 | Issue: | EMEA 2012 |
| Article no.: | 1 | |
| Topic: | Get on board -the transformation of an industry is well underway | |
| Author: | Geir Bryn-Jensen | |
| Title: | CEO | |
| Organisation: | Nevion | |
| PDF size: | 229KB |
About author
Geir Bryn-Jensen is CEO of Nevion. He brings nearly 20 years’ experience in international sales and business development within the telecom, broadcast and IT industries.
Before joining Nevion in 2010 as executive vice president of sales, Mr Bryn-Jensen spent six years as managing director/country manager at CA Norway AS (Computer Associates). Prior to this, he was a manager at Accenture’s Media & Entertainment practice in Norway, following six years at Telenor in various business development roles.
Geir Bryn-Jensen has an MBA in Strategic Management from the Norwegian School of Business Administration (NHH) in Bergen and a Bachelor of Science in Communication Engineering from the University of Kent.
Article abstract
The Internet as the medium for distribution of television services has made its debut but this is a major disruption of the existing landscape, with its deterministic switched networks, point-to-point mind-set and pre-determined schedules. The troubles of the music industry serve as a dire warning but “content availability trumps quality”, at least for the early adopters. Many in the industry now realise that content and social networks are the gateway to the consumer. The Cloud enables numerous individuals and organisations to generate, storeand consume at the same time, effectively levelling the playing field. However, providing end-to-end solutions with effective content managementwill win the day – the fragmented value chain will disappear, while business will transition from cost-for-bandwidth to cost-per-content.
Full Article
It seems clear that the broadcast and television industry as we know it is undergoing a dramatic transformation. We have already seen a disruptive change in video and content consumption with an increasing number of connected devices and new providers of video and media content. This is not the first time that a sweeping change has affected the industry, but when complete, it may well be the most far reaching. This time the whole industry is impacted by a paradigm shift, and with change comes opportunity…and threats if you’re not prepared.
The industry has already experienced a shift to Internet Protocol (IP) for the distribution of television services. In fact, this trend started back in the mid-1990s, but the consumer experience didn’t really change until the market was exposed to new sources of content in 2000-2010. When the next generation of connected devices was launched toward the end of the decade, the changes in consumer behaviour accelerated. It is fair to say that now we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the consumption of video and media.
Two of the key ‘million-dollar’ questions are: 1) how will this impact the rest of the established television industry… and 2) how prepared are the established players to embrace this momentous shift.
Adapting proven IT business practices and disciplines and deploying IP technologies for video and media is the new name-of-the-game. It will eventually evolve from how content is packaged to how transport is managed. The traditional economic mechanisms in the television industry are under pressure and the marketplace must manage a transition from value-chain to value-network business models.
Technology is no longer a barrier to acceptance of a landscape dominated by IP. Other market drivers are at work—some transparent, others less so. It makes sense that the big names in today’s established market must be prodded to adopt IP as a business-enabling protocol as it represents a major shift away from the comfort of completely deterministic switched networks. Years of development and investment in infrastructure and hardware are not made obsolete, but the emerging networking technology provides an opportunity to manage both, and harvest more value from past investments. Departing from a point-to-point mind-set to a world of non-physical connections is not easy. Losing apparent workflow control is uncomfortable at best for many broadcasters, content providers and service providers. Introducing IP for the transport and management of live video flies in the face of tried and tested linear broadcast systems. Packet technology entails chopping signals into fragments and transporting them over an IP network with a loss of all perceived control—considered a heresy in the early days of IP’s emergence on the professional broadcast scene.
A climate of IP fear continues
Concerns over quality and security loom large. Recent struggles of the music industry with piracy and privacy issues serve as a potent reminder of the dangers. However, IP as a protocol and the technologies surrounding it have matured. For all of its clear benefits, IP is not a physical medium. It needs technology to control security, latency and quality—perhaps the three most significant elements of professional broadcasting. This is where the often-spoken-of network and service management system must, or should, not only control, monitor and manage network operations but also bring built-in intelligence to provide critical functions such as media service control, bandwidth optimization, and advanced path-finding.
The fear of IP still pervasive in the professional broadcast realm is both unnecessary and unfortunate. By deploying proven IT business practices for service and network management, IP can provide tremendous value to the professional broadcast industry. When properly managed, proven IT practices and technologies can be much more efficient, optimize many aspects of an operation—from physical resources to bandwidth—relieve financial burdens, and enable management of capital expenditures. At the same time, IP networks can provide significant value-added services, including social media capabilities, which grow in significance by leaps and bounds in all aspects of media and communications.
New market drivers
For decades, the broadcast industry has developed advanced standards for the traditional value chain that are very industry specific and remain far outside the realm of the consumer. Now we are seeing a threat by substitution of these standards, and new market mechanisms evolve. As IP evolves in the professional realm, there are market forces at work that are greatly affecting development. First, consumer technology has evolved to the point that it is now driving the market. The range of connected devices now available—at price points that make them nearly ubiquitous in the marketplace—have transformed the way that media is consumed. Users can, and now urgently demand, to access their content anywhere and at any time. Expectations in terms of mobility and content quality are vastly different now than they were ten or even five years ago. The ability—or perhaps most accurately the right—to consume media on a chosen device is forcing the industry to convert to a more IT-focused environment.
Looking way down the value chain,one only has to observe the cable head end where coaxial cable once dominated. Further up the chain, you encounter more fibre, visible Ethernet and IP connections. There is simply a massive catch up as the industry sees that IP and content are the gateway to the consumer. The pressure is high. While some providers are already on their way, we are at the outset of a period of true convergence of legacy systems with IP/IT broadcast technologies and business practices for broadcast.
A few short years ago, most of us would never have predicted the overwhelming growth of consumption of new services aswe are now experiencing. The assertion remained that over-the-top services didn’t deliver the needed quality. True enough. However, many underestimated the desire of consumers to access content, and that “content availability trumps quality” – initially at least. Expectations have grown as consumers have come to expect live streaming video on their devices at nearly the same quality levels as the traditional experience of sitting in front of their televisions.
The laws of technology
Moore’s Law — named for the exponential growth in computing technologies whereby processing speed, memory capacity and other computing capabilities improve at ever-expanding rates — comes to mind. Moore saw it as the driving force of technological and social change. It is not difficult to extrapolate this to today. As this exponential growth continues, certain facts are clear. With all of the benefits that IP and IT best practices enable, there are complexities that must be managed: improved network utilization with compression and managed quality are two.
IP transport must be smartly managed in a way that maximizes all its benefits and minimizes its inherent risks. An integrated management platform can and should optimize bandwidth through advanced path finding. A smart management system should proactively track quality to predefined standards, monitor and manage all network components in real time and enable network configuration, maintenance, troubleshooting and problem resolution from a simple interface. Properlymanaged IP transport will reduce costs. When this is fully realized, there will be a shake out of industry leaders. New players will replace the old. New markets will emerge. In television, content development will be a market unto itself. Those who innovate to these new market dynamics will lead us down new paths.
A value network emerges
At the end of this process, the TV value chain will merge into a media value network encompassing new business models and market rules. Traditional players who have not already done so will need to reinvent themselves. It seems inevitable that this transformation will be highly visible, with clear winners and new dominant players in the marketplace.
The future looks bright for companies who provide the technology to enable and empower consumers. Those who offer it all, from production through to the consumer, will have a tremendous advantage. The days of a fragmented value chain are rapidly disappearing. We are moving away from the old paradigm of a process-driven chain, where one step leads to the next in a complete process. The Internet industry operates differently, where now a huge cloud exists at its centre, enabling wide-ranging individuals as well as companies to operate, effectively levelling the playing field. When content is put into the cloud for transport and sharing, the need for management, from ingest to distribution, is imperative to ensure quality and security.
Playing out the future now
We are moving to a reality where consumers demand any content anywhere, anytime and in any format they choose. Well-established market barriers and protectionism persist. Legislation and political issues are playing out now and demonstrate the push and pull of opposing market positions. The very open nature of the Internet is pitted against those who understandably want to be its gatekeepers, controlling the content that goes through what has become essentially a very large pipe. Network neutrality will be achieved as we transition from cost-for-bandwidth to cost-per-content business models. While the exact timing is yet to be determined, the march to a future dominated by IP is upon us. The technology for safe, high-quality, cost-effective IP transport is here now.
