Crossmedia: the confluence between broadcast and OTT platforms

Cross media, the digital division of Crosspoint and the ES Broadcast group, carries out a detailed analysis of the status of the industry and the digital transformation processes in the transition from the broadcast world to OTT.

It's been almost four years since the launch of Crossmedia, the digital division of Crosspoint and now part of the group ES Broadcast, it is a good time to carry out an analysis of the evolution of the broadcast industry in the digital environment. For this we have chatted with Víctor García, managing director of Crosspoint, and Jorge Frías, head of digital media at Crossmedia, with the intention of taking a photo of the status current situation of the sector and the great challenges posed by the constant technological changes that its clients and partners face.

Crossmedia, birth and evolution

After these years since the launch of Crossmedia, what are the most important reflections on the evolution of this new line of business?

Victor Garcia, managing director de Crosspoint: “The birth of Crossmedia arose from the need to respond to many challenges that the market posed to us in very diverse and innovative areas focused on the world of streaming. The idea from the beginning was to establish a line specialized in the digital field. and try to add that area as part of the Crosspoint solutions portfolio (now within the ES Broadcast group), and this was done during the first stages, but the volume that this area was taking made the initial approach increasingly more complicated, fully justifying the deployment of a new specialized division. After this time, without a doubt, the first and firmest conclusion is that it has been a clear success story, where we have expanded our scope of action and where we have carried out very relevant projects. Today it is already a very consolidated area within the group and it also continues to grow constantly.”

"The second conclusion would be to reaffirm the strategic importance of diversification of the business, both in the expansion of our portfolio and areas of action, and in the opening to new verticals such as sports, culture or entertainment. This diversification, together with the commitment to innovation, are key to the sustainability of our activity. Today, from the group we cover all the needs in the broadcast world or media, in addition to incorporating clients in other new sectors. Currently, we are able to offer the known glass-to-glass, which can range from a camera to the distribution CDN service and the app where the content is consumed. This also allows us to establish very relevant synergies between the different companies that are part of the group and offer solutions. end-to-end at the global level. In any case, my colleague Jorge Frías, responsible for that area, can give you more details and an interesting analysis of where we see the industry going.”

After these years since the launch of Crossmedia, what do you consider to be the most important reflections on the evolution of this new Crosspoint business line?

Jorge Frias, head of digital media and Crossmedia: “As Víctor comments, and doing a little recap since we launched Crossmedia, perhaps the most relevant thing from the point of view of the approach has been the ability to be that meeting point between the broadcast world and the digital world in the media. Crossmedia arose from the idea of serving as a bridge or link between both worlds, and being that point of confluence between television and the digital field.. In the end, we have helped in these digital transformation projects in the broadcast world, curiously at the same time, or in parallel, with the internal transformation of an engineering company with a long history in the broadcast market such as Crosspoint.”

“That is the main focus of Cross media: connect the traditional broadcast with the entronto OTT and offer comprehensive solutions”.

"That is the main focus of Crossmedia, connecting traditional broadcast with the OTT environment, and offering comprehensive solutions for the creation of video platforms in the cloud; orchestration of workflows for content and metadata; organization of business rules and monetization; providing analytics tools and big data, and facilitate the distribution of content through content distribution networks (CDN) in different windows or applications, among many other things.”

"Currently, Cross media It is a distributor and integrator for Spain of important international firms focused on the development and integration of OTT digital platforms. Mainly, the solutions of our partners They are focused on content distribution services (CDN); video platforms (OVP); coding systems and packaging; quality of experience (QoE) measurement tools; analytics applied to OTT and recommendations, or specific content management products (CMS) and applications aimed at video distribution in OTT ecosystems.”

The transition from broadcast to the OTT world

It is interesting that point they comment on the confluence of broadcast and digital platforms, which today is included in the concept Over-The-Top (OTT). What are the ideas and learning in this transition between both worlds?

Jorge Frias: “There is something that we always discuss internally and also with our clients. Nowadays, especially in the way of distribution and consumption of content, televisions have become applications. The viewer from before has become a dynamic user who participates in an interactive consumer environment. It is increasingly more common to open an app to consume original television content than to tune into a DTT channel. The satellite from before is now a CDN, and for this reason it has long been critical to have a top-level CDN to have guaranteed optimal distribution. This ties in with the idea and need to measure service quality and user experience (QoE). In that environment, Jonathan Perelman He put forward the idea a long time ago with his famous phrase “content is the king but distribution is the queen and she wear the pants”. I don't think it's even necessary to translate it, it's perfectly understood. Beyond the content, which is the first great factor, success and engagement An OTT platform depends largely on its ability to achieve a good user experience, and to do this we must use the best tools on the market at our disposal and offer a quality and, above all, personalized experience. In some way it is also like a kind of integration or synergy of the television and film industries, which have also been largely overtaken by the proliferation of digital platforms”.

“On the other hand, according to some trends, five major US platforms (Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Prime Video) are on track to capture more than 50% of video consumption by 2026. This has its obvious risks of oligopoly and uniformity if we consider that we will practically see the same content anywhere in the world. The importance of niche OTTs and the public service function of many of our clients' platforms is highlighted here, which with open models can offer local or regional information and content, and a diverse vision of the world as well as promote content based on the activity and culture of many communities.. These services deserve to reach more end consumers, and the OTT world, unlike conventional television, allows for global reach in such a large and fragmented ecosystem. Without a doubt, this has been the purpose of the recent large projects of new OTT platforms that we have assisted in our environment.”

“Another important challenge we face as technological partner of our clients, in that transition from broadcast to the OTT world, is to face transversal projects where aspects of both the broadcast side as of the digital part”.

“Another important challenge that we face as a technological partner of our clients, in this transition from broadcast to the OTT world, is to face transversal projects where aspects of both the broadcast side and the digital part are touched upon, and therefore affect very different departments and professional profiles within the organizational structure of our clients. We believe that it is in that part where we also contribute great value given the accumulated and joint experience that the Crossmedia-Crosspoint binomial has. In that sense we have very interesting projects such as the one made in À Punt where we provide a hybrid broadcast-digital end-to-end solution, X-Live Panel, to solve all the management of channel publication 24×7 and occasional from the broadcast matrix to the OVP streaming platform for output to the different platforms that À Punt currently has. This is a classic example where we had to coordinate with many departments in the house, both from the classic broadcast engineering area and the digital area, and where we were able to solve a very specific need regarding internal flows. Where before many technicians from different departments had to participate, now simply a single operator without engineering training can operate the system, saving time and costs for the client."

Current trends and challenges in the digital platform market

What are the most notable trends that you detect at the moment and that may represent an important change or a challenge to be resolved in the short term?

Jorge Frias: “We believe that the axes on which the new challenges of the industry will pivot revolve around four key concepts: culmination of the transformation from the broadcast to the digital world, personalization of the experience, security, and lastly and most importantly; emergence of AI and its application to the Media industry.

“Regarding the digital transition that we have been discussing before, we believe that it is simply a matter of time before it materializes. As Tim Davie pointed out, director general of the BBC and member of the EBU Executive Board, when he announced that Within approximately a decade the BBC will be a digital-only service, so broadcast as we currently know it, at least in its form of distribution, will tend to disappear. On the other hand, the change in model also largely has to do with the origin of advertising revenue, to the extent that it moves from the classic scope of the DTT model to the area of income from the digital environment. This has to do with consumer habits and the proliferation of connected TV. And when we talk about consumption, this It is not only through its own platforms but also through external platforms, which is the distribution through third parties on Social Media platforms, different from the own media of the original creators of the content.. In fact, there are important studies like Houlihan Lokey's that point out that In the US, advertising investment on OTT platforms is expected to surpass traditional television by 2025”.

“A very curious example of this confluence is also the emergence of linear SVOD services, with this concept that aims to be sold as new, which has come to be known as FAST channels. At this point, we are not going to teach any of our clients how to make a linear content channel, or how to design or set up a playout. The only thing that changes is the medium in which it is distributed and the approach that is taken, more broadcast or more digital, and the technology that is decided to use at the time of its creation. What there is no doubt is that it opens new opportunities for the exploitation of content and advertising windows, and major players in the industry such as NBCU's Peacock or Paramount Plus have already adopted this model for a long time.”.

“As we have commented before and within the concept of quality of experience, which as we have pointed out before is the queen next to the king who is the content, there is what we call personalization of the experience. What has been called QoE (quality of experience) was more focused on the purely technical aspects of the service. Today, what we set as a challenge regarding the quality of the experience goes much further; involves monitoring not only the player of video, but also the entire application as a whole, and know what is called the time to first play or see the user's path through your application until they play content. This point is crucial when it comes to feeding a recommendation system and being able to offer a personalized experience. In the end, Any OTT service must aim to offer a different and specific experience for each of its users., is the most important change with respect to broadcast in this area, the transition from the concept of viewer to the concept of user as the end customer of the service."

“We are only looking at the principle of AI in the field of media, and surely the tip of the biggest iceberg who has had to never face our sector”.

"The security It is undoubtedly another of the key elements when taking into account the evolution of the service. As broadcasting moves from the IP world to cloud services, it is necessary to have advanced security tools and services where we can protect both the source infrastructure and the content of our clients. In that sense, we are already using cutting-edge security tools and monitoring systems as well as other origin protection mechanisms, watermarking dynamic etc.”

“Finally, and as the most important disruptive factor, not only in the environment media, there is the emergence of generative artificial intelligence and the important impact it will have on everything related to content generation. Although this issue undoubtedly deserves a specific monograph, what we can point out is that we really may be facing a paradigm shift, and the most important short-term challenges for our clients, beyond the obvious moral or ethical questions, will be mainly aimed at the protection of the intellectual property of its contents, its certification, or the development of verification and audit systems, but, above all, it will go through necessary and strict government regulation. At this time our partners are already using AI and automatic learning or machine learning, to improve many common processes in the industry such as the coding layer by applying computational models such as DIVA, in their coding systems or using AI to predict anomalous behavior in complex supervision and monitoring systems and be able to generate personalized alarms. In any case, this is just the beginning of AI in the media field, and surely the tip of the largest iceberg that our sector has ever had to face.”

Most notable milestones and projects

You have already told us that during this time you have carried out very diverse projects of a very different nature. Could you point out any of them that have been of special relevance or interest?

Jorge Frias: “It is true that there is a great diversity of projects that we have had to face together with our partners, or as resellers, or as solution integrators, and who have been focused above all on the areas of coding, packaging, player, analytics, CDN distribution, and development of applications and CMS content managers . The level of involvement we have had in these projects has been directly related to the amount of internal resources available to the client and the complexity of the project itself. Developing an OTT ecosystem integrated into the workflows of a broadcaster is quite complex, and there are clients who have their own engineering resources where they only ask us for part of the puzzle, and others where they need more turnkey solutions with a powerful service management layer. It is important to highlight this part of the service, because today the client not only needs this technological component, but also support in the service or exploitation of that technology. It is not only useful to provide the tool, but also to help the client use and exploit it in the most effective way and in accordance with the objectives set. As we often say colloquially with our clients, it is not only the car that they need, but often also the person who drives it.”

“Regarding the distribution of content through CDN, we would like to point out the path we have taken with our partner Fastly, where we have been serving for a long time in RTVE, TV3 or EiTB inter alia. Furthermore, it is important to note that at Crossmedia we provide a layer of added value to the Fastly service with a 24x7 support specialized in Varnish and code deployment at the edge with Compute@Edge, and value-added solutions thanks to the real-time logs provided by the CDN, such as advanced monitoring and control panels and tools adapted to the client's specific needs. Today we serve through Fastly, for example, all web and VOD traffic from RTVE Play, We have become a Platinum Partner and we are the first partner at European level”.

“In the area of coding and packaging platform, among others, we provide service to important clients such as Mediaset with its live distribution platform and we are also actively working in other verticals such as important sports content distribution platforms or football clubs.”

“As for the development of applications and front-ends for complete OTT platforms, we carried out the project of the OTT platform of À Punt with integration from your MAM to Brightcove's OVP platform and with content delivery through your own custom CMS with multiple publishing windows on Web, iOS, Android, HbbTV and Smart TVs. We have also worked in other verticals such as in the field of culture such as Royal Theater, where we provide the entire OVP service with Brightcove and where we develop for them a custom CMS and applications to distribute on the Android TV and LG platforms.”

“Develop a ecosystem OTT integrated into a broadcaster's workflows is quite complex, and there are clients who have own engineering resources where they only ask us for part of the puzzle, and others where they need more turnkey solutions with a powerful service management layer”.

“Finally, and with great importance today, in the area of analytics we are immersed in important projects such as measuring the quality of experience and social network analytics of RTVE together with Live or the Data Hub project with Konodrac at CRTVG. It is important to note that both projects are offered with an important layer of service, given the need to exploit the data in an advised manner and accompanied by the help of our partners. The greatest difficulty in these cases is not only the capture and aggregation of the data and its different sources, but also converting it into useful data and an operational platform that can activate and provide value to the service, and that serves as an operational tool for many client departments. What there is no doubt today is the relevance of analytics applied to OTT services in this sense. The importance of data and its activation become key factors in the paradigm shift of audiovisual consumption”.

"In reality, the scope of action that we have, as I said, is quite diverse and dynamic given that the needs of the market are constantly changing. For example, there are also other specific areas where we are implementing specific solutions at the player level or security and protection of origins with state-of-the-art WAF solutions."