7NN: a great technological investment to be the Spanish Fox News

Loaded with convictions, with a large investment behind them and unbridled ambition, 7NN aspires to overcome the center-right television label to become an information reference in Spain, the United States and Latin America. David Segura, an interesting profile that combines the work of marketing and communication director with deep knowledge of broadcast engineering, shares the most notable points of the consolidation and growth of this new means of communication.

7NN It surprises from the moment you walk through its reception in the Prado del Espino industrial estate in Madrid and find its main studio. Very large screens, a escenografía cared for and a circular structure allows you to make the most of three versatile sets that throw a impeccable screen finish. These elements help to better understand the extreme care taken by the tecnología and the efficient resource management that accompanies this new proposal, with just one year of life and six months of operation without the “emission in testing” poster.

The television born with a radical commitment digital. In fact, for Segura, his presence in the TDT, which will reach a 100% national coverage imminently, it is a mere transition period until the redefinition and consolidation of the model digital consumption, either streaming, social media o IPTV. This philosophy can be seen in each of the technological decisions who has taken over the chain, who trusts in using services SaaS basados en cloud for operations that are not so frequent on television throughout our country. In fact, until his infrastructure is prepared for a presumed transition to IP in the short-medium term.

David Segura open the doors to Panorama Audiovisual from the Madrid studio of 7NN to publicize the base of operations in which a media that seeks to consolidate in Spain and part of Estados Unidos y Latin America.

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Getting to know 7NN

After 7NN, beyond the recognized (and television) figure of Toni Cantó As creative content director, he is Audiovisual Productions Hispania. As the visible head, television has Marcial Cuquerella, former head of Intereconomy, general director of Navarra TV and more recently co-founder of the company specialized in B2B streaming Gooru.live. The experience in informative and current television, therefore, is more than endorsed.

“We don't want to spend too much time and effort on the TDT. (…). It is a model that has caused a lot of inequality and corruption”,

Nevertheless, 7NN wants to go much further. To the television grill, marked by programs news and magazines, as well as the recently released late night Contoni, numerous will arrive imminently new formats that seek to leave political news to the information spaces to fill with content and entertainment on your grill. Of course, always, without falling into the production of fiction or the broadcast of cinema, two contents that are located off the television radar.

Among these spaces, there is a sports program that will be broadcast natively in Twitch, but that will reach the television grid, starring the sports journalist Siro Lopez (which will be produced from the company's virtual set); a mystery program from the hand of Carlos Bustos, and different spaces of gastronomy, health and motor. “Between now and March of next year we will reach 19 programs,” Segura emphasizes.

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A project inspired by the USA

7NN It does not take as reference any television that has emerged to date in Spain. On the contrary, it sets its model on the American chain conglomerate Fox News. In this way, the chain plans to become a state information reference, con una careful visual invoice and with territorial disconnections to generate exclusive content for each of the autonomous communities in which it has a presence.

To achieve this objective, 7NN has promoted a delegation-based model acquired from local media. Once an agreement is reached, the television itself is responsible for provide resources for raise the quality of these facilities and achieve the technological excellence. Interconnected with Madrid central systems, the staff creative, informative and technical of each delegation will create exclusive content y close to the population of each territory.

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TDT, IPTV y streaming

Currently, the coverage of 7NN in TDT is located around the 69%, a figure that is expected to reach 100% at the beginning of the year thanks to frequency rental. However, this model is nothing more than a transition for television, which aspires to IPTV and the streaming are consolidated as their main distribution channels: “We don't want to spend too much time and effort on DTT. (…). In the digital world, I don't care if a million people see me: the cost is the same, regardless of the connectivity levels. In DTT you pay a fixed amount for each station. It doesn't make any kind of sense. It is a model that has caused a lot of inequality and corruption. The governments in power arrived and handed out the signal to their friends,” acknowledges Segura, who has met with numerous pitfalls to expand its national coverage: “There are a number of closed signs that are not used and that were given away. We have called publishing groups offering to rent their DTT network. "They respond to us with sale options of 12 or 13 million euros."

"We have been in The Angels y NY seeing the systems of the American televisions and we have chosen your model"

The bet of 7NNTherefore, it is born from a absolutely digital mentality. The technological base of the chain has been built based on a “100% digital structure” that allows the company to fully exploit the new customization capabilities for the advertising business, the opportunities of digital distribution or the new windows like Twitch: “A television like 7NN is set up with enormous technological and creative ambition. We have been in Los Angeles and New York looking at the American television systems and we have opted for their model: a television that allows you to be tremendously flexible knowing that in the near future everything can go through OTT or IPTV.” In fact, the presence of 7NN in Orange, Vodafone y Samsung will be complemented from January 1 with Movistar Plus+.

The scalability that the digital model allows will define a large part of 7NN's business in the short term, comments Segura: “The next phase of 7NN will be to reach United States and Latin America. "We are already talking to American networks to distribute our signal and we are prepared to carry out that project."

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Chambers that are renewed every six months

One TV digital, with the mentality that 7NN proposes, cannot be sustained under traditional technological material performance models. La amortization of the teams, therefore, is discarded, thus betting on a continuous updating over time. In this way, although it may seem somewhat utopian on paper in the television landscape, 7NN has opted for renewal of your studio and PTZ cameras each six months.

This decision is better understood when knowing the role of Infinia in the 7NN equation. The audiovisual services company, with almost three decades of experience, has a “hybrid” agreement with the chain to rent the right to use cameras y require a change every six months; a “very expensive” model, as Segura recognizes, but effective when it comes to achieving the fidelidad visual to which they aspire.

Similarly, Infinia is the provider of the physical sets y virtual of 7NN in Madrid. In addition to the previously presented study in which the three customizable sets in which the media proposal is structured, the chain has an adjacent warehouse with a chroma plate verde and a space of producción virtual based on LED with a tracking system Mo-Sys.

These sets, far from being isolated production islands, are directly connected to the television control room, so it is possible to introduce digital fragments into your programming and even create independent programs in virtual environments.

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Backpacks and mobile phones are the new mobile units

“You will never see us working with a standard system,” says Segura. The bet of 7NN by the avant-garde has led the chain to adopt the decision to count almost exclusively with a provision of backpacks as axis of its transmission coverage.

“Study, connectivity, satellite… We have left all that behind to bet on the backpacks”

Currently, television has 27 devices distributed throughout Spain, all of them with technology 5G from manufacturers like LiveU. In any case, and being aware of the limitations that these systems could have in specific situations of network saturation, 7NN could consider, together with its partner Infinia, having a DSNG. However, this approach to external coverage would be the exception that proves the rule: “Study, connectivity, satellite… We have left all that behind to opt for backpacks,” says Segura.

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Careful graphics to the millimeter

The visual proposal of 7NN It's one of the great attractions of television. Your line of sight is identifiable and clean, the result of a specific effort by the chain team. As Segura acknowledges, “the issue of graphics and corporate image is what we have taken the most care of. (…) All transitions, compositions, skirts, entrances and promotions They are made with great quality, accompanying our emission quality, superior to what the market is emitting.”

To achieve this brand identity, 7NN has a large team of graphic artists who follow a bible from which “they cannot leave”: “Everything has its standards: fonts, sizes, spaces… Each element is super-calculated,” says Segura, whether referring to the traditional broadcast graphics or to the virtual spaces that are already being created to increase their programming schedule.

The system that is responsible for managing and displaying on the screen the graphics created by the company in software such as After Effects of Adobe is the continuity solution of Eggs, which stands out for being 100% virtualized con cloud management capabilities.

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Continuity, writing and archiving, in the cloud

The chain's digital mentality extends to technological pillars of the chain, which translates into a rack room “reduced, with just three towers.” And 7NN has opted for virtualization of production elements, relying on services compatible with remote control o cloud.

For continuity, Segura and his team have opted for the software of Eggs, a solution ready to work with UHD resolutions and that allows versatility to define DTT programming y streaming of television: “With this system we can to distribute the signal everywhere: I can plug it into Twitch, YouTube, IPTV, get RTMP... Everything!” In parallel, 7NN works with Overon to adapt its continuity to the specific requirements of agents such as Movistar Plus+: “The whole system is quite expensive, but it allows us to face all possibilities.”

The digital mindset also extends to the editorial system MediaCentral of Avid, which will unify all your delegations by enabling remote workflows, and your storage, 100% cloud: “We have everything digitized, we don't want any tapes. We have everything uploaded in AWS S3 and we have custody systems for that blockchain-based technology. “Everything is in the cloud.”

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Rent, branded content and profitability

The advertising model that accompanies conventional television in Spain does not convince the 7NN team. Currently, television has conventional advertising accompanying its linear programming in TDT, its exit via streaming or the proposal for Samsung Smart TVs. However, 7NN works with other models that allow them to obtain a greater profitability of your facilities.

Among these is the rent your virtual production set, a secondary income but highly profitable, since the rental hour is between the 6,000 and 7,000 euros. In the same way, television believes in branded content as an advertising model. Today, 7NN produces various content, such as an interview program, for agents such as Santander or a “very important winery”: “That production does represent an important part of the TV budget.”

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Continued technological investment

The main technological objective of 7NN In the short term it involves expanding your network, something that Segura He acknowledges that it is “quite expensive from a technological point of view.” Currently, the chain has just opened a delegation in Galicia, which adds to the existing infrastructure in Valencian Community, Andalusia y Madrid. On the nearest horizon, new spaces can be seen in Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha and Aragón

Each of these studies will be subjected to a in-depth renovation, in which a investment in equipment to “provide infrastructure technologies” and bring quality to all production processes: “We want there to be national television and local television, but with national ambition. Over the next two years, all of our investment is going to focus on digitizing all infrastructures that we have in the different autonomous communities. All delegations must have the same vision, the same ambition tecnológica and the same equipment”, confesses Segura.

"All delegations They must have the same vision, the same technological ambition and the same teams.”

In any case, each technological investment will be faced taking into account concepts such as versatility or transformation. Because, in the digital world, and in full transformation of the concept of television consumption, las certainties are scarce.

You simply have to be ready for change, if this arrives, in the right moment: “We started this project a year ago and we have already managed to reach one million homes. (…) However, I don't know what this will be like in two years. Maybe we are an OTT or maybe we are an exclusively digital television. We will see!".

A report by Sergio Julián Gómez

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