The Greek Naftemporiki plans, automates and controls its playout with VSN technology

Greece's leading financial media outlet, Naftemporiki, has trusted the solutions of VSN to control the planning of content and advertising, as well as the automation and playout control of your television channel.

The economic information chain has incorporated the traffic and content programming system into its facilities, VSNCrea, and the integrated playout system, VSNOne TV, to take charge of these operations. In this way, VSN strengthens its presence in the Greek country, where it has been working on different projects for more than 20 years.

The financial newspaper Naftemporiki has been the reference for economic information in Greece since its founding in 1924. In addition to its print and digital editions, the newspaper recently decided to add to its activity the broadcast of a television channel, Naftemporiki TV, which began broadcasting in September 2022.

Before this premiere, Naftemporiki carried out the installation process of all the technical equipment necessary to begin broadcasts. Among the solutions required, the chain needed to have a traffic and planning system content, as well as a system responsible for the automation y control de playout, that could be installed easily and quickly, and that were easy to use by media professionals. VSN's response to these needs was a project in which VSNCrea and VSNOne TV took charge of these operations.

An integrated and simple solution

After a brief process in which several demos were made, the chain confirmed that the solution proposed by VSN perfectly met the requirements of the project. The architecture of both systems allows a quick installation and commissioning. Likewise, they verified that the intuitive interfaces of both products allow simple and easy-to-learn use by Naftemporiki professionals.

In addition to these requirements, the integration between VSNCrea and VSNOne TV during operations was another aspect valued very positively, as well as the reduction in terms of infrastructure that the cloud installation of VSNCrea allows. All this, together with the reputation achieved by VSN after more than 20 years completing projects in Greece, caused Naftemporiki to grant its trust to the company.

In this project, VSNCrea, the Broadcast Management System of VSN, is in charge of programming and planning content and advertising for the linear channel Naftemporiki TV. On the other hand, the Channel in a Box, VSNOneTV se encarga de gestionar una escaleta en HD-SDI con una configuración redundante (cuenta con un servidor principal y otro de respaldo). El sistema incluye dos canales de ingesta, uno de ellos con capacidad de time-shift, además de un canal de ingesta en fill&key para el uso de un sistema gráfico externo.

For him branding del canal lineal, Naftemporiki opted for a system of Vizrt para mostrar toda la información de actualidad proveniente de varias fuentes durante sus boletines de noticias y programas. VSNOne TV se integra con este sistema ingiriendo los gráficos en una señal fill&key, exprimiendo de nuevo su propia señal y ensamblando luego ambas para aportar una salida final.

Complete issuance and planning flow

Naftemporiki TV's broadcast flow begins with VSNCrea, a system in which the network's professionals assemble the broadcast templates from which the daily schedules are built. This includes all the ads included in the broadcast, which have been previously managed in the Commercials module, from which you can control the entire monetization process of the linear channel.

Once the final daily schedule is validated, it is exported to VSNOneTV to perform the MCR operation. As already mentioned it is a redundant system, so both servers work at the same time. This way, in case of any problem on the primary server, the operation can continue using the backup server.

The last step in this workflow is the consolidation process. The content that has actually been broadcast from VSNOne TV (in the form of an as-run-log file) is compared with the previously planned schedule so that the system can update all the information automatically adjusting to the broadcast carried out, including internal productions and advertisements.

Alvaro Montalban, sales director of VSN in EMEA, comments that "Naftemporiki is a reference in economic information in Greece. With its confidence in this project, VSN strengthens its position in a market in which we have been operating for more than 20 years. The speed of installation, as well as the simplicity in daily use and the integration of VSNCrea and VSNOne TV make the operation of the channel's programming and MCR flows easier. Likewise, the cloud capabilities of our BMS have allowed cost savings in physical infrastructure that is very positive for Naftemporiki. This shows us that we are still on the right path and that we have to continue with the daily work we do at VSN to provide the best possible service to our clients."

"The two VSN systems, both VSNOne TV and VSNCrea, have been installed satisfactorily and are fundamental support for a financial channel with a multi-format format like Naftemporiki TV. The project management worked perfectly and more than responded to the needs required by Naftemporiki TV," he points out. Jacob Panourgias, CTO of Naftemporiki TV.