Broadcasting the 2012 Olympic Games - CSI Magazine

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Elisa launches Euro OTT service
New Twitter record set
The Champions League match
between Chelsea and Barcelona
has overtaken Superbowl to
become the most tweeted
sporting event. The semi-final
second-leg at the Nou Camp
peaked at 13,684 messages per
second, which beat the previous
record of 12,233 tps set during
February’s Super Bowl between
the NFL’s New York Giants and
New England Patriots. According
to Twitter, the all time record
belongs to a broadcast of the film
Castle in the Sky in Japan, which
saw a peak of 25,088 tweets per
second, showing the popularity of
TV programmes on the social
media site.
Finland’s Elisa has become the
latest service provider to embrace
over-the-top by launching a TV
Everywhere service targeting
extreme sports enthusiasts
across Europe.
The EpicTV offer, which
launches this month across 15
European countries, will provide
live and on-demand content,
ranging from three-minute clips
to films, focused on extreme
sports such as surfing,
snowboarding, base jumping,
mountain biking and climbing.
It is available as a subscription
only service priced at EUR6.90
a month.
EpicTV will launch initially on
PCs, iPads and Samsung connected
TVs, with Android iOS platforms
and other smart TV brands to follow
in July. Microsoft PlayReady and
Widevine DRMs are providing the
multi-platform security for the
initiative. Users can register a
number of devices to view the
content on each account with
authentication performed via
Facebook or credit card.
The service is powered by Tvinci’s
back-end OTT platform, which
handles functions such as DRM and
content management, EPG
customisation, social, payments,
analytics and other services.
According to Adina Eckstein, VP of
product delivery at Tvinci, the
company has won three OTT
contracts since IBC with the latest, a
European satellite operator, to be
announced soon.
Having operated a managed IPTV
network since 2006, this is Elisa’s
first foray into the OTT arena,
which service providers are
increasingly using to widen their
geographic reach to new and niche
audiences. The company estimates
there is a European market of over
ten million affluent extreme sports
fans it is targeting, delivered via
commercial third party CDNs across
European territories.
Netflix looks to new Euro market
Online video streaming service
Netflix has moved to a Q1 loss as
a result of greater costs related to
its international expansion but it
hasn’t stopped the company from
looking to launch in one more
European country before the end
of the year. It is thought that of
the three million new subscribers
Netflix gained through its
international launch around two
million are estimated to have
come from the UK and Ireland
due to the poor performance in
Latin America. Although Netflix
still expects it will take two years
to reach sustained profits as it
builds up its network in Europe,
the company said it will target an
additional European market
before end-2012 (with speculation
mounting around Germany).
New products certified by Cable Europe
The Cable Europe Labs Certification
Board has certified Euro-
DOCSIS products from Motorola,
Cisco, Samsung and Technicolor
under its latest certification wave.
Products that successfully passed
testing by the independent test
lab Excentis used by the industry
group, and which are ready
for deployment in European markets
are:
• Samsung SMT-G7440 –
EuroDOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem in
a Set Top Box
• Cisco EPC2325R2 –
EuroDOCSIS 2.0 Cable Modem
• Samsung SMT-C5120 –
EuroDOCSIS 2.0 Cable Modem in a
Set Top Box
• Technicolor TC7200 –
EuroDOCSIS 3.0 + EuroPacketCable
1.5 EMTA
Moreover, a CMTS from Motorola
- BSR64000 has been granted a ‘verified
for base feature set’ label following
the release of testing results from
Certification Wave 46. It is the first
ED3.0 CMTS to get a European
label. Under this approach, vendors
can submit for ‘base’ feature set plus
other feature sets, such as IPv6,
upstream and dynamic channel bonding
and multicast, among others.
Also during Q1, a cable modem
from AVM, a Samsung set-top box
and an EMTA from Ubee Interactive
have been certified.
Cable Europe Labs said this is
contributing towards achieving the
broadband goals laid down in the
Digital Agenda for Europe, with
further EuroDOCSIS solutions
expected.
EUR15bn spent on Euro TV content
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European commercial broadcasters
spend more than EUR15 billion a
year on television content, according
to new research.
The study, commissioned from
the E-media Institute by the
Association of Commercial
Television in Europe (ACT), found
the aggregate spend in 15 countries
on programming was equivalent to
EUR41 million.
France invested about EUR5.4bn
on content and the UK EUR6.3bn,
where BSkyB alone paid out
EUR2.3 billion. Overall, around 40%
of broadcasters’ revenues are
reinvested in next season’s schedule.
The study also found the number
of non-linear services, such as VoD
platforms and catch-up TV, more
than doubled from 146 at the end
of 2008 to 314 in 2011 although
no figures were given on spend in
these areas.
06 May-June 2012 www.csimagazine.com