Kingdom of Bahrain

NEWS
Selevision chooses Voddler Group
to optimise quality of experience
Voddler Group, the cloud-streaming
innovator, has been selected by Selevision,
to optimise the subscriber’s streaming
experience. Selevision provides broadcast
and online channels direct to consumers
under several brands from its bases in the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates, providing exceptional
regional entertainment to its growing base.
To ensure a consistently high quality of
experience for its users, Selevision is now
adding Voddler’s hybrid peer-assisted and
secure delivery to its global technology
platform. Because Voddler’s technology
scales limitlessly across all devices and
bitrates, Selevision’s choice will bring its
substantial catalogue to an even greater
marketplace, while ensuring that its
commitment to amazing user experience
continues.
VoddlerNet combines controlled
and secure peer-assisted delivery with
direct streaming from the source provider.
This unique hybrid peer-assisted video
streaming solution greatly expands the
reach of streaming video services, while
maintaining the highest bitrate and quality
Dr. Raed Khusheim, CEO - Selevision
of service possible.
“Providing the best possible viewing
experience for the end user is vital to us,
regardless of which of our entertainment
services they are using and wherever
they may be viewing from,” said Dr Raed
Khusheim, CEO of Selevision. “To maintain
our leading position, we are continually
innovating behind the scenes. Voddler’s
ability to offer broadcast quality content
limitlessly offers real advantages in driving
up the quality of experience.”
One of the particular challenges for OTT
services in the Gulf region is the high
demand for mobile consumption, with
mobile penetration rates in Saudi Arabia
exceeding 168%. While VoddlerNet provides
service quality improvements across all
networks, it has specific functionality which
allows greater support even on mobile
devices without impairing performance.”
“We are very excited to be partnering
with Selevision,” said Adam Lewis, CEO
of Voddler Group. “As a pre-eminent OTT
provider in the MENA region, Selevision
already reaches millions of viewers.
We want to help them continue their
growth while maintaining the quality and
responsiveness for which the platform is
famous. Expectations of technical quality as
well as access to rich content are very high,
and VoddlerNet enables Selevision to meet
these expectations cost-effectively, without
massive investment in edge servers and
content delivery networks.”
CASBAA warns Indian TV Regulations Threaten Investment
CASBAA, the Association of Asia’s pay-TV
Industry, has warmly applauded the judicial
review now underway in India of proposed
extension and tightening of India’s pay-TV
rate regulations.
The Madras High Court is currently
reviewing the clash between the rights of
copyright owners around the world and new
tariff regulations proposed by the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The court has ordered the TRAI not to give
effect to the rules until the underlying issues
are considered, with a hearing now set for
January 19th.
CASBAA CEO Christopher Slaughter
observed that the new rules would be a
major negative factor for the business
environment in the $17 billion Indian media
industry. “India’s pay-TV regulations have
long been among the strictest in the world”,
he said. “The proposed new rules are highly
intrusive and would make the environment
much worse. Such a heavy-handed
regulatory regime will inevitably hit foreign
companies’ interest in investing in India.”
Indian law gives copyright owners the
ability to price and sell their creative works.
In filing the Madras suit, the petitioner
broadcasting organizations denounced
the TRAI regulation as contrary to these
principles as enshrined in the law, and in
international treaties to which India is a
signatory. (The TRAI rules would establish
a controlled price regime by mandating a
la carte channel supply, setting the ceiling,
by specific genres, that broadcasting
organizations can charge to multichannel
program distributors, limiting discounts,
prescribing carriage fees, and stipulating a
compulsory distribution fee to be paid by
Broadcasting Organizations to multichannel
program distributors.
CASBAA has long expressed concern about
India’s previous rate regulations, which
included a cable retail price freeze imposed
in 2004 “until the market became more
competitive” and never revoked.
“Today, India’s television content market
is among the most competitive in the
world,” said Slaughter. “Modern cable
MSOs, six different DTH platforms and
now online OTT television are all giving
Indian consumers a wide range of viewing
options.”
40 January 2017