling monthly subscription, McDermott is conscious that NBCU has to constantly innovate to retain consumers. “We know the service will not look the same in 12 months as it does now. We have to keep iterating with compelling new features.”
16/09/2016 12:31
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Keynote
Screen test for a convergent player The market for pay TV in Germany has always been difficult – too many free TV options and premium content that was historically too expensive for the pay-TV operators to make a good margin – but Dr Manuel Cubero, Chief Commercial Officer at Vodafone Germany, has been figuring out some answers. After Vodafone completed the €7.7bn purchase of Germany’s biggest cable operator Kabel Deutschland in 2014, Cubero – who stayed on as CCO under the new owner – has been on the hunt for synergies between the two companies. He is setting out a roadmap that will see the converged cable/mobile operator start to deliver all
side and mobile has improved performance as well, and now the video part of the business, which is not a big part of Vodafone, is evolving,” he says. Cubero is one of German cable’s pioneers, having joined Kabel Deutschland in 2003. He was appointed to the management board in late 2005 with responsibility for TV and content and in June 2006 he added responsibility for internet and telephony operations. But it was in 2004 that Cubero started offering a “pay-TV lite” service at KDG after the then management of Sky Deutschland refused to do a commercial
“The market will continue to grow towards pay TV, against all odds” kinds of content to all screens, including TVs, tablets and smart mobile phones, starting this autumn. It’s all about becoming what Cubero calls ‘a convergent player’. “The strategy is that in the long run the right thing to do is to be a fixed and mobile convergence player,” says Cubero. “So far the experience in Germany has created a lot of value for the shareholders by using the fixed network infrastructure, the go-tomarket approach with marketing and sales, and by starting to offer bundles of services to customers.” Today Vodafone Germany has three million subscribers, and the big question that was asked about the wisdom of Vodafone buying KDG seem to have been answered: Cubero says that both the broadband and the mobile sides of the businesses have been improved by working together. “It wasn’t easy, but there have been synergies on the network
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wholesale offer for their content. But when Sky realised that about half of the 38mn TV homes in Germany are barred from
Dr Manuel Cubero
putting a satellite receiver on their roof, Cubero was able to do a deal. “In Germany Sky is more of a partner than a competitor,” says Cubero. “Half of German TV homes have cable, so Sky needs us.” Whereas a few years ago Cubero was negotiating cable rights only, he now has to work out crossplatform deals including mobile rights, and also how to add SVoD players like Netflix and German OTT operator maxdome to his offer. Cubero wants to carry all the content he can to all the screens he can, but unlike BT in the UK, he’s not interested in splashing out big chunks of cash to get exclusive content like live sport. “We don’t want to spend too much money on Bundesliga for example. We can carry Sky’s programmes and also Germany is a very tough
market for content rights.” Being such a long-time cable guy has helped Cubero see the long-term perspective of the industry. There was even a question mark over Vodafone’s strategy to buy Kabel Deutschland in the first place, but Cubero has turned the new company’s plans around by accelerating broadband take-up, increasing subscribers to the mobile service, and saving money through operational synergies. Having experience coming from the mobile side and the cable side has helped in many ways, particularly with the development of what Cubero calls the “household view” of the consumer. “Even if when we look at a market like Spain or Holland, which have a more mature quadruple play (TV, broadband, mobile and fixed line phone) than we have in Germany, we have nonetheless found amazing synergies.” Certainly pay-TV has come a long way in a country where only about a third of TV homes take it. However, between the cable operators and Sky, that number has grown from around 3.3mn just eight years ago. “It’s been at times a painful development,” says Cubero. “But my conviction is that the market will continue to grow towards pay-TV, against all odds.”
Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone Germany Region: Germany Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley
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Executive Summary 17
Platform Futures
The power of partners Christopher Whiteley, currently leading business development across EMEA for Netflix, spoke at the IBC Conference session, ‘The New Broadcasters: The Rise of Internet TV Networks - Netflix’ where he discussed Netflix’s distribution strategy in EMEA through partners.
You were at IBC this year to discuss partnerships. Which key companies has Netflix partnered with and why are they important to you? We look to work with partners who make it easier for our subscribers to discover Netflix, watch our shows, pay seamlessly, or enjoy a better streaming experience. This includes pioneering new technologies and offering content in new formats such as 4K and HDR. It’s hard to single any one partnership out as being more important than others but we value the relationships that we have with the consumer electronic industry, early MVPD partners like Virgin and Com Hem as well as our more recent ones. Our global consumer electronic partners like LG, Samsung and Apple continue to be important allies for us and they helped amplifying our global launch in January of this year.
Christopher Whiteley VP Business Development EMEA, Netflix Region: Netherlands Interviewed by: Ann-Marie Corvin
Your partnerships with pay-TV operators such as Virgin would traditionally have been regarded as rivals… It can sometimes be a challenge persuading partners to work with us. It was initially a strategic bet on both parts that we could be a real complimentary content service
and not cannibalistic. The convenience of watching Netflix through a set-top box is highly valued by some of our members, and online video is a strong customer acquisition tool for network operators. Our app has been available on Virgin’s streaming service since 2013 and we still have a great relationship with them. We’re also collaborating on other strategic partnerships with local operators across many territories globally. In January Netflix went global, simultaneously launching services in 130 countries. What’s the company strategy now for localising into these markets? We were really excited to be able to bring the service to the world
simplifies our decision making process and our efficiency.
Original content is a big part of your strategy – how are you addressing this in European markets? It is important to note that in general, we have seen that great stories transcend borders – we may be different culturally but we all seem to love a great story. We see this with Narcos, a big production that is 75 per cent in Spanish about Pablo Escobar, and Making a Murderer, a legal docu-series about a murder in a small Wisconsin town that no-one’s heard of. Both ranked among the top 10 most viewed content in nearly all of our markets when they became available. We have committed
“Data shapes everything we do – we use it as best we can in every decision we take” and become the first global internet TV service. As well as gaining new members, we are learning so much to continue to improve the service. For instance, we don’t have local language services everywhere yet and there are a whole heap of languages to localise into. We’ve just announced the next wave of localisation (with subtitling and dubbing) in Poland and Turkey. Flipping the switch in January was just the start of the journey; it’s a good way of getting a feel for each of those territories – gathering data, finding out what works and what doesn’t. Is data crucial to your business? Absolutely. Data shapes everything we do – we use it as best we can in every decision we take. This sometimes removes the emotion behind a decision. If we know that something has been A/B tested and does improve the user experience, it
hundreds of millions of euros in European productions so far, an investment that continues to grow. Our first Netflix original series created in Europe, Marseille, premiered in early May and is getting strong viewing everywhere. A second Europeproduced Netflix original, The Crown, launches later this year. Additionally, we have series in the works in Spain (7 Anos and a TV series with no title yet), Italy (Suburra) and Germany (dark) and are actively looking for additional projects. What are the main challenges you face in your job? The biggest challenge is prioritisation. We are in a lucky position in that many companies want to work with us – so where do we go? We are still a relatively small company employing around 2,500 dedicated people. We need to make sure that we are focusing our engineering and content acquisition following the data we get from consumers.
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Leaders’ Summit
Saul J Berman Chief Strategist, VP & Interactive Experience Partner, IBM Global Business Services Region: USA Interviewed by: Chris Forrester
The big rethink Saul J Berman Ph.D, as Chief Strategist at IBM Global Business Services, is very wellqualified to talk with authority on today’s media. Indeed, his view is that today’s broadcasting scene is more fluid than ever, with the competitive pressures for ‘traditional’ media companies only growing and with new competitors continuing to arise from within and beyond the industry. “OTT specialists now account for an increasing amount of customer attention and spending, with Netflix for example now claiming 83m subscribers in 190 countries. Internet giants such as Amazon play across many spaces, including film and television production, cloud-based media
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supply chain, OTT, and physical product distribution,” he says. However, Berman warns that today’s media value chain is much less clear. “For example, studios like Disney established their own channels to take their content to consumers. Telecom network operators are creating and acquiring unique content. OTT providers buy content from studios and production companies, but also develop their own content.” Berman says that while linear TV is not going to vanish overnight, and data suggests that a 1-2 per cent drop per annum in cable subscriptions in the US, while worrying, is a manageable decline, he stresses that there is no doubt that consumer habits have changed
and some OTT providers have built strong businesses. “For example, the Rio 2016 Olympics generated nearly twice as much digital coverage as traditional TV coverage. NBC reported significant growth in online viewing and a 17 per cent drop in linear viewing for the first 10 nights. This indicates how broadcast TV as we knew it is gone!”
“Broadcast TV as we know it is gone!” “What we do expect is that linear television and online and on demand services will coexist. However, this does mean the rewards are likely to shift. It is about who gets the money. The consumer just wants to find and watch programmes that interest them, when they choose, on whatever device they
choose, and with a great user experience. This implies access to all forms of television – linear and on demand – with a degree of personalisation. It is difficult for a traditional broadcaster to achieve this dramatic change in strategy.” Berman says that it’s time for ‘digital reinvention’ for broadcasters. “Digital reinvention is about rethinking and reimagining your entire business starting with the customer experience. It’s a framework that helps organisations create unique, compelling experiences for their customers, partners, employees, and other stakeholders. The most successful digitally reinvented businesses establish a platform of engagement for their customers, acting as enabler and conduit.” Berman’s proposal combines multiple technologies, including
cloud, cognitive, mobile, and the Internet of Things (IoT), and uses them as enablers for the new customer experience they are developing. “For traditional organisations, digital reinvention involves a fundamental ground-up reinvention of strategy, operations, and technology. Organisations need to pursue this new strategic focus, build new expertise, and establish new ways of working. It is critical to orchestrate these elements to achieve the new vision, with customer experience at the centre. This means a new strategic focus on personalisation, which requires the organisation to develop new tools and techniques to acquire, process and deploy customer insight in real-time. It will require collecting customer information and using the data to improve the experience.”
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Executive Summary 19
Content and Production “Immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality are more likely to be a success than at any time in history”
Alex Mahon CEO, The Foundry Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington
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Playing games with reality Nintendo’s Pokemon Go has been downloaded more than 100 million times, but Alex Mahon expects the location-based augmented reality game to also grow consumers’ appetite for immersive TV content. In her IBC Conference session, ‘From TV to VR: New Content Frontiers’, the CEO of The Foundry urged TV executives to pay close attention to developments in the gaming world. “There’s been a coming together of computing power, a change in devices and the amount of data that can be stored in the cloud,” says Mahon. “It means that immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality are more likely to be a success [now] than at any time in history.” Uses for augmented reality, she adds, are more immediately apparent for retail and gaming. “I haven’t yet seen a good narrative use of AR – but I am sure that will come. What is exciting about VR is that it plays to the trend of binge viewing where consumers want to be pulled into a world. That sets a precedent for storytellers to direct emotions through characters with a greater sense of immediacy than is currently possible.” Mahon was previously CEO of Shine Group, and has held executive posts at Talkback Thames, FremantleMedia Group and RTL Group. She sees parallels between the consolidation of the indie production sector and the burgeoning tech scene. “Technology is changing extremely fast, and there’s also a lot of volatility making this a very exciting and fertile sector to be in,” she says. “I was there when media was dominated by a few big companies like RTL and Liberty, and I saw a lot of small producers start and rise up. I can see a similar trend where we have Amazon, Microsoft, Google,
and Apple today, but also a low barrier to entry where a good idea can really make an impact on an international scale.” Having begun her career as a Ph.D. physicist and then at strategy consultants Mitchell Madison Group, working in the internet retail sector, Mahon’s career has arguably come full circle. “I started out amid the first internet wave, so technology has always been a natural link for me. I enjoy working with creative people and I think pure technology firms and content producers can learn a lot from an exchange of ideas.” The Foundry develops software used to deliver highend VFX and 3D content for the design, visualisation and entertainment industries. Every single film nominated for the best VFX Academy Award in the last five years was made using The Foundry’s software. “Technology is nothing in and of itself,” she says. “It is the use to which it is put which makes the difference. I am lucky to be working with a team of people who not only have great ideas but are able to make it happen, and with customers who don’t just stop when they get something that does a job well but push to make it even better.” Mahon is also non-executive director of The Edinburgh International Television Festival, Chairman of the RTS Awards and served on the DCMS advisory panel on the BBC. Does she feel Brexit puts the UK creative sector at risk? “The Foundry employs fantastic talent from 27 nationalities in Silicon Valley, LA, Shanghai and London. I want to continue to attract the best talent but there’s a risk of barriers to that with Brexit. I hope the British government comes up with new ways to ensure the UK remains at the forefront of the world’s creative industries.”
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IBC Leaders’ Summit
March of the millennials Vice Media is on a growth trajectory, with the ambition to be the world’s leading youth media company. It is striking a path that has gone far beyond its roots, now encompassing both a linear TV channel called Viceland as well as mobile and online programming, and creative production services. In the USA, Vice now produces a segment for HBO, while in Central and Eastern Europe it has struck a massive deal with Greek TV company Antenna, to roll out its programming and new linear TV channel to a dozen markets, including Serbia and Greece. “We’re not becoming a TV company,” states Vice Media’s James Rosenstock, “We think it will be an important part of the company, and we are looking to get the Viceland TV channel distributed into over 100 million homes over the next year or
Rosenstock, a former Discovery executive who joined Vice Media as Executive Vice President, International and Chief Corporate Development Officer, a little over a year ago. At that time Vice already had a deal with Rogers of Canada to help it ‘scale up’ in its home market. During the two years since, its Canadian revenues have quintupled. The deal with Rogers provided a good roadmap and Rosenstock has used the partnership approach to expand Vice’s reach beyond North America. Building on a deal with Antenna, originally instigated by Vice founder Shane Smith, Vice is taking advantage of the Greek broadcaster’s regional footprint, cross-promotional and distribution capabilities across a wide range of Central and Eastern European markets. Antenna was thrilled to add Vice
its young audience, produces all its own content and is looking to monetise it through multiple windows. “If I look at Vice, we are developing, and are well advanced frankly, as one of the most distributed, international media companies that will exist. If you look at Fox and Discovery they are very international, but most of the other media companies are not. Netflix is still very early on in their journey and they are going about it a little bit differently. We are trying to figure out TV, while everyone else is trying to figure out digital – and that is an interesting place to be.”
“We are trying to figure out TV while everyone else is trying to figure out digital” two. Our experience in North America so far has proven that really growing the brand and getting people into our overall ecosystem is the key.” Founded in Montreal, but based in New York City for the past 15 years, Vice is on a roll to launch in more than 50 markets around the world. In the next 18 months, it aims to bring the reach of its digital and TV channel from 30 markets today to more than 80. In the UK, Vice has a deal with Sky for both Viceland TV – which is set to launch in the autumn – and for its on-demand programming offered through the new Sky Q set top box. In France, it has struck a deal with Canal+ for its Viceland channel, and at least a dozen other markets in Europe – as well as Russia – will see a Viceland channel launch over the next 15 months. The international rollout is being spearheaded by
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programming to its services because it was able to attract the ‘Gen Y’ audience reach that it had lacked. “This is a very impactful deal for our company,” says Rosenstock. So why does a company that started in print and transitioned fully into digital, now want to launch linear TV channels? “What we are really doing by introducing TV to our digital and creative services agency and our other businesses that exist already is to really accelerate the brand-building and as a way to produce premium local content,” says Rosenstock. “The most important thing we focus on is localising in the right way, so in some markets we have good strong local teams. Now with linear TV in the equation we are able to produce more premium video, so I think it’s about localising the whole offer in the right way.” Rosenstock believes that Vice’s USP is that it understands
James Rosenstock Executive Vice President, International, and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Vice Media Region: USA Interviewed by: Kate Bulkley
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Executive Summary 21
Business Transformation
Building for a bigger and brighter future
Raymundo Barros Chief Technology Officer, TV Globo Region: Brazil Interviewed by: Chris Forrester
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Globo is a TV (and radio) behemoth, and its Projac (Projeto Jacarepaguá) production facility is simply enormous. At 600,000 square feet, and with new studios under construction, this year it adopted a new name as Estúdios Globo. Raymundo Barros is CTO of the Brazilian broadcasting giant, and will modestly tell you that, in fact, it’s the largest production facility in the world. Barros is bringing UHD to this party, and also HDR. “Our plan is to produce up to six 12-episode primetime TV series in UHD HDR in 2017, and our first 100-plus episode telenovela from 2018,” he says. He was well-placed then to take part in the IBC Conference session, which asked ‘Is There a Business Case for UHD?’ Talking to us just ahead of his appearance, Barros gave an emphatic ‘yes’ as his answer, but with some caution. “The whole Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is facing not only technology disruption but also a business model disruption,” he argues. “The traditional M&E value chain is upside down. The boundaries between content providers, content aggregators and TV operators have disappeared. Broadcasters have to leverage their capabilities to speed up the digital transformation.” Globo’s first UHD HDR production was available this summer, Dangerous Liaisons, a high-value, high-profile miniseries following the country’s super-rich in the Roaring 1920s, and based on Pierre Chonderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel. “We have been capturing content that could be finished in HDR for at least three years, and now we are able to distribute such content in Brazil,” says Barros. “It is a milestone in our market evolution, and places us ahead of the most modern experiences
available in worldwide television.” Barros admits that lessons were learned on the production, not least in post. “Post production is the main bottleneck for UHD HDR,” he explains. “Our house standard for HD production is SStP (440Mb/s). Every primetime TV series we are doing in UHD HDR is based on raw, which means 16 times more storage space compared to HD in SStP. The other challenge is the speed of production. It takes way more time to colour grade, add visual effects, and edit in UHD HDR raw. “We have tried some compression schemes to produce our UHD HDR content instead of raw. Although the UHD quality is quite good using compressed UHD HDR, when down-converted to HD
“The traditional M&E value chain is upside down” for the traditional over-the-air distribution the final HD quality is not up to TV Globo standards.” Barros reveals that Globo is working with vendors towards a new mezzanine level UHD HDR compression, “so we can have the final quality we need, in both HD and UHD HDR. When we get this new compression, then cost, storage and production speed will not be relevant anymore.” Despite the hard work, and the commitment to UHD HDR, Barros is not optimistic about UHD achieving terrestrial transmission any time soon. “We are still in the middle of the analogue switch-off process,” he explains. “But I really think that we will be able to provide a UHD HDR linear channel via traditional cable to satellite pay TV operators in the coming two to three years. Meanwhile the Globo Play app for connected TVs will be our main distribution medium for UHD HDR.”
16/09/2016 12:28
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Big Screen Experience Michael Zink Vice President of Technology, Warner Bros. Region: USA Interviewed by: Will Strauss
“HDR needs to be considered throughout the end-to-end chain”
Living colour As VP of Technology, Michael Zink is responsible for exploring the emerging technologies that could enhance Warner Bros.’ capabilities in production, post production and distribution. Concentrating mainly on scripted content for TV and film, his work includes assessing new technologies and assisting with the setup and integration of digital workflows. He also participates in a number of standards associations including BDA, SMPTE and UHDA. At IBC he appeared on the panel ‘High Dynamic Range and Wide Colour Gamut: The Art and Science’. What is your stance on high dynamic range (HDR) and wide colour gamut (WCG)? We’ve always bundled HDR, WCG, high frame rate and resolution together because, for
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us, it is the combination of all four that makes the difference to the viewing experience. While we noticed fairly quickly that it was difficult for some people to recognise the difference between HD and 4K resolution, we found that it was very easy for people to make out the difference between HDR and standard dynamic range. So we decided that if we wanted to truly provide a differentiated experience for viewers, then HDR with WCG was an important element. What lessons have you learned so far? That HDR needs to be considered throughout the endto-end chain. It starts in shooting and moves through the entire process, including production, post production, DI, VFX and then onto finishing. Every part
of this process is vulnerable to compromising dynamic range. The range you get in the area where it is compromised the most, is the maximum range you are going to get out of your product. Once you start compromising, and the detail is lost, you are never going to get the dynamic range back. Do you consider the final display screen when creating content with HDR? Our experience with consumer displays is that they improve every year, yet our masters are made available for 10 years, maybe longer – so creating content just for today’s consumer technology seems rather limiting. Instead, what we try to do is use the best technology currently available for production, independent of what is currently being used in the home. Most of the topend consumer displays in the market currently do about 1500, maybe 2000, nits of brightness.
Our masters are created using a Dolby Pulsar professional monitor that goes up to 4000 nits. How do consumer HDR displays screens differ? Each manufacturer converts high colour volume to a lower colour volume in a different way. And, because of the innovation and competition in this area, the content then ends up looking very different on each of the displays. As a consequence we spend a lot of time trying to understand the capabilities of the consumer display. The goal is to ensure that the content that we create maintains its creative intent throughout. If you create a master that has higher luminance values and larger colour gamut than current consumer displays can support, then displays need to apply colour management, which includes both colour gamut mapping and luminance tone mapping. We actively work
with the manufacturers to help them understand which items are important to us so that they can improve their products and ensure our content looks better on their devices. Do we need to change our workflows to accommodate HDR? Yes, and along with the rest of the industry, we are still trying to work out exactly what needs to change. So far there have been a lot of existing titles remastered with HDR and, in some cases, HDR has been added to new titles, but as an afterthought. I believe that this process is somewhat backwards, and that over time it will change and we will start with an ‘uber’ master that will be the HDR theatrical version. From there we will work our way down to other versions. I think that will be a more logical approach and will ensure an optimum quality product in any viewing environment.
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Executive Summary 23
Content and Production
Lightbulb moments Writer Anna Winger and her producer husband Jörg Winger moved from the US to Germany 15 years ago. With Jörg riding on the success of producing SOKO Leipzig, one of Germany’s most successful crime dramas, the couple decided to break the mould of German television and develop a series based on a young East German spy’s experience in Cold War West Germany. The result, Deutchland 83, has been universally praised as one of the great pieces of serial drama of the last year. Winger had worked in advertising for more than a decade before Deutschland 83. She was also a journalist, contributing to The New York Times Magazine and Condé Nast Traveler, and creator of the NPR Worldwide series Berlin Stories. In 2008, she published her first novel, This Must Be The Place. “Making Deutschland 83 brought together everything I had done in the past. I feel like the longform storytelling of serial television is similar to planning a novel. It’s a story in chapters, but also there was also the element of visual storytelling, and that part came out of my advertising background.” For Winger, Deutschland 83’s vision of the Cold War and the totalitarian reach of the East German police state was much more than just an exercise in costume drama. “I’m most interested in history as a metaphor for present day concerns. We deliberately played with how things that had happened then resonated with things that are happening now. That was more interesting to me than just making a biopic or a direct representation of what Germany was like in the 80’s. The goal was always to make it heightened, to make it metaphorical and like a real adventure show, which I think was atypical of German TV. “Part of the challenge has been that you don’t have writer-
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producers [in Germany], Winger states. “There isn’t that creatordriven, writer-driven model yet, and there hasn’t been a tradition of writers rooms or serial storytelling. To sustain a story over time, over several seasons, requires a certain way of thinking about story that’s different from how German TV is traditionally done. “I was really inspired by Scandinavian TV. Watching Borgen was like watching a novel. I thought, if they can make that in Denmark, we can make that here in Germany. A lightbulb went on.” With Deutschland 83 as a proof of concept, will Germany now throw its hat into the ring of scripted TV for an international audience? “There is a sense of ‘This is possible here. We can make worldclass series here.’ And I’m proud that a lot of the people who worked on Deutschland 83 are now making some of the more interesting things being done here at the moment. I feel like that’s a sign of something beginning.”
“We can make worldclass series here in Germany”
Anna Winger Writer-Producer Region: Germany Interviewed by: Neal Romanek
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Big Screen Experience Kevin Baillie Visual Effects Supervisor and CEO, Atomic Fiction Region: USA Interviewed by: Carolyn Giardina
Expanding the view of virtual production Visual effects pro Kevin Baillie sees the notion of virtual production moving beyond use of a virtual camera, to involve tasks such a location scouting and incorporating an increased reliance on the cloud. Baillie, a longtime collaborator with Robert Zemeckis, having served as visual effects supervisor on The Walk and on the director’s upcoming film Allied, is co-founder of Atomic Fiction, a VFX house headquartered in Northern California. Atomic Fiction also maintains a studio in Montreal, and is behind the Conductor cloud rendering platform. “Our process [of building computer generated environments] is very
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computing-intensive,” he says of VFX production. “Traditionally, people basically have to build a data centre. But the cloud allows us to create virtual data centres, lots and lots of infrastructure when we need it. It’s a way of scaling up infrastructure in a pay-per-use way.” An example of its use is Atomic Fiction’s work on Zemeckis’ 2015 feature The Walk, the story of Philippe Petit’s 1974 high wire walk between New York’s Twin Towers, which required a digital environment to recreate the feat. It was the focus of Baillie’s ‘Virtual Sets and Virtual Production’ Masterclass session at the IBC Conference. Shot on a Montreal sound stage, Baillie and his team virtually
created, among other elements, the Twin Towers and the accompanying period-accurate New York skyline in order to replicate the high wire walk between the two buildings. Baillie reveals this film needed
be heavily augmented with set extensions,” Baillie says. ‘[This involved] going to Google Maps and sketching out what was there and what could be added with VFX. … We could give Bob [Zemeckis] the virtual camera
“The next 18 months will be about moving more of the workflow to the cloud” 9.1 million processing hours of rendering time. “It would take over 1,000 years on a single processor,” he estimates, adding that they instead relied on cloud rendering. Virtual location scouting is also on the agenda. “For Allied, we did virtual location scouts of locations that were going to
and have him ‘scout’ around the location to find the ideal spot for his shots. By the time we got to the location, we already knew what we were shooting.” Baillie projects that this process will become more prevalent in production. “With virtual location scouting we can even see a location at the
right time of year and time of day, and where the sun will be positioned,” he says. “We can [save time] by avoiding taking vans, or even the four-hour flights I’ve had to get on, just to see something for half an hour. It’s insane to do that when we can see a location virtually, and in a context that’s more appropriate for what we have to shoot. “Any level of inefficiency in the workflow is expensive,” he concludes. “I think the next 18 months will be about moving more of the workflow to the cloud. That’s really important because the production and economic benefits make life better for artists and help businesses to be more stable.”
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Executive Summary 25
Business Transformation “The intersection of vision and reality is here”
Charlie Vogt CEO, Imagine Communications Region: USA Interviewed by: Will Strauss
Ahead of the game Since joining Imagine Communications in 2013, Chief Executive Charlie Vogt has transformed the company, creating a new brand and a new strategic direction, successfully integrating four technology acquisitions and delivering a steady flow of industry-changing innovation. Prior to joining Imagine Communications, he served as chief executive of GENBAND, the IP networking and software firm. At IBC he was on an IABM Breakfast panel called ‘The Business of Broadcast and Media; Technology Supply Vital Statistics.’ The broadcast industry is in a state of flux in both content delivery and technology supply. From a vendor perspective, where do you think the smart money is being spent? Three years ago we made
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disruptive predictions about where the industry was headed: towards IP, software-defined networking (SDN), OTT and the cloud. Looking at IBC2016 and the key themes of the show this week, our vision and outlook three years ago looks to be directionally correct. We already have 25 unique IP deployments, 50 channels running on IP and 3000 live streams. The media broadcast industry is adapting to and accelerating towards IP, SDN and Cloud – the intersection of vision and reality is here. It has prompted a new spirit of collaboration and openness among vendors too. AIMS (Alliance for IP Media Solutions) was fostered by the collaboration between Imagine and Grass Valley with the goal of creating an ecosystem from which broadcasters, TV networks, and multichannel
video programming distributors would value and benefit. AIMS is off to an encouraging start with more than 40 equipment suppliers and an increasing number of media companies, including CBS and FOX as members. Is it fair to say this is not just a technology change but also a cultural one? Definitely. Our industry has historically designed, built and marketed hardware-centric, proprietary solutions. Today, we are developing next-generation IP-enabled, software-defined, cloud virtualised solutions that leverage commercial off-theshelf computing platforms. With so much technology advancement and market disruption, one of the most challenging areas we must overcome is the culture shock, or maybe better put, the freeze frame, it has created. The pace
of change is not just a mindset shift with the technology suppliers, but maybe more importantly, with the media broadcasters and TV networks. Is it harder to sell a solution than a box? In an industry historically influenced by pixels, flat screens and SD, it was arguably easier to design, develop, market and sell proprietary purposebuilt products. As our industry transitions to software-defined end-to-end IP workflow solutions, fewer companies will successfully make the leap forward. The transformative change to selling and supporting software-based end-to-end workflow solutions, versus selling and supporting products from a catalogue, is certainly more challenging, and the reason Imagine is among the thought leaders and innovators in the evolutionary change to selling solutions. Has it been successful? Yes. We track success at the
product, region, channel, size, scale and margin level. The number of next generation network (NGN) projects continues to increase and is up 35 per cent year-on-year. The size of the projects that we are involved with today is significantly larger and more complex than when I joined Imagine, which was then Harris Broadcast, three years ago. Are you still selling to the same customers? We have approximately 2,000 active customers and over 100 customers and partners that invest more than $1m per year with Imagine. These customers define the pace, influence the standards and impact the trends. We have been very active over the past two years, investing in next-generation technology and proof of concepts. We continue to invest time, money and energy with our key customers around the globe, customers who will ultimately help us define and differentiate in the years to come.
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Big Screen Experience Derek Bradley Research Scientist, Disney Research Region: Switzerland Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington
“We know where every point in an expression moves on the face”
Facing the future of motion capture From Avatar to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, motion capture has enabled animation to become ever more lifelike and photo realistic. Now Disney Research is advancing this science with emotion capture, and systems that offer filmmakers continuous control of facial performance in live action motion pictures. “People can be surprised that a certain character in a film is digital – a prime example being the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network – but with a trained eye you can discern the nuances,” says Disney Research scientist Dr. Derek Bradley, who told IBC all about it in a special conference session. “The biggest issue is when motion starts. You can make a pretty realistic render of a face, but this can break down if you want real subtlety,
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especially when rendering a known person.” The Canadian studied computer science in Ottawa and gained a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, before being recruited by Disney Research in 2010. “I had studied the 3D reconstruction of objects from cameras, in particular objects like clothing and faces that can deform over time,” he explains. “I was driven by a love of movies and VFX and hoped one day to apply these techniques to films. I was quite fortunate that when Disney was starting up a new office in Zurich, [Lab Director] Markus Gross happened to be in Vancouver, came by for a visit, saw my research and invited me to come over.” It was the right call. Bradley’s efforts have helped result in
the Medusa Performance Capture System, a mobile rig of cameras and lights coupled with proprietary software that can reconstruct actors’ faces in full motion, without using traditional motion-capture dots. “We know where every point in an expression moves on the face, which is a key ingredient for VFX artists building a facial animation rig for an actor.” So key that Medusa has been used on such high profile features as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Maleficent, and The Jungle Book. While these films are pushing toward the ultimate merger of production with post production – virtual production – Bradley thinks there’s a way to go yet. “Realtime facial performance capture is not at the quality or resolution of offline processes.
Every stage of the pipeline can still be improved. You can achieve a good representation of a face in real time, but it won’t exactly model their expressions.” Among Bradley’s other projects is FaceDirector, a prototype intended to reduce the number of takes required for performance capture during principal photography. “FaceDirector blends together different takes of an actor’s performance,” he explains. “You could have a single take where the actor is angry, another take where they are sad, then choose the moments of transition in post.” Of Zurich, Bradley says there’s a growing tech scene with IBM, Google and several spin-offs located nearby. “One of the reasons Disney based here was because it had the smart idea to
partner with universities which were already strong in the areas it wanted to research. It chose to base next to the campus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology because it’s one of the world’s leading centres for computer graphics.” The ultimate goal is to create a fully realistic digital human, but to get there, filmmakers must overcome the ‘uncanny valley’, the curious disconnect between actual humans and digitally constructed ones. “The trouble is no-one knows exactly what it is or how to fix it,” he says. “Most people believe it’s a problem around the eyes and mouth. We have focussed some research into that area.” If anyone can crack it, then you can bet it will be Bradley and the team of world-class scientists at Disney Research.
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Leaders’ Summit
Access to a single market “It’s not a revolution, but an evolution”
Ingrid Deltenre Director General, European Broadcasting Union Region: Switzerland Interviewed by: Monica Heck
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A calming voice among the frenzied clamour surrounding Brexit, Ingrid Deltenre is measured when assessing the potential impact of a UK exit from the European Union (EU) on the broadcast industry just as the Digital Single Market (DSM) initiative promises to ‘tear down regulatory walls and moving from 28 national markets to a single one’. “From my point of view, the draft I’ve seen of the DSM looks quite reasonable,” she says. “It tackles important points, things like regulating similar services regardless on which platform they are delivered. “The subsidiarity principle is to a large extent still respected, so it’s not a revolution, but an evolution,” adds Deltenre, who has been at the helm of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 2010. In a way, Deltenre is a perfect incarnation of the founding principles of a united Europe: a Dutch and Swiss National, she speaks Dutch, German, English, French and Italian and has worked in Switzerland for much of her high-profile career. This gives her a unique perspective on the potential challenges and opportunities of a UK operating outside of the EU, perhaps through bilateral agreements similar to those bestowed upon Switzerland. “I think the major impact of Brexit on the broadcast industry will be threefold,” she explains. “A major factor will be the macro economic
conditions and the overall economic situation. If the economy is weakened, there will be less advertising revenue so broadcasters won’t be able to invest in as much content. That’s something that could go in the wrong direction.” A loss of EU funding for broadcast productions also lies in the balance with Brexit on the table. “Independent producers benefit from the EU media programme, which contributes between 20 and 25 million euros to the independent production scene,” adds Deltenre. “Of course, the UK government could compensate for that because it’s not that much money in the greater scheme of things. But from the EU’s perspective you’d lose that money and third party content could get expensive if the pound is weak.” Last but not least is the principle of ‘country of origin’, which isn’t granted automatically in the case of an exit from the European Union. “I can see this being a real issue for some companies that operate broadcasting channels from the UK,” she says. “They may have to seek another EU hub in order to gain simpler access to the single market.” But it’s not all bad news, according to Deltenre, who notes that the UK may gain freedom from burdensome red tape and tax requirements. That is, if it negotiates a strong deal for itself which aligns somewhat with the principles of the European Union. “If you’re not a member of the EU, you are free to be more generous in some areas, but life becomes complicated in other areas,” she explains. “Ultimately, if you have great people, ideas and talent, you will work with those people whether they’re from an EU member state or not.”
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Keynote Kelly O. Humphries News Chief for Johnson Space Center, NASA Region: USA Interviewed by: Carolyn Giardina
From the ISS to the home The U.S.’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) makes its spectacular space imagery available through initiatives including a UHD public TV channel. Such initiatives earned NASA this year’s IBC Judges’ Prize, which was collected by the agency’s IBC keynote speakers, Carlos Fontanot, Imagery Manager for the International Space Station (ISS) and Kelly O. Humphries, News Chief at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the voice of mission
control for more than 50 shuttle missions. Humphries explains that to make these projects possible, NASA uses its own resources and enters into Space Act Agreements to collaborate with various entities. “Our mandate under the U.S. Space Act of 1958 is to share what NASA does, as widely as practical,” he explains. “Through the years, we have matured from black & white stills and television images, exclusively through the news media, to today, when we
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are combining that with reaching out directly to the people of the world through the internet and social media. As we continue our exploration farther out into the solar system, we’re looking forward to working with new partners and developing new technologies that will improve our ability to share that imagery and bring people along with us for the journey.” For example, NASA partnered with Harmonic to launch the world’s first public UHD channel. “Our biggest challenge with
launching the channel was dealing with first generation, serial #1 hardware,” says Fontanot. “There were no manuals, and firmware and software was not stable. Leveraging NASA’s existing broadcast capability and with the help of Harmonic, the necessary bandwidth for the UHD channel was allocated on the NASA broadcast transponder.” Jeff Koehler, VP Solutions Engineering at Harmonic, joined Fontanot and Humphries for
the IBC Conference headline session, ‘Live from Space: NASA and Imaging’. “Now that the channel is up and running, the primary challenge is managing the huge files to be sent to Harmonic for editing, and for Harmonic to remotely access their playout server,” explains Fontanot. “All NASA centres have 4K acquisition capability, and B-roll is being provided to Harmonic to create programming. Stunning 4K footage is being shot on the International Space Station,
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Keynote Carlos Fontanot Imagery manager, International Space Station, NASA Region: USA
including breathtaking Earth views, that are being broadcast on the UHD channel.” HDR is a very big topic at IBC this year, and Fontanot says the technology is critical for use in space. “Changes in colour, contrast and intensity are essential for imagery analysis as it applies to performance of rocket engines, structures, satellites and other space hardware and systems. For instance, slight discolouration on a surface may be an indicator of material fatigue
or other anomalies, such as abnormal temperatures or radiation. Cameras that can capture HDR may be a key during troubleshooting or other investigations.”
NASA has been tapping into VR and AR capabilities for many years, and the agency has already found uses for the latest commercially-available VR gear in its labs, for areas including
“A challenge for space and interplanetary exploration is imagery hardware size, mass and power ” – Fontanot He finds HFR also essential, “especially to capture frame by frame high speed activities like launches, rocket engines firing.”
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space walk training, space robotics, use of mechanical arms to grapple satellites, and space modules.
“Cameras with a 360-degree field of view with no moving parts would also be advantageous for spaceflight. We wouldn’t have to fly the mass of a pan tilt unit – as well as design a pan tilt unit that could survive the vacuum of space and extreme temperature variations,” says Fontanot. Looking ahead, he says, “a challenge for space and interplanetary exploration is imagery hardware size, mass and power. NASA looks to industry for equipment that
could be used in the next decades for the Mars voyages. [That includes] embedding intelligence in systems so they could be automated, such as auto-tracking, self-aware imaging systems that could detect a change and store the incident for later review.” Adds Kelly O. Humphries, “NASA is using various partnerships to encourage a robust commercial launch industry to help further our exploration of the cosmos and share it with the public.”
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IBC LEADER Gidon Katz
Kate Bulkley
Managing Director, Now TV (Sky)
Media Commentator and Journalist, KGBulkley
Nicolas Bry
Jorge Espinel
Innovation Senior VP, Orange Vallée (part of Orange Innovation)
VP, Global Business Development, Spotify
Saul J Berman
Chief Strategist, VP & Interactive Experience Partner, IBM Global Business Services
Grégoire Polad
Director General, Association of Commercial Television (ACT)
Efe Çakarel
Founder and CEO, MUBI
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Ingrid Silver Partner, Dentons
Ingrid Deltenre
Director General, European Broadcasting Union
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ERS’ SUMMIT Jay Rosenstock
EVP International and Corporate Development, VICE Media
Filmon Zerai
Geoff Stedman
Chief Operating Officer, maxdome
SVP Marketing and Scale-out Storage Solutions, Quantum
Tom Toumazis MBE
Dr Manuel Cubero
Chairman, TVbeat & NED TheLADbible Group
CCO, Vodafone Germany
Susan Elkington
Interim Director of Content, IBC
Dana Strong
Chief Transformation Officer, Liberty Global
Sophie Garnham
Susanna Dinnage
Head of Commercial Development, Sky
Executive Vice President & Managing Director, Discovery Networks UK & Ireland
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Advances In Technology
Building a bigger internet As well being SVP, Chief Architect and CTO of Engineering at Cisco Systems, Dave Ward also has ownership connections with both a vineyard and a tomato farm. Recognised both as a Cisco Fellow and a Juniper Fellow, Ward took on three session duties at the IBC Conference, talking alongside other CTOs in ‘The IP Studio: A Proof of Concept’ and ‘CTO Strategic Roadmap: The Technologists’ View’, and speaking again in a Rising Stars session, ‘New Skills for the Robot-Dominated Future’. With so many young people wanting operational or creative careers in media, rather than technical credentials, where do you think we stand? People are going to need more of the general IT skills, and especially networking and cloud and virtualisation skills. Creative talents to explore new formats will also be important. Should we be more excited about the potential of AR and VR than 3D, especially given the need for new skills to exploit it, and the issues around finishing VR projects? As we know, the formats and
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trends that resonate with the public are very hard to predict. The industry will need to try many new formats and double down to invest on the successful ones; the rise of flexible and programmable production infrastructures will increasingly enable this. Beyond VR and headset constraints, the use of immersive formats, AR, and also free-viewpoint video, could be game changers. What do you expect the next strategic technology issues will be? One main challenge is the need to continue to build a bigger and better internet, as the demand to consume richer forms of entertainment online, at home or on mobiles, has only just started. There is a lot we can do to improve the native ability of IP networks to scale and meet this demand. Media innovation no longer exists in its own bubble. Developments in other domains as diverse as
mobile, drones, displays or the internet itself are all connected and driving innovation acceleration in media. The cycles of innovation are getting shorter across all industries, but it doesn’t make it easier to predict. Co-innovation with academia and start-ups is also a precious way to anticipate innovation trajectories. Ultimately it’s all about timing. Now we have the proof of concept of IP and IT, are
“Media innovation no longer exists in its own bubble”
Dave Ward Senior Vice President, Chief Architect and CTO, Engineering, Cisco Systems Region: USA Interviewed by: George Jarrett end users frustrated by the process of easing SDI out and IP in? At NAB this year there appeared to be a real growing momentum behind the transition to IP. This is a major step towards embracing true virtualised infrastructures, which will bring unprecedented flexibility to run and expand media operations. Whether remote production, deploying new live channels, or testing five different studio configurations in a few minutes, it will be a complete game
changer. As users adopt new technologies, their expectations and use of those technologies evolve, and demanding interoperability is a great example of this. What of the other huge game changers – OTT and HDR? Successful OTT platforms have been designed with and driven by analytics from day one. It’s a very powerful way to drive viewer satisfaction and it’s not a surprise to see these best practices now rapidly adopted across all media platforms. HDR content looks fantastic, and if successful, it will be required to support increasingly heavy uncompressed video streams, beyond 40 Gbit/s for a single 4K live stream, across virtualised production data centres and applications. This is a good example of what we at Cisco are going to enable.
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Business Transformation
Calling time on traditional broadcast “4K is pushing the broadcast industry to a whole new level,” says Huawei Technologies’ Wenbing Yao, who claims this can be aided by a move towards open platforms based on Information Communication Technology (ICT). Yao, who took on her current role as Director of Strategy and Marketing at Huawei in 2012, and holds a Ph.D. in Communications and Information Systems, notes that the entire broadcast workflow
is involved in the inevitable shift towards IP-based platforms. Traditional broadcast platforms, she claims, simply cannot handle the demands of 4K. “Office and production networks in TV stations are separated from each other; that makes transferring data, especially large files, and sharing data not efficient. Moreover, journalists can only produce programmes after returning to TV stations, impacting news timeliness and quality.
Resources need to be shared, stored and archived; this must be done via IP networks and the cloud. “The move from analogue signalling to IP-based IT platform architectures accelerates 4K video evolution, lowers programme production costs and simplifies system maintenance,” she observes. “However 4K video production – and its related demands – bring challenges to the existing storage system. Deploying a SAN architecture may meet the requirements of performance, but increases the cost.” Huawei, an information and communications technology company, is joining the broadcast industry as a newcomer to a certain extent, despite having quite a large presence in the Chinese IPTV space. “This is our third IBC and it’s becoming increasingly important for us,” muses Yao, who was speaking as part of the IABM Breakfast session, ‘The Business of Broadcast
and Media; Technology Supply Vital Statistics’. “We are hoping to help the industry transform into an IP-based production zone and to illustrate how new ICT technologies can transform entire businesses, entire sectors, for the better. These new technologies are based on an open ICT platform that allows partners to innovate their solutions, effectively support media customers in convergent media production,
way for companies not only to save their capital expenditure, but to view and share resources in the cloud when they need. We think that’s the smart way forward.” The production area of broadcast making use of private or hybrid cloud to improve efficiency is a particularly good example, according to Yao. “We’ve been involved in projects recently around the use of desktop cloud for editing news
“We are hoping to help the industry transform into an IP-based production zone” and drive future-oriented media transformation.” Yao also highlights that the more isolated, legacy layout of the broadcast production process simply doesn’t meet the needs of an industry hurtling towards end-to-end 4K broadcast production and beyond. Instead, she welcomes the move away from dedicated, on-premise hardware and software towards cloud-based platforms running on commodity IT hardware. “The idea of making a ‘smart investment’ is hard to pin down; every company has its own definition of what that means. However, we see the move towards cloud for example as a
using a shared resource pool inside broadcasters’ production division. In some cases, this has improved production efficiency by up to 40 per cent. “Virtualisation technology isn’t new in itself, Huawei has used it internally for years, we probably run the single largest scale virtualised desktop system in the world for 70,000 developers. But to bring that power to the production area, you need a system that is optimised to offer faster speed and to link to internal resources, so production and post production can share resources conveniently. That’s what we’re bringing to the broadcast market.”
Wenbing Yao Director of Strategy and Marketing, Huawei Technologies Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Monica Heck
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Rising Stars
Engaging eye-contact for a connected future As an example to illustrate the ways in which viewer consumption patterns are changing, the recent Rio Olympics is hard to beat. For NBC it was particularly significant, with a post-show overview revealing that its Olympics digital coverage broke several records and generated 3.3 billion total streaming minutes, 2.71 billion live streaming minutes, and 100 million unique users across its platforms. In total, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app livestreamed 4,500 hours during the Games. Distribution to connected TVs was part of the mix for the first time, while the broadcaster also provided 4K UHD content to NBCU distribution partners, as well as VR programming – both Olympic firsts. All of which means that Eric Black, CTO, NBC Sports Group Digital, was an obvious candidate to participate in the IBC Conference session entitled ‘The Battle for Eyeballs’, looking at the opportunities presented by connected TV and other ‘disruptive developments’. But Black himself believes that we are in a fairly formative stage of the transition, all things considered. “This is an early phase and there are still a lot of lessons to be learned
regarding [developments such as] connected TV,” he says. The same goes for VR and augmented technologies, “which are fantastic technologies and for which I have high hopes – although, again, it is early days.” With so many platforms and distribution mechanisms moving into the frame, Black feels it is not necessarily easy to make a decision about which ones to pursue. “We tend to focus on what the customer is looking for, which involves trend analysis and examining the top tiers of content consumption – thereby ensuring that we are satisfying the new expectations. The aim is to stay one step ahead of the market,” he confirms. One positive aspect is that the actual amount of infrastructure required to service the new platforms, such as those deployed by NBC in Rio, is fairly minimal. “It’s not the case that they are needing much in the way of new infrastructure – but what they do require is a substantial amount of planning and preparation,” he says. “That involves careful consideration
“99 per cent of the work is in preparing the platform”
of scaling and how the technology [supports] the workflow.” In terms of NBC’s experiences at Rio, Black feels the new or expanded distribution methods “performed really well” and thereby underline his observation that “99 per cent of the work is in preparing the platform. If you do that successfully, then when you get to the event it’s largely just a case of making it operational.” With NBC hailing the Rio Olympics as “the most successful event in media history” and achieving a total audience delivery average of 27.5 million viewers – equating to the second-highest primetime audience for any non-US Summer Games – it seems pretty clear that the broadcaster is on the right track as viewing habits diversify. One can only speculate about the new platforms and technologies that will have come to the fore by the time the next Summer Games take place, in Tokyo, four years from now.
Eric Black CTO, NBC Sports Group Digital Region: USA Interviewed by: David Davies
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36 Executive Summary
theibcdaily
Big Screen Experience “Anything that was previously a decision made on-set and baked into the final image can now be made computationally”
Conjuring with light The merger between science and the arts has energised Jon Karafin throughout his career, culminating in what may be the most exciting breakthrough in imaging since the invention of photography. “Everything I did in academia was about how you re-conceptualise technology in art forms,” says Karafin. Among his six degrees are a Masters in digital animation and fine art photography. He’s worked as a photographer on the set of Spike Lee productions, and spent a year in India for stereo VFX and conversion company In-Three. When that business was acquired by legendary post facility Digital Domain, Karafin ran its Florida operation and tackled the VFX for blockbusters like Transformers: Dark of the Moon; then at RealD he helped launch digital image enhancement tool TrueImage, a process first used by Peter Jackson on The Hobbit. At Silicon Valley camera maker Lytro since 2014, Karafin
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has been leading the Lytro Cinema initiative. This takes the epic leap into light field cinematography, a technology that is able to capture not only the colour and intensity of light, but also the angular direction of each pixel. “Imagine you could capture a holographic image of the world,” he invited IBC delegates in a session titled ‘Light Field Cameras: Technology that Is Indistinguishable from Magic?’ “If you think in those terms, then anything that was previously a decision made on-set and baked into the final image can now be made computationally.” Lytro is in advanced test stages of its Cinema camera that lets you adjust practically everything after the fact, including some things that are simply impossible with any other camera. For example, you can tweak focus position, depth of field, frame rates and shutter
Jon Karafin Head of Light Field Video, Lytro Region: USA Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington angles in post, changing those values within the same continuous shot for dramatic effect. Since the camera captures the three-dimensional depth of all objects in a scene, the traditional and limiting green screen for conventional VFX shoots would be redundant. “You now actually have the directionality of the pixel itself,” says Karafin. “You have angular information, and you effectively have a completely virtualised camera. You have the subject’s colour, the directional properties, and the exact placement in space. It becomes a truly holographic image. “I could take a lens from the last century and ray trace its characteristics in software, with look-up tables to enable filmmakers to tell stories in ways not previously possible.” The camera itself is tracking towards commercial production use in early 2017. It is also the size of a small car, making it impractical for anything outside
of a studio, or a studio budget. “We are already working towards the next generation which will be handheld and portable,” reveals Karafin. “Right now this is a niche market technology to support bleeding edge VFX or tent-pole feature films, like an IMAX or Phantom camera. The first generation is a development platform to ensure we get the technology right.” The very concept of Light Field is alarming to some cinematographers. “It’s a very polarising discussion,” Karafin admits. “We would say that the current workflow and craft of a cinematographer and focus puller working with a director does not have to change at all. We provide all the tools for decisions to be locked down on set. As to who has control over final imagery, that is a studio call. “I believe strongly that this is the future of all imaging technology and I wanted to be on the ground floor making that history. It’s a very exciting time.”
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Content and Production
What comes after the Golden Age? It’s almost a cliché now: We are living in a ‘golden age’ of scripted TV. But what drives this TV renaissance and how it will evolve is a matter of ongoing debate. In his IBC Conference address, ‘Are We Living in a Golden Age of Content?’, Patrick Spence, founder of UKbased production company Fifty Fathoms, answered an unequivocal “yes”, and delved into the causes and conditions that brought about the new scripted TV landscape and what the roadmap might be for the future. “People ask ‘How long will it last?’”, says Spence. “There are the doomsayers who say that it’s coming to an end, and that it might even be a bubble about to burst. Then there are others who say this can only get better”. Spence is of the latter opinion. But not everyone in the Golden Age is a winner. “While it’s really cool to be a writer and a producer now – it’s a seller’s market – it’s very hard being a network or a streaming service. The competition for high-end content is ferocious. It means cutting through all the clutter, getting your show noticed and getting a loyal audience is harder than it’s ever been.” The explosion of scripted TV content has been pivotal in the changing fortunes of the feature film world. And some would argue that they have been the big losers. “It could be a problem of their own making,” suggests Spence. “We might also have seen a movie world going through a golden age, but we’re not. Cinema, in terms of artistic expression, is not in a good way. They’re making fewer movies than ever before, but spending more and more money on them, so they’re taking less risk. And I think the talent has woken up to the fact that if they want to make
“ Brexit is not going to stop us telling the stories we want to tell”
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good work, then TV is the place they want to be.” Spence notes that producers who want to thrive can no longer let themselves be caged by distribution formats: “As a content producer, I now think of myself as competing against Pokemon Go, as well as the next big cinema blockbuster.” Looking to the future, Spence is convinced Europe will play a key role in the next phase of scripted TV, in which global producers step out of the shadow of American preeminence. “The next part of this golden age will partly belong to Europe. Many of the truly exciting dramas now are coming out of Europe. I would name Deutschland 83 and Gomorrah particularly as being as good, if not better than anything coming out of America at the moment. “Ten years ago I could only talk to three British networks. Now I can talk to British networks and American networks. In the next phase there will be projects we can do about Europe and for Europe, that can be financed in a big scale way. So while I will continue to work with the big American platforms, I can imagine a world when
Europeans team up to make highly authored, hugely ambitious dramas.” But does Spence see his vision clouded by a potential Brexit from the EU? “As producers we wake up every day having to overcome enormous obstacles on every front. Brexit is not going to stop us telling the stories we want to tell.”
Patrick Spence Managing Director, Fifty Fathoms Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Neal Romanek
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Executive Summary 39
Business Transformation “This market is not even close to maturity”
In the mood for movies Efe Çakarel founded MUBI in 2007, after he discovered that he couldn’t watch Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love in a café in Tokyo. That spurred him to create a company that hand picks what it considers to be the best films within a particular region, and makes them available to subscribers in 200 territories globally. Speaking before his two IBC Conference sessions ‘Is the Future of Video Vertically Integrated?’ and ‘Online Platforms Evolve, Becoming (Closer to) TV’, the Turkish-born entrepreneur explains that his company’s challenge is to “figure out what is the right consumer experience. In a world where Netflix and Amazon exist, how do people like us differentiate ourselves meaningfully?” It’s a complex issue that will take time to resolve. But Çakarel
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is very clear on one point: he is not planning to create a new Netflix. “I am not competing with them. I am completing the experience with a very focused offering,” he says. “It’s crazy to do exactly what Netflix is doing now and have any hope of winning. I am still trying to understand what they are doing and how we can differentiate ourselves. The market is so big; if we have the right strategy then we can create a good place for ourselves.” The Stanford and MIT graduate adds that the videoon-demand and streaming video sector has a great deal to learn and he believes it is still very much in the early stages of its development. “VoD has existed since early 2000, and it has been so slow to develop. But everything started to
happen about three years ago,” he comments. “This market is not even close to maturity.” As Çakarel told the IBC Conference audience, he is interested in exploring how to provide the best content experience for users, and whether that means creating original content, or simply distributing the film and TV content from the more traditional production companies and studios. “I would like a meaningful discussion on what is the right value proposition for users in terms of original and other content,” he adds. “What do consumers really want? That is an important point.” A further challenge is to determine the right strategy for each market. “Every market has its own different flavours. Turkey, for
Efe Çakarel Founder and CEO, MUBI Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Anne Morris example, has about 30 million people below the age of 30, but it also benefits from a very strong free TV market. But in the UK, there is a smaller share of free TV, and that makes it a very exciting market,” Çakarel says, implying UK consumers might be less resistant to new paid-for services. As things stand, MUBI has made good use of partnerships to expand its business. For example, Çakarel cites a joint venture with Sony Computer Entertainment that has enabled the company to distribute its
services in 58 countries. MUBI also has a global partnership with Samsung for a presence on its Smart TV user interface. “We are all trying to provide a good consumer experience,” he says. He is also very bullish on Netflix and Amazon, because of what they have achieved to date. “However, I am focused on creating a business that has a higher return on investment than Netflix. I want to create a profitable business with a strong focus on ROI and not just size of revenue,” he concludes.
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Executive Summary 41
Platform Futures
Putting the customer first It’s a tough world out there, and not just for traditional media service providers battling against OTT disrupters. The average consumer of TV – or perhaps it’s best to say ‘video content’ – can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the multiplicity of choice. “Ultimately, customers want to watch the programmes they want, the way they want to watch them,” says Kerris Bright, Virgin Media’s CMO, spying an opportunity for her company to exploit. “There’s a real role for a customer champion to bring them wonderful programming in the most convenient way and then to help people navigate what is an increasingly complex world.” While people still love to watch great programming, the way people watch has changed profoundly. “From binging on box sets to on-demand, on-the-go via tablet, the multiscreen universe challenges service providers to respond,” she asserts. “At the same time, the number of different sources of programming and price models out there is confusing to people. Our role is to simplify this for consumers and offer an open platform for linear or catch up or OTT providers to reach consumers in one place.” Bright, who has a Ph.D. in molecular neuroscience, was lending her insight to ‘The Evolution of the Consumer Experience’ session at the IBC Conference. Her belief is that connectivity and entertainment are colliding. “Different people in a household are watching different things on different devices at different times, and for that you need great bandwidth,” she says. “Our customers use 50 per cent more bandwidth than our competitors because we have great connectivity. Our customers really want to do
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more online, from streaming to gaming, and that makes this business incredibly rewarding.” Prior to joining Virgin Media, Bright earned herself a reputation as a ‘fixer’, having worked at brands such as Unilever, British Airways, Ideal Standard and Dulux paint owner AkzoNobel, where she led the turnaround of Dulux from ‘your dad’s favourite paint’ to a brand synonymous with colour. “I’ve had my greatest successes and most fun when I have been bold and taken risks, but it’s not always a comfortable place to be,” she says. The collection of data and use of analytics made possible by broadband is a key advantage which media has over her previous career experiences, she says. “At British Airways we knew a lot about some passengers who regularly travel with the airline but hardly anything about many of the fellow travellers onboard each flight. Likewise, in a fast moving packaged goods environment you are several steps removed from that direct customer relationship. At Virgin, we have the ability to use data to really help and inform what we do for the customer, and for us it’s a source of competitive advantage.” That said, she finds the broader media industry “very technology driven and product development focused” – strategies which may not always be putting the customer at heart. “The opportunity to combine brilliant technology and product focus with insight into how customers really live their lives can be very powerful. That is what I find exciting.”
“We have the ability to use data to really help and inform what we do for the customer”
Kerris Bright Chief Marketing Officer, Virgin Media Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington
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Audiences and Advertising
Survival tips for the online jungle There are some timeless principles of brand building, according to Red Bee’s Andy Bryant, and he claims they remain true, even though the world around us is changing dramatically. The MD of the Londonbased entertainment and content marketing agency and his executive creative director colleague Charlie Mawer have penned these key principles in a new tome, The TV Brand Builders – How to Win Audiences and Influence Viewers, which is based on fifty interviews with some of the world’s top TV marketing practitioners. Content brands operating in today’s multichannel multiplatform world need to start with the audience, Bryant argues, and they need to be extremely clear on whom this audience is and why they would want to choose to watch their content. Bryant cites Red Bee’s rebranding of the male-skewed digital channel UKTVG2 to ‘Dave’ as a perfect example of a channel that was able to identify firstly what its audience wanted (‘a surrogate wise-cracking mate’) and secondly what they could provide that audience with (‘alternative, funny, quick-witted content provided by key talent’). Bryant adds, “Dave has a clear tone of voice, which extends over social media and experiential marketing, and it’s all rooted in deep market insight.” While the principle of identifying your audience is timeless, Bryant acknowledges that the tools are changing and TV brands need to make effective use of social media. “It’s not enough for a channel to just post its content onto YouTube or Facebook,” he says. “Really smart brands understand that social media is a different environment and they need to understand how people view on this platform.” James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke segment on CBS’ The Late Late Show is a smart
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example of this, Bryant claims. In the segment, the host and a celebrity guest sing along to songs while driving around LA. In July the segment featured First Lady Michelle Obama in a clip that went viral (almost 30m views in ten days), while other successful guest appearances have included The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Adele (42m views within five days). Says Bryant, “Car Pool Karaoke was created for an online audience to attract more young people to the main show. You could argue that it existed first and foremost as a marketing tool, but it’s also content in its own right – a masterful use of social media.” As a TV branding specialist, Bryant does not belong to the camp that thinks linear TV is dead. “If anything TV in its new form is stronger than ever,” he argues, drawing on the book, Television Is the New Television by media commentator Michael Wolff, which explores why after 20 years the internet has failed to devour TV, as many predicted it would. “What Wolff is saying is that for years there was hype about digital businesses killing TV, when what has actually happened is that digital is becoming TV,” says Bryant. “Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu are all now commissioning original content, and digital players like Vice are actually becoming mainstream TV channels.” In this multiscreen, multiplatform future, Mawer and Bryant argue that there will be fewer players. The sub channels and niche channel brands, so critical to the pay-tv years, may give way to their parent ‘master brands’ who will need to position themselves even more clearly in that top tier. “In an online world the simplest solution may be to reassure viewers that Peaky Blinders is a drama brought to them by ‘the BBC’ rather than
BBC2,” says Bryant. The future will be a mixed ecology among strong linear TV brands and newer players, and as well as possessing a solid business model, Bryant argues that surviving brands will need strong signposting, a clear editorial voice and top quality content. It’s this latter ingredient, the production of content by professional storytellers, that Bryant thinks has given TV its longevity. “When it comes to the core of what makes TV valuable online, it’s the quality drama, high quality comedy and good kids TV programming, which fundamentally comes back to good storytelling.”
Andy Bryant Managing Director, Red Bee Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Ann-Marie Corvin
“Really smart brands understand that social media is a different environment”
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Executive Summary 43
Big Screen Experience
“We may even see technology such as LED or OLED presenting the latest blockbusters in cinemas”
Providing illumination Going to the movies has always been a very special, unique entertainment experience – and the movie industry is determined to keep it that way. But it is being pushed hard. “Cinemas are often concerned with technology in terms of what the consumer has at home, whether or not the technology is better or even noticeable on the big screen,” explains Mark Kendall, Business Development Manager for Digital Cinema at NEC Display Solutions EMEA. “On that basis, we may see the continual development of resolution; after all, the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 will be broadcast in 8K. However, there are many other technology developments that enhance the cinema experience, such as higher frame rates, high dynamic range and, particularly for the larger 3D screens, brightness.”
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Kendall’s IBC presentation, however, was not about resolution; it was about laser illumination for digital cinema (and, increasingly, their commercial counterparts) projectors. ‘Critical Update: Laser Projection – Is It Ready for Wide Deployment?’ saw a wideranging panel tackle the key questions around the rollout of this technology in cinemas. For example, there was a time when laser illumination for projection was considered offthe-wall at best, and dangerous at worst, but part of Kendall’s mission is to dispel any myths. “It’s important to help the industry understand the health and safety standards for laser are now often similar to those of traditional lamp-based products,” he affirms. “New technologies such as laser phosphor deliver lower
operational costs, saving the exhibitor up to €2,000 per year in lamp and power costs, compared to a traditional Xenonbased projector,” explains Kendall, “while RGB laser development means exhibitors are able to realise higher brightness on larger screens.” The transition from Xenon lamps to laser installation is not just about costs and brightness, however. “The new technology also brings more flexible installations,” he says. “You no longer have to install a cinema projector in a projection room, allowing for air extraction and lamp changing.” Kendall was previously European product manager for NEC’s full range of projectors, remarking that his current assignment sees him engage with a variety of cultures within the cinema industry. “It’s an
enjoyable challenge,” he smiles. In the very early days of digital cinema, there were certainly challenges. A notable one was convincing all the players in the industry – especially exhibitors and creatives – that digital cinema was the way forward. How does Kendall see the current state of play? “The majority of cinemas that will digitise have already done so,” he says. “Although there are a few seasonal cinemas that may not have digitised due to funding. The current business is based on new builds or upgrades. We expect some of the old equipment will
be replaced with new lower operating cost equipment in the coming years.” Projection has long been at the heart of the cinema industry as the only cost-effective way of delivering high brightness, high quality images to a large screen. Will it continue to reign supreme – or are there alternatives that could replace it? “In the future,” responds Kendall, “we may even see different technology such as LED or OLED presenting the latest blockbusters in cinemas.” As ever, it seems the destinies of the cinema industry and the broadcast industry may be closely intertwined.
Mark Kendall
Business Development Manager - Cinema, NEC Display Solutions EMEA Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Ian McMurray
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Business Transformation
“We’ll eventually have three resolutions existing side-by-side within the same services”
Andy Quested Head of Technology BBC HD and UHD, BBC Design and Engineering Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Will Strauss
Together in perfect harmony Andy Quested wears many vocational hats. Once an editor on the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, he is now the Chair of the EBU’s Strategic Programme for Quality Control, as well as Chair of the ITU’s Working Party 6C, the group responsible for production and exchange standards, including HDR. He also has a day job as the BBC’s Head of Technology for HD and UHD. At the IBC Conference, he was part of a panel answering the question, ‘Is There a Business Case for UHD?’ “The business case is what the business wants it to be,” says Quested in reply. “Unlike the change from SD to HD, this time UHD and HD will go forward together. We will see an improvement in HD, with better colour, and we’ll eventually have three resolutions existing side-by-side within the same
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services. We’re not going to be constrained in the same way as we were with channels having a single frame rate and a single resolution, and when we move to IP services we really won’t care! You don’t need to have everything at one standard rate unless you have a traditional linear service. The technology is getting good enough that we could do different frame sizes, frame rates and colorimetry on programmes just like we used to change between widescreen and 4:3.” What is the BBC’s stance on UHD? For programmes that take a long time from commission to TX, such as natural history or big dramas, we are already producing in UHD. But it is our partners that primarily fund this next generation output. BBC Worldwide has been absolutely
clear that UHD, even with better colour, is not good enough for future-proofing its assets. Therefore it will not commission anything that is not also HDR. Resolution, colour and dynamic range are all absolute musts. We’re making these programmes now. What flavour of HDR? All BBC UHD programmes will have HDR, and the HDR will be hybrid log-gamma (HLG). So, can we expect to see a UHD service from the BBC? Are we going to rush out and launch a UHD channel? 90 per cent no. I cannot say it’s 100 per cent because things change. In my opinion there are better ways of delivering it. We know iPlayer can do UHD and we know that bandwidth to the home is going up. I think that it is a far more efficient way of changing
a standard. If you put a UHD channel up you are expected to fill it. If you put an OTT service with UHD as an option to the same display that you would be watching it on anyway, you’ve got an as-needed service and the potential for catch-up. Some people say that resolution doesn’t matter. You disagree. Why? Resolution is really important, and not just because of screen size. Those people who say you don’t need it in the home are blinkering themselves from the rest of the industry. Viewing distance matters. Digital display advertising is another important consideration. There are shop screens, bus stop adverts, and escalator displays. Advertisers want the resolution. They want to show off their products. They aren’t going to be happy with something that’s fuzzy.
But resolution is just part of the UHD package? Yes – resolution is only a quarter of the story. The colourimetry within UHD is amazing and the dynamic range immediately takes UHD from a gasp to a wow. Having higher frame rates is part of the package too, although I am not a fan of frame rate being an engineering decision. Frame rate is just another storytelling tool. Even for live sport? Again pitch-side advertisers might have a point of view. As soon as the camera pans – which is most of the time in football coverage – those electronic perimeter advertising hoardings turn to mush. You cannot read them at 50fps. When you see them at 100fps you can. Unfortunately we cannot yet display 100fps easily.
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Executive Summary 45
Business Transformation “This positions satellite right from the start as a premium infrastructure”
Claudia Vaccarone Head of Market Research and Customer Experience, Eutelsat Region: France Interviewed by: Catherine Wright
Stellar growth for UHD Claudia Vaccarone has spent more than 20 years in the broadcasting and satellite industry. In her position as Head of Market Research and Customer Experience for Eutelsat she provided key findings concerning the growth of the UHD market during her IBC conference session ‘Is There a Business Case for UHD?’ What’s the consumer demand for UHD? According to GFK, 5.2 million UHD screens were sold at the end of 2015 in Europe and the MENA region. You get a total of 6.6 million when you add the 1.4 million already sold in 2014. The projected figure for 2018 is 24.4 million. As consumers renew their TV screens, we expect a significant portion to opt for future-proof UHD models, which become more affordable
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each year. Market analyst NSR predicts over 1000 commercial UHD channels by 2025, of which 745 will be delivered via satellite. Eutelsat carrried out research in Russia, Turkey, France, Italy, Germany, Poland and the UK, highlighting the appetite for immersive experiences and improved images that UHD delivered. Further research in partnership with Digital TV Europe showed that 76 per cent of the broadcasting chain is actively working towards the development of UHD. We are pretty confident we will see this new format steadily take hold. Where does the company stand on bandwidth allocation? UHD requires large transmission capacity that some terrestrial systems will be unable to provide everywhere or
immediately. For sports events in particular, guaranteeing high and stable quality for live streaming will prove challenging when multiple users are connected. This positions satellite right from the start as a premium infrastructure. It will be critical to dimension bandwidth to deliver on the four key benefits of the new format: higher resolution, higher frame rate, more colours and more contrast. Immersive audio will follow. We expect 25 Mbit/s to be the benchmark using HEVC compression. Channels using HDR will need up to 10 per cent more bandwidth. And on technology trials, notably regarding HDR? We were the first to kick off a demo channel, called Eutelsat 4K1, and launched from our flagship HOTBIRD position in
2013. Encoded in HEVC and broadcast at 50fps, the channel is also replicated on the Eutelsat 7B covering Africa. An additional demo channel is broadcast specifically for French viewers in our FRANSAT free-to-view platform. UHD compatible sets can receive this first general public channel at no cost. The channel currently broadcasts 4K content, and in a second phase will transmit live events. We expect live sport to be an early draw for consumers, and have demonstrated our UHD capabilities in that demanding environment. We have transmitted live tennis matches during the RolandGarros tournament together with the French Tennis Federation and France Télévisions. We also teamed with RAI to broadcast live seven Euro2016 matches to Tivusat homes in Italy. This initiative was managed from our Paris-Rambouillet teleport which is now equipped for playout and live HEVC encoding in UHD.
We launched a demo HDR Channel from our flagship HOTBIRD satellite neighbourhood at this year’s IBC, showing content from The Explorers Network and the 4Ever-2 consortium. Considering the array of options for standardising UHD, a set of industry-accepted parameters has taken shape fairly quickly. The basic toolbox is now in place. Some decisions still need to be taken to stabilise standards for HDR. We expect these to be resolved shortly. Any commercial examples? Several of our pay-TV customers are developing their UHD offers via linear channels. They include Russia’s Tricolor TV, with the launch of a commercial UHD package in July 2016. OSN, a pay-TV operator in the Middle East and North Africa, also announced plans to initiate UHD broadcasts from Eutelsat’s main video neighbourhood serving the region, 7/8° West.
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Leaders’ Summit
Buoyant MENA broadcasting scene Dr Fares Lubbadeh is Director General at Jordan-based SpaceTech TV Engineering, and is also a member of IBC’s Council. Offering an insight into the state of broadcasting in the MENA region, he reveals that there are now some 1230 TV channels on air, with the most popular genres being sport (61 channels), news (also 61 channels), religious (55 channels) and drama (48 channels). HDTV is also growing, up 9 per cent on 2015 with 212 channels on air, although most of these are supplied by the pay-TV operators. Dr Lubbadeh cautions that Ultra-HD’s progress will depend on those pay-TV players, notably sport from beIN Network which transmitted
But there remain problems with deliberate broadcaster piracy, and where unscrupulous channels retransmit signals that they have no rights to. A recent case involved Iran’s IRIB broadcasting some of the July 2016 UEFA football games. The Dubai-based Anti-Piracy Coalition was formed early in 2014, and it’s making progress, says Dr Lubbadeh. “Actions against illegitimate satellite channels include ‘shut downs’, termination of contracts and ceasing of advertisement support,” he explains. “Since the coalition started, around 47 satellite pirated channels were switched off, but more than 60 channels are still regularly infringing copyright.”
“MENA is one of the fastest growing online markets in the world” seven games from this past summer’s UEFA European championships. Movie-based channels are in the offing. “The MENA region is dominated by satellite, with some 50 million homes tuning in,” he explains. “DTT distribution is modest, although IPTV is growing faster than the global average and is mainly concentrated in the Gulf states of the UAE and Qatar. “MENA is one of the fastest growing online markets in the world. MENA’s share of [global] internet use has quadrupled in the past 15 years, but there is a difference between the internet penetration for the GCC countries, at the levels of developed countries, and other parts of the Arab world still lagging behind. “OTT services are getting more active in the GCC countries with the emergence of pure play OTT providers. The recent entry of international players in the region, such as Netflix and Starz Play, will benefit consumers through more non-linear programming at lower prices,” adds Lubbadeh.
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Dr Lubbadeh says that channel piracy affects not only international series and movies, but also Arabic content, thus causing major damage to the media production sector in the MENA countries. “This results in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars each year and threatens the growth of the media sector.”
However he is extremely optimistic about the MENA media scene, saying that pay-TV is – at long last – getting off the ground, and is expected to grow its subscriber base by some 6 per cent annually. The two major players (OSN and beIN Media) dominate the sector with some 65 per cent of pay-TV subs and 70 per cent of revenues. “TV ad-revenues have remained relatively flat during the last five years in spite of the increase of the number of TV channels,” concludes Dr Lubbadeh. “A dramatic increase in the production and popularity of talent, reality, talk and game shows locally produced in the Arab world is being observed. Due to their Pan-Arab nature, these entertainment channels are helping drive advertising revenues.”
Dr Fares Lubbadeh Director General, SpaceTech TV Engineering Region: Jordan Interviewed by: Chris Forrester
16/09/2016 12:52
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Executive Summary 47
IBC Future Reality Theatre
Can VR satisfy the next media generation? With Hollywood studios facing a static-to-declining box office, and broadcasters, cable and satellite service providers in a battle for survival against internet up-starts, could virtual reality offer a way out of the impasse? “VR is either going to be a major new business model, or it’s going to be an extra on a Blu-ray disc, paid for out of marketing and PR budgets, but not adding to the bottom line,” believes Jim Chabin, president, The Advanced Imaging Society/The VR Society. “Which one of those turns out to be reality will make all the difference in the world. There is a very strong sense in Hollywood and beyond that VR and AR could develop into the next monetisation model. If so, it will be a job-creating industry and a significant source of
about 3D as much as I am VR,” he says. “VR hasn’t replaced 3D. 3D is now wearing a different mask and is seen as a facilitator for creating a virtual experience.” He observes that there is a similar amount of hysteria around VR as there was for 3D, but believes VR to be different. “For a start, we don’t need to put 3D screens into people’s homes – since everyone’s cellphone can be the basis for 3D viewing. “There’s a perfect storm of a new generation of consumers wanting media to be mobile and shorter and quicker and more powerful than before. VR content is shorter, it is mobile and the experience is more powerful. We’ve got creative people with a vested interest in making this happen. People at Marvel, or Sky or BBC are
“This is a fundamental change in the way we all consume media” new revenue. But if it’s just a gimmick, then it won’t go far beyond a few hobbyists and teenagers.” Chabin, taking part in a special ‘Fireside Chat Q&A’ at IBC, has seen technology come and go before. He has served as president of The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and president of Promax/BDA. He co-founded the Advanced Imaging Society in 2009 on behalf of the major studios to educate and recognise professionals in the 3D movie industry. While 3D is still a significant revenue stream for Hollywood and particularly in China, 3D TV stalled in the home. “To have a virtual experience you need to be in a 3D space, so what’s fascinating is that I’m hearing as much discussion
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going to blow us away with amazing content. “I don’t worry about the creative energy of this community. I do worry about how quick we can get this content created so that as these devices come out there is enough to view that is of quality. We need to create experiences that are interoperable on any device.” There are other issues, aside from finessing video stitching and how to use sound and direction. “We need to understand what consumer attitudes are to headsets and whether parents will put headsets on their children.” He stresses, “This is not 4K. This is not a brighter picture or a curved screen. This is a fundamental change in the way we all consume media.”
Jim Chabin President, The Advanced Imaging Society/The VR Society Region: USA Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington
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Audiences and Advertising
Access all areas advertising For most of his career Fabrice Mollier has been at the heart of France’s largest private TV group’s marketing drive. The path to his current role as Deputy General Manager of Marketing and Strategy Innovation for TF1 Publicité began back in 1994, when he joined TF1 in the home shopping sector. His personal milestones include being CEO of TF1 Games from 2002 to 2006, then from 2006 onwards marketing and research director of TF1, before becoming chairman of the group’s new thematic channels, including HD1, which he launched in 2012. Mollier admits that the days when TF1 dominated the French TV industry are gone, but he thinks that the opportunities
“We chose a different path for video advertising because we were reticent to pool our content with other companies’ and cheapen our image, so to speak. So we created our own SSP [supply side platform], called One Exchange, which we are the first in France to have launched on IPTV. We initially commercialised it two years ago, on PCs, tablets and smartphones.” The aim is to reach the 20 million French individuals who watch catch-up TV on an IPTV set-top box. According to Mollier, 300 of the group’s top advertisers now use the IPTV tool, which was launched last year. And what about metadata? He admits
“The future belongs to those who will provide advertisers with engagement, not just impressions” to market his company’s brand are also greater than ever before. “The way people watch TV has totally changed: they can access content anywhere, anytime and on multiple devices,” he says. “There are numerous ways of reaching them. An important step is the improved quality of smartphone networks. With 5G, you can access premium quality content, which is a big plus for us and our advertisers.” As he mentioned during the IBC Conference session, ‘New Developments in TV and Video Advertising Technology’, in a country with 60 million smartphones, the ways of reshaping advertising content are limitless. “You can start a campaign on TV and continue it on other screens, in shorter or longer form, or in a game format on our website MYTF1, you name it,” he says. Mollier claims that TF1 has always been at the forefront when it comes to adopting innovative ways of marketing. “We were one of the first to use programmatic advertising in France, with a two pronged approach,” he explains. “For banner advertising, we partnered with a number of companies, press groups for instance, and pooled our unsold ads.
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that a universal audience measurement tool, which could be used in a standardised way from screen to screen, does not exist yet, but TF1 has been working on its own way of assessing data. In order to better target and provide efficiency metrics to its customers, it launched ‘One Data’ last year. In addition to the TF1 audience figures provided by Médiametrie, the group uses a consumer panel built by Kantar Worldpanel covering 20,000 homes, where people scan the produce they buy. This enables TF1 to track people’s real purchases according to the programmes they watch. “We ran a trial with Narta deodorant and the results were very conclusive: sales increased by 6 per cent,” he concludes. Another technology he is clearly enthusiastic about is virtual reality and the possibilities it opens up for advertisers. “It’s an extraordinary new tool which can really boost people’s level of emotion,” he says. “We are studying ways of getting our audience more involved with programmes like The Voice, for example. The future belongs to those who will provide advertisers with engagement, not just impressions.”
Fabrice Mollier Deputy General Manager, Marketing and Strategy Innovation, TF1 Publicité Region: France Interviewed by: Catherine Wright
16/09/2016 12:51
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Executive Summary 49
Advances In Technology “It is clear that broadcasters cannot remain complacent”
Dr Rich Chernock Chief Scientific Officer, Triveni Digital Region: United States Interviewed by: George Jarrett
Evolution of the broadcast landscape During the IBC Conference session ‘The Global Landscape for Broadcast TV Systems’, held in association with FOBTV (Future of Broadcast Television), Dr Rich Chernock was perfectly cast as the reviewer of the perils and opportunities facing television. His chairmanship of the ATSC technology group on ATSC 3.0 (TG3) and his role at Triveni Digital as Chief Scientific Officer, as well as his support of FOBTV, enabled him to paint an interesting future landscape. “Broadcasting is facing difficult times around the world – with spectrum availability issues in many geographies and increasing competition from alternate delivery mechanisms,” he says. “It is clear that broadcasters cannot remain complacent. They need to evolve the services and delivery technologies that they offer viewers.” This is one of the driving forces for the emerging ‘next
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generation’ systems. How does Chernock judge the certainties of IP? “While I do believe that IP delivery of TV is the future – we have adopted IP transport as the core of ATSC 3.0 – there are different meanings of IP delivery,” he says. “Broadcasting still remains the most efficient mechanism to distribute the same content to a large number of people. “However, multicast does not work over the internet, although it may work within managed networks. This leaves unicast delivery for internet delivered content. Unicast delivery over IP (OTT or IPTV) is excellent at taking different content to different people, so it is suitable for VOD or Netflix-type streaming. Unicast delivery of the same content to numerous viewers can have significant scaling issues – especially with regard to the cost of delivery.” On the question of whether Europeans should take closer
notice of ATSC 3.0, Chernock gives an affirmative. “While it is the newest next-gen broadcast system to emerge, broadcasting is evolving around the world. While we haven’t created a single broadcasting system for the world, as these systems evolve they are becoming increasingly similar, and we are moving towards a common goal. “Many broadcasters in the US are looking at ATSC 3.0 to allow them to provide new types of services. The business models and infrastructures for broadcasting differ in different countries, but I believe that we can all learn from each other,” he adds. On the issue of metadata coming of age and value, Chernock observes, “metadata has always been one of those ‘hidden in the background’ things. Since the transition to digital, it has been an essential element to make TV work. As one simple example, without
signalling metadata, a receiver would not know which streams to decode in unison to provide the video and audio of a TV programme. “So, the metadata for signalling and announcement is a core part of making linear TV work, and will continue to be that into the future,” he says. “However, television has evolved past the simple linear model to much richer services involving interactivity, creation of services composed of components delivered in real time over broadcast, pulled in real time from broadband and even pushed in advance. “Metadata is the key to making all of this work together. Management of all of this metadata throughout the content lifetime – and into the actual broadcast – is essential and becoming increasingly complex, which might explain the growth,” he continues. Another topical question is if broadcasting needs new tactics
for attracting young talent into a changing industry. “The average age of practicing broadcast engineers seems to be continually increasing – at least in the US,” says Chernock. “Broadcasting doesn’t seem to have the same appeal as alternative engineering careers, such as networking, software development, or communications related to the internet. It is also a difficult subject to learn. With the new capabilities of the next generation systems, broadcasting will regain public attention, which will help to attract new people.” His participation in the IBC Conference and visit to the IBC Exhibition has reassured Chernock – certainly it seems his concerns are being addressed. “While at NAB this year, I saw a lot of evidence for renewed excitement and potential for the broadcast industry. I saw the same at IBC, with the more global emphasis I wanted.”
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Rising Stars
Summit of achievement Some of the best ideas come to us when we’re away from the office but few arrive with as much drama and clarity as Alexandre Jenny’s epiphany on an Alpine peak. “I was hiking in the mountains and reached the top and started to take pictures,” the French software engineer and entrepreneur describes. “When you get to the peak it is such an overwhelming and beautiful view that a photograph never does it justice. You want the panorama of the big picture. You want the full 360-degrees to experience again.” This was in 2000 and four years later Jenny had a solution. Together with Lionel Laissus he started Kolor to market
Georges Mélies Photo Club, he is now driven to help 360-video developers overcome three main challenges, as he told the Rising Stars session, ‘Virtual Reality: The New Reality’. “The first is parallax, the disparity caused with marrying different views from the different lenses of any multi-camera 360rig,” he says. A second challenge is editing the footage. This, says Jenny, is less of a technical hurdle than an editorial one. “The grammar of storytelling in 360-degrees, including when and where to cut, is still being worked through.” Then there’s the live streaming and social sharing of content. In particular, Jenny feels that developments need to focus on
“VR is enabling all of us to discover and experience so many fabulous new locations. This is the last step before teleportation” Autopano, the software he’d devised to automatically stitch together a series of still images. A decade later and Kolor was known as a world leader in panoramic imagery solutions, including video stitching. In 2015, the company was acquired by GoPro. “Being part of GoPro means we have access to a lot of internal information about the [GoPro Hero] cameras so that we could better tune our software to its hardware,” says Jenny. Previously, Kolor and Intel collaborated on YouTube’s first interactive VR video, which was filmed using GoPro cameras. Jenny is a self-confessed geek who began programming computers on the first basic PCs as a child. As well as being a mining engineer and graduate in material physics, he spent several years with Lyon-based video games developer Infogrames, owner of Atari. Still a passionate photographer, and member of the
making the VR environment more interactive. “Pokemon Go is a great example of gamification overlaid on live video as augmented reality,” he says. “The question is how we can bring an interactive layer to full VR.” The current market for VR is primarily driven by brands. “A lot of money is being invested by advertisers in VR but there is no real platform for monetising 360video content yet. We will extend the GoPro Awards to VR, so that people can earn money from producing cool content.” Does he feel that his ambition of capturing special moments like the panoramic mountain vista has been achieved? “I think we are going beyond this. VR is enabling all of us to discover and experience so many fabulous new locations. This is the last step before teleportation – I can be present without having to travel there. And if I view VR of a mountain summit I can feel vertigo. We are that close.”
Alexandre Jenny Senior Director of Immersive Media Solutions, GoPro Region: France Interviewed by: Adrian Pennington
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Business Transformation “IP is a revolution; but operationally it needs to be a progression, otherwise it will fail”
Engineering the IP future David Atkins, Technical Director and Founder of Suitcase TV, was the sole vendor representative to speak on the ‘New Era, New Skills in Broadcast and Media’ session on generating a new talent influx that understands both IT and media. Atkins is passionate about this subject. “This is a very complex area, and it has been [of interest] to Suitcase for many years,” he says. “Every summer we have sought out students, typically in their second year, and offered them three-month contracts at sensible wages to work on real product. It gives them an opportunity to find out how the workplace ticks, and what skills they are not learning on their degree course.” This has been quite beneficial, but the driver has not been just to employ people. “The best thing to do is increase the
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stock of good graduates who know something,” says Atkins. “My frustration is that very few people do this, so we end up with talent coming out of universities that frankly hasn’t got a clue about what the real world is like.” The UK now has a degree apprenticeship scheme aimed mainly at big companies, but Atkins worries that a lack of awareness amongst the SME community may see benefits missed. Suitcase has made good ground with its local university and has taken on four students this year. Should the industry work closer with academia? “Yes – and we need [academia] to be more focused on the requirements of industry,” said Atkins. “[Also] the SME sector cannot sit there and complain they cannot deal
with people without two years’ experience, if they [themselves] will not provide two years of experience. You want students to be up and running when they leave education. “We need a forum that is cross-industry, that is not tied to a single body, because that will just get parochial.” How does the new IT skills issue impact on engineering? “The maintenance skills are radically different and our experience so far is that the skills don’t exist in the IT sector for network switching management, nor in the broadcast sector, because the technologies being used are not widely used in data centres.” Manufacturers must engineer systems that resemble what engineers are used to, he proposes. Tools have to offer self-discovery, be able to self-
configure, and have to adapt to environments. “Past transitions – SD to HD being one – have been successful because the model wasn’t broken at transition. We did not break broadcasting,” he adds. “IP is a revolution, but operationally it needs to be a progression, otherwise it will fail. “Some of the players have been trying to avoid the revolution by replacing their SDI cable with standards like SMPTE 2022-6, because in principle they can just stick a converter on their box at both ends, and make a much more expensive SDI cable. That does not give you a roadmap to new
and efficient methods of working in the future. It locks you into where you were.” Based on his time at the show, Atkins believes IBC has come much closer to the craft of content creation. “People who create content have far more say over how it is going to be produced,” he says. “Artists have become very adept at using computerbased technology, which means they are more able to communicate what they want from the engineering side. It is a closer working relationship. Ultimately, broadcasting is about broadcasting, and not actually about IP and IT.”
David Atkins Technical Director, Suitcase TV Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: George Jarrett
16/09/2016 12:17
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Big Screen Experience
Black is the new black Curt Behlmer and his team are responsible for advancing the possibilities of cinema sight and sound, ensuring that Dolby technologies, including Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, fit into the industry’s content workflows. A 30-year veteran of the motion picture industry, Behlmer has held senior executive positions with Warner Bros., Soundelux Entertainment Group, Digital Cinema Ventures, Ryder Sound Services and Lionsgate Films. Before joining Dolby he was the chief technology officer for entertainment services at Technicolor. At IBC he appeared on the panel ‘High Dynamic Range and Wide Colour Gamut: The Art and Science.’ What does high dynamic range (HDR) bring to the filmmaking process? HDR brings the ability to show more details in the shadows and have additional brightness. From a creative standpoint we have found that filmmakers are particularly excited about the improved black levels. When people think about HDR, particularly in the context of TV, they think about increased brightness. And while that is also true for the cinema, there is a lot more interest in being able to show detail and contrast. Filmmakers are applying this technology for leveraging the
representation of space as black, rather than grey. The space fields in the recent Star Wars and Star Trek movies look a lot more impressive and real when you’re not seeing them represented as grey. In The Revenant, where there are a lot of night scenes in the forest, the filmmakers were able to show the depth and detail that you cannot really get from any other projection system. How does wide colour gamut (WCG) help? Filmmakers can use WCG as a storytelling tool to create a different look. The animated movie Inside Out was a great example of the director using the expanded colour gamut to differentiate some of the scenes. WCG is also relevant in live action where having that additional colour volume gives you more saturation and extends some colours. It makes the movie a more immersive experience. Do production workflows need to change to accommodate HDR and WCG? What we saw with sound was that the majority of movies were being mixed in 5.1 or 7.1 and then an Atmos mix [when filmmakers chose to use the Dolbv surround sound technology] was created
afterwards. That has now changed. The majority of people are pre-dubbing in Atmos and then creating their 5.1 and 7.1 mixes from that. With vision technology, although we’re only a year into it, several studios are starting to create the Dolby Vision version first too. The nice thing about doing it this way is that it makes it easier to keep the creative intent baked in, and then deliver it all the way downstream, even to mobile. Does the viewer see a benefit? HDR is a treat for the eyes because things look much more normal. You no longer have to sub-consciously compensate for the lack of contrast or the lack of brightness. HDR feels more immersive and, depending on what tools the creative people choose to use, it can go beyond what any other medium can do today. Is HDR here to stay? Our belief is that it is. The audience reaction has been very positive. The commitment that we’re getting from cinema exhibitors to partner with us proves that this isn’t just a science project. The fact that consumers can get HDR in the cinema, and at home, means they are starting to become more aware of the value of it and are really enjoying HDR.
“HDR is a treat for the eyes because things look much more normal”
Curt Behlmer Senior Vice President, Content Solutions and Industry Relations, Dolby Laboratories Region: USA Interviewed by: Will Strauss
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Executive Summary 53
Leaders’ Summit “The UK has strong historic, cultural and language ties with a wide range of markets outside the EU”
Ingrid Silver Partner, Dentons Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: Monica Heck
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A legal eye view of Brexit Brexit is causing consternation among the major media companies that are established in London and are relying on Ofcom licenses to support their EU-wide activities. This is the scenario according to entertainment and media lawyer Ingrid Silver, who took on the challenging topic of European regulations at the IBC Leaders’ Summit session, ‘The Regulation Panel: Brexit and Digital Single Market’. A Partner at Dentons law firm, Silver has had a front row seat for the rapid evolution of the entertainment industry and its practices. She advised on the first-ever webcast of Big Brother in the UK back in the year 2000, and had had a hand in the launch of mobile and online TV projects around the world. The aftershock of Brexit is likely to keep the media and entertainment industries on their toes for the next few years, according to Silver, because everything from a legislative point of view is so intertwined. “The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) allows a broadcaster established in a particular member state of the EU to comply with the regulatory regime of that jurisdiction, and to broadcast from there to the entirety of the EU,” she says. “If and when Brexit happens, those broadcasters potentially lose that ‘passport’.” Silver also highlights that the European Regulatory Framework, contains content quota obligations that state that a linear broadcast must contain a minimum of 50 per cent European content. With the EU pushing ahead with its plans for a digital single market (DSM), a new 20 per cent quota for on-demand services is likely to be added to the existing linear quota. “That’s quite beneficial if you’re a production or media company producing content in the UK. The good news is that by relying on its membership of the Council of
Europe, an organisation comprising 47 member states including the EU member states, the UK should still be able to access these quotas for linear services, if not for on-demand services.” If and when Article 50 is triggered, spelling a two-year countdown to the exit of the UK from the EU, companies based in the UK could find themselves caught in the grey zone. “In a situation where the regulation of the portability of online content across member states comes into force in 2017 through the DSM for example, the UK must still comply with this during the transition period,” says Silver. “Currently, the UK is obliged to implement and apply these EU laws, in the knowledge that it may not be bound by them later on when Brexit takes effect. What will happen to existing EU legislation and case law, [known as] the ‘acquis communautaire’? This potentially impacts rights, contracts and licences across the value chain.” However, Brexit is also presenting opportunities that can’t be ignored, according to Silver. “The UK government could have more freedom to fund the media, production and creative sectors, as it won’t be bound by the European state aid regime,” she says. “The UK has strong historic, cultural and language ties with a wide range of markets outside the EU, including North America, Australasia, large parts of Africa, and the Middle East. The UK creative sector is well placed to recalibrate and exploit these ties.” For now however, knee-jerk reactions must be avoided, she warns. “It’s a time for people to build a clear understanding of what aspects of their businesses could be affected, and to plan accordingly. Ultimately, the impact of Brexit may be very limited. In the immediate term, businesses should review their terms and conditions to make sure they are DSM and Brexit-proof.”
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IBC Leaders’ Summit “A forum like IBC can open your eyes and mind to something you haven’t thought of ”
Nart Bouran CEO and Head of News, Sky News Arabia Region: MENA Interviewed by: Neal Romanek
Sky’s the limit in MENA The Middle East and North Africa have always been a focal point for international news, but it’s only been recently that news outlets in the region have grown into major global players with an international reach. Nart Bouran, who participated in the IBC2016 Leaders’ Summit, has been there from the beginning. In 2012, he helped Sky News Arabia get off the ground and has been at the centre of the growing MENA broadcast industry. “I was employee number three at the company, after the HR director and a driver. It was a great, great challenge, but a lot of fun. It was a very exciting time. “With Sky News Arabia we were always aware that whatever we did, it had to be something new. It had to be
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different from everything else around. Because we were new, we were able to build it all from the ground up with a multiplatform mentality, so we had an advantage over some of the more established broadcasters in the region.” Broadcasting in the MENA region presents its own set of challenges and opportunities. There is huge diversity among a rapidly growing audience with the majority of the population below 25. “It’s a unique area,” agrees Bouran. “You have some of the highest engagement of digital and social media platforms in the world, yet there are still a lot of people who are not even connected to the internet.” In a technology-driven business, this diversity of audience makes the job all
the more delicate. “Media organisations in MENA might be testing augmented reality or Ultra HD, yet you have a large number of people who are still watching TV in 4:3. “The discrepancy is very wide between the haves and the have nots, and it’s a big challenge,” he adds. “You want to try new platforms and do things in a different way, yet you need to also be aware that a lot of people are still more in tune with linear TV.” Like all broadcasters worldwide, Sky News Arabia is faced with disruptive innovation – new technologies, apps and audience behaviours challenging its business model and forcing it in new directions. Knowing which disruptive innovations to chase, and which to let go, is more an art than a science.
“Over the next few years, linear TV will remain important in the region,” Bouran predicts. “However, we’ll be bringing in the digital component with OTT, smart TV apps and advanced set top boxes, and these technologies will allow us to address a lot of these disruptive challenges. How we use OTT and smart TV will be the thing that allows us to flex our muscles with new technology, without disenfranchising viewers.” But with news outlets able to reach anywhere in the world now, do broadcasters like Sky News Arabia find themselves having to compete against other more established global broadcasters? “We’re very language specific,” says Bouran. “That makes it more challenging, but
it also gives you an advantage because you’re really only competing with people who produce content in your own language. Still, we do look at other geographies to see what they’re doing and we try to use some of their principles and apply them to the Arabic region. We’re constantly learning.” Sky News Arabia sent a large team to IBC this year for just that purpose. “A forum like IBC can open your eyes and mind to something you haven’t thought of, and to things that might be applicable in your geography. But a lot of ideas come from looking between the lines. You may see lots of innovations that solve certain problems, but you have to keep in mind your objectives as an organisation and see what fits your vision.”
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Executive Summary 55
Business Transformation
Asking VR questions For Sony Pictures Entertainment CTO Spencer Stephens, it’s an exciting time of change. “There’s a lot that’s in flux and we’re trying to figure out how to do it, especially with virtual reality,” he says. “VR is incredibly interesting, but we don’t really have a vocabulary for talking about it. I think [we need to] to define the vocabulary and find the issues.” Stephens leads the Sony studio’s Technology Development group, working on technology innovation and application. The group’s latest challenge has been building the workflow that adds HDR to the
“We have to figure out ways to deliver the absolute best consumer experience based upon the available platform”
Spencer Stephens Chief Technology Officer, Sony Pictures Entertainment Region: USA Interviewed by: Carolyn Giardina
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4K UHD content the studio has been offering since 2013. As part of the IBC Conference session, ‘CTO Strategic Roadmap: The Technologists’ View’, he joined an international panel of experts addressing the challenges of this new era in broadcast and media. For instance, the exec asks if there needs to be a ratings system for VR content, in terms of its potential to induce motion sickness. “Some people are extremely susceptible to what we call ‘simulator sickness,’ a term coined to describe people who get motion sickness in simulators, but don’t get it in real life. To some extent, that’s also
related to haptic feedback, if your body is moving in a manner that’s consistent with what you’re seeing. There’s plenty of work to be done on that.” With various VR viewing devices now on the market, Stephens points out that additional challenges surround VR content delivery. “We need to find a way to deliver VR content for the scope of devices. On one end of the spectrum we have Playstation VR, and at the other, Google Cardboard apps. “I’m not suggesting standardisation, but from a production point of view, we have to keep in mind that we have these very different formats,” he adds. “We have to figure out ways to deliver the absolute best consumer experience based upon the available platform.” Before his current role at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Stephens worked as a technologist for Warner Bros. and before that built and ran the digital production group at Walt Disney Television Animation. Asked what change he would expect in the coming year, Stephens says, “With VR, everything is moving so fast; I would expect to see more complete [production systems] and possibly fewer of them. “We may reach a point where the huge increase in available cameras trails off a bit. From our point of view, it’s the complete system that we’re interested in. We don’t want to have to figure out how to stitch together the output from each individual camera. We are seeing examples of that becoming part of [the systems]. It should not be a manual process.”
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Big Screen Experience Tom Bert Senior Product Manager Digital Cinema, Barco Region: Belgium Interviewed by: Ian McMurray
Illuminating the future of cinema The first ever showing of a full-length feature film (the little known The Last Broadcast) to be captured, delivered and projected digitally was in 1998. Since then, the digital cinema industry has gone from strength to strength, and continues to evolve. “Like any market, the cinema market is moving and adapting constantly,” believes Tom Bert, Senior Product Manager Digital Cinema at Barco, who was speaking as part of the ‘EDCF Global Update’ session. Bert was also at IBC, he says, to help visitors separate the fact from the fiction when it comes to laser projection — something that is currently a hot topic in the digital cinema world. “Sometimes, this happens organically, sometimes it’s
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disruptive,” he says. “The emerging markets – like China and India – are a big driver for organic growth. New concepts like premium large formats were a bit more unexpected. This is all a natural response to how the world around us evolves: demographically, technically, culturally. That will never change.” Bert started his Barco career in the company’s research and development organisation. “The best thing about being a product manager is the wide range of things you come into contact with: customers and their requirements, sales and their questions, competition and their moves – and R&D and their crazy ideas,” he laughs. For Bert, laser illumination, the topic of his conference
presentation, makes perfect sense. “Laser illumination is a huge breakthrough for digital cinema,” he says. “In 35mm digital projection, the lamp was the only non-digital component in the projector. Lasers are real electronic components that
far the largest installed base of cinema projectors with laser light sources – both RGB and laser phosphor. “We’d like to leverage our expertise to make sure the market understands the ins and outs,” he says. The digital cinema industry is no less preoccupied with the
“The day when the last lamp-based cinema projector will be sold is very near” yield massive benefits, such as higher brightness and increased lifetime – more than 50 times the life of lamps. The first all-laser multiplexes have been opened already by Barco customers. The day when the last lampbased cinema projector will be sold is very near.” Barco, claims Bert, has by
subject of resolution than the broadcast industry – but Bert is clear that it’s far from the be-all and end-all when it comes to image quality. “Resolution is just one part of the image quality puzzle,” he explains. “Yes, deploying more pixels was an initial focus for digital cinema, just as it was for
digital cameras, for example. In fact, 2K is very well accepted – even on the largest screens – but evolutions in the consumer space will probably see a migration to more 4K. “Other contributions to image quality come from contrast, uniformity and frame rate. Of those, probably the biggest gains are a function of frame rate and contrast. Things like 120fps and high dynamic range are being evaluated both by content creators and technology providers. “The special thing about cinema is that a technology only makes sense if it serves the creative intent of the director,” he concludes. “Setting new boundaries only make sense if the content needs to explore those boundaries.”
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Executive Summary 57
Platform Futures
Bridge between telecoms and media Peter Kerckhoff straddles the two worlds of telecoms and media in his role as VP of content at Deutsche Telekom, and is very much at home in both sectors as they increasingly converge. “I essentially have a hybrid role,” observes Kerckhoff. “I have always crossed the borders between media and telcos; that’s where I currently move. I feel very familiar with the needs and growth paths of both industries.” Before joining Deutsche Telekom in 2002, he developed a thorough understanding of the media world through his role as Project Manager for Digital TV and Co-lead for Business TV at the Luxembourg-based RTL Group. As he made clear to the IBC Conference audience, he has been able to bring those experiences to the German telco, where he is now in charge of various content and mediarelated growth businesses. Today he heads the strategic management of more than 350 content and media partnerships at Deutsche Telekom, which in turn has become a leading aggregator of content services. “We try to deal with the best content partners available,” says Kerckhoff, adding that Deutsche Telekom is not yet a content producer itself, and it currently has no plans to become one. At least, not yet.
“I would say we have no fixed plans but I can see the point of time when we have to make a decision on that,” he admits, noting that such a decision would have to be made in the next one to two years. “It’s not about copying Netflix, for example,” he adds. The emphasis would be placed on finding a product or service that is suitable for a particular region or market. The challenge for now is to identify those content partners that have the best chance of success. That is certainly not something that is always easy to predict, and ultimately Deutsche Telekom believes that there will only be room for a few very large players in future. For now, the German telco welcomes everyone, claims Kerckhoff. “[However] we need to have a slice of the cake,” he adds, referring to the ongoing discussion about how content providers and telecoms operators should manage and share the cost of content distribution. Deutsche Telekom also keeps an eye on the value chains of the top 10
“There is no golden route to follow” to 20 telcos and cable operators globally, in order to track their content strategies, and how they will mesh those with their communications business. Kerckhoff says the German telco might not necessarily follow the path of Liberty Global, which has invested more money in TV and film production, but he certainly does not want to rule out anything at this time. The VP reveals he was learning more at IBC about the perspectives of international telcos, finding out whether they have already become a hybrid telco and media business, or if they are moving in that direction. “How will they analyse and manage the convergence of media and telecoms? There is no golden route to follow,” says Kerckhoff. “I hope to learn from others.”
Peter Kerckhoff VP Content, Deutsche Telekom Region: Germany Interviewed by: Anne Morris
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58 Executive Summary
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Leaders’ Summit
Sending TV over the top Gidon Katz, the MD of Now TV, spoke at the IBC Leaders’ Summit, in a session that covered the many flavours of OTT. Titled ‘Online Platforms Evolve, Becoming (Closer to) TV’, it begged the question, ‘What’s the USP, now?’ Katz was teamed on the panel with the heads of MUBI, Aspera, and Amazon Europe, so what did he get out of the session? “The overall message was that OTT is just a distribution mechanism, a way of enabling a different segment of customers to access content in different ways,” he says. “The technological innovation is triggering marketing innovation, and that marketing freedom is about targeting discrete groups of consumers with propositions that mean most to them. “What Now TV is doing is targeting the ‘pay lite’ audience or the Freeview audience, introducing them to pay-TV content without the barriers of a contract and installation, and without the pricing barriers that have traditionally blocked people from getting pay-TV,” he adds. “Sky and Now TV are leveraging OTT as a way to grow a market.” Now TV is a sub set of an extraordinary content library, so does not get involved in commissioning original content. “Scripted drama is really the vogue,” said Katz. “We have access to incredible scripted drama from The Walking Dead to Westworld, to Game of Thrones, so we believe we punch our weight.” Now TV has good connections to the independent sector via UK TV and C4. How does it sit against Netflix? “If they are marketing Jessica Jones essentially as a zero barrier entry point, and I am marketing Game of Thrones, we are both ploughing the same furrow,” says Katz. “But the difference between us and Netflix, and us and Amazon, is that they are targeting the
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whole UK market for Sky and Virgin customers, and we are targeting the Freeview market.” Looking to the segmentation of the OTT market, does this suggest the competitors Katz knows at the high end will be the same ones in five years time? “There will be strong competitors, both from studioowned, direct-to-consumer initiatives, like Disney Life, and rival aggregation services. There will also be lots and lots of niche content offerings,” he says. “OTT reduces the barrier to entry, so there will be lots more competition.” How does big data feature in the Katz plan? “It is absolutely vital to us,” he reveals. “It is critical to get customers their content as quickly as possible, so our
“The pace of change has accelerated enormously” goal is to have segmented and eventually personalised screens. As a result we have spent millions on what we are calling a data lake.” OTT does have problems, he admits. “The big challenge for all services is retention. If you have a no contract proposition, you do not retain customers as long as you do if you have a 12-month contract. You need to have the data that enables you to target all your different communication channels.” When it comes to new technology, Now TV serves a mainstream audience – not early technology adopters – so Katz has specific demands. “I am particularly interested in encoding technologies that enable me to deliver better picture quality
and lower bit rates,” he explains. “Buffering is one of the things holding OTT back. We have a huge amount of data that shows that buffering and pictures that crash or freeze are directly linked to retention issues. Looking at things that manage the CDM network, improve encoding and improve the bit rate adaption are vital, so too are hierarchical tools, ‘decisioning technologies’ that sit on our big data archive. “The pace of change has accelerated enormously,” he adds. “I think the artist and the engineer have to get closer and closer. The power of small groups of entrepreneurs and people highly motivated to change the world is clearly increasing, and those people need that mix of creative people and technologists.”
Gidon Katz Managing Director, Now TV (Sky) Region: United Kingdom Interviewed by: George Jarrett
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