Turner Broadcasting System Europe enhances its media asset management with Sony's Media Backbone Conductor

A fully integrated digital workflow allows Turner to optimize and accelerate its production processes.

Turner Broadcasting System Europe has successfully implemented the Media Backbone Conductor platform Sony as a fundamental component of its transformation towards a more agile and versatile distribution and production environment.

Turner Broadcasting's new fully file-based European media center will ultimately optimize media management for 35 channels across Europe and integrate the tools, processes and applications used in its readiness centers in London, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Rome and Copenhagen.

Turner Broadcasting has standardized and automated media preparation wherever possible through five phases: planning, ingest, fulfillment, master files and packaging. Optimized for multi-channel and multi-language content, this process may require the creation and management of more than 30 additional audio and subtitle tracks linked to the original master content.

Media Backbone Conductor effectively automates Turner workflows, including the management of all media throughout the process phases, and manual operations such as quality control and review, ordering and approvals, and automated functions such as moving and storing files, transcoding, quality control, and packaging for playback and distribution. All master files, and versions, are automatically archived for future protection and use.

Reduce production times

As Turner Broadcasting continues to transition to a business model based on flexibility, agility and the ability to respond quickly to new business opportunities, the solution has helped reduce production lead times and achieve significant savings in operational costs.

Steve Fish, head of technology and operations at Turner Broadcasting System Europe, highlights that "over the last few years, digital tools have created new possibilities for our teams in terms of creative production, rapid acquisition and distribution of content across multiple platforms. Likewise, we wanted to leverage digital technology to benefit the management of our assets," he explains. By choosing Media Backbone Conductor, we have been able to modernize our current workflow while retaining the flexibility to adapt and expand our approach as the needs of our business will change in the future.”

Leading broadcast networks around the world use Media Backbone Conductor and combine a powerful service-oriented architecture (SOA) integration platform with a media bus that automates the management of large media files and a workflow engine that optimizes the process throughout the production environment. Sony has partnered with Turner Broadcasting to configure a solution tailored to the integration of third-party tools and existing enterprise systems, and has worked closely with internal teams to provide documentation as part of Turner's ongoing business change management program.

Niall Duffy, director of workflow and IT solutions at Sony Professional Solutions Europe, highlights that "an agile and integrated workflow is essential for elite television networks that want to quickly produce and distribute brilliant and creative content. By choosing Media Backbone Conductor, Turner has invested in an infrastructure that standardizes and automates its media logistics and acts as the cornerstone of a renewed operational and commercial approach."