In Broadcast - April 2013 - 55

ISSUE 18 - APRIL 2013 | WWW.INBROADCAST.COM

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

N E W S

InMEDIA
Extending Screen Content Channels Cont.
on without duplicating effort.”
Broadcasters of all types and sizes
now have to consider getting their
channels out to an audience that
could be watching on any one of a
number of devices. Entertainment
channel Dave, part of the UKTV
stable, recently launched a new
iOS app for iPads and iPhones
as an extension of its video on
demand service for PC users. This
can be downloaded free from the
Apple app store.
Making programming available
through viewers’ iOS devices is
a ﬁrst for UKTV and is clearly a
concerted effort to maximise its
audience reach. “With the 12 million
tablets currently in use in the UK
increasingly becoming a primary
device for viewing content, the Dave
app makes our great programmes
conveniently accessible to even
more viewers,” comments Ben
Hine, UKTV’s Director of Operations
for Technology and Innovation.
“Dave is the ﬁrst of our free-to-air
channels to have an iOS app and
over the coming months we will be
working towards rolling out apps for
Yesterday and Really.”
The Dave app is based on the
Connected platform and framework
designed by internet TV specialist
Capablue. The company has
been working with UKTV over the
past year on building custom VoD
services for its free-to-air channels
and has moved on to the iOS apps.
“With mobiles and tablets taking
centre stage in today’s viewing
habits, now is the right time to be
giving audiences access to unique
digital content and hours of catchup programming on their personal
device,” says Tom Cape, Capablue’s
Chief Executive.
Cape sees the current broadcast
delivery situation as a “period of
transition and evolution”, with
many systems coming together.
“There’s different content going out
at different times, which is part of

the ‘TV everywhere’ concept,” he
comments. “The best way to achieve
that is through the internet but it is
something that is evolving over time
as we get ﬁbre into homes, faster
broadband networks and now 4G.”
Dave and the other UKTV channels
are played out from Red Bee Media’s
broadcast centre in west London.
Red Bee Media Chief Technology
Officer Steve Plunkett says the
UKTV set up is still conventional in
the sense that it originates from highresolution ﬁles with high bandwidth
and a complex infrastructure.

Tom Cape
CEO Capablue

“…now isbethe right
time to
giving
audiences access to
unique digital content
and hours of catch-up
programming on their
personal device

”

Red Bee Media also handles
delivery for other traditional
broadcasters, notably the BBC
and Channel 4, as well as smallerscale services that are more channel
in a box. “We have a pretty broad
and diverse client base,” Plunkett
observes. “We have very dynamic
channels like BBC1, which needs
to be able to change its schedules
quickly, and then more scheduled,
thematic channels like those that
make up UKTV. Because of this
the technology base we use varies
and we have quite a broad mix of
technologies, from large amounts
of hardware to recent channels in
a box solutions and software. What

we use depends on the
client’s needs.”
Alongside
the
conventional linear
broadcasts are nonlinear channels, more
commonly known as
catch-up services, of
which BBC iPlayer and
4oD are leading examples.
Plunkett explains that
these are “quite different
in their implementation”
to established delivery. “There
is more integration upstream from
the play-out system and this calls
for more sophisticated media asset
management,” he says. “Increasingly
traditional broadcasters are
appearing on tablets and in general
there is a lot content publication on
other screens. We have to look at the
production workﬂow and separate
streams for other platforms. Doing
this is now more integrated into the
entire chain.”
A new component to consider
is the IP simulcast of TV channels,
which Plunkett says is a growth
area. “In the next 12 months most
broadcasters will have IP-based
variants of their transmissions,
with different screen sizes
and bandwidths.”
The new TV delivery and viewing
landscape has been characterised
by the term “second screen” but
Plunkett views this as a misnomer
because, for some demographics,
the tablet is already the primary
screen. “People now have a choice
of screens to watch but traditional
TV is not going away,” he comments.
“The tablet is just adding to the
different ways of watching and not
cannibalising traditional TV viewing.”
The media has been full of talk
about second screens, which
most usually means tablets and
smartphones. But Cape does not
see this as so much different to
viewing habits and technology thirty
or forty years ago: “When I was a kid

Miranda’s iTX caters for an a diverse
broadcast market

we had a portable TV set. Now the
tablet has become that to an extent.
People are weighing up what works
for them. They can watch Sky Sports
on their iPads and are paying for it
but can use the Skybox next door
and it might be cheaper.”
The appetite of telecom companies
for frequency spectrum to carry
wireless broadband and the general
shift towards the internet as a way
of delivering video has led to the
conclusion that new technologies
will ultimately replace terrestrial
broadcast carriers.
Like Plunkett, Cape is not
convinced of this either: “I think
it will be a hybrid environment. A
big Saturday night show like The
X-Factor is watched by millions
of people and the internet is
not efficient enough to handle
something like that. Something
with very specialised appeal and
a smaller audience – like a ﬁshing
channel – would be more efﬁcient
to be delivered over the internet.”
The language in the home may
be changing – “screens” covers
everything from computer games to
tablets to TV – but the need to deliver
channels of whatever kind remains
key to broadcasting. Technology is
inﬂuencing how and what needs
to be done but, ultimately, the
concept does not appear to be
changing too much.

55

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In Broadcast - April 2013

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