RTP: on the verge of its most crucial broadcast transformation

Mónica Cañete Palomo, director of engineering, systems and technology at RTP, explains the broadcast redesign process that Portuguese radio and television is going through, which will address profound structural changes in the coming years.

RTP, the Radio and Television of Portugal, is slowly approaching its 90th anniversary. With its first radio broadcasts in 1935 and its leap into image in 1957, Portuguese radio and television has accompanied several generations in their education, entertainment and information. Its history does not differ from its European counterparts, nor has it been able to avoid many of the conditions that the public financing model entails.

A significant decline in investment in infrastructure and technological equipment during the last decade, deeply marked by the economic crises that have marked the global economic panorama, led the RTP to a model of technical survival. While it had to continue carrying out its public service work, the unstoppable technological evolution and the explosion of the digital world caused the network's engineering team to do everything in its power to get as close as possible to the television avant-garde.

This problem, historically shared by many state televisions in the face of uncertain funding periods, seems to find a solution in the near future. RTP management has been aware of the need to change technological direction of the corporation combining a deep transformation that allows rationalizing technological efforts, replacing multiple systems core that are on the verge of being discontinued, and facing a new stage to address the new multiplatform media landscape. Only in this way will it be possible to ensure the continuity of its eight linear channels, its almost two dozen radio stations, or its multiple online platforms, led by RTP Play.

Monica Cañete Palomo, recently incorporated into the ranks of RTP, is in charge of leading this ambitious project. After acquiring transversal knowledge of the broadcast business in prominent companies such as RTVE, Vitelsa or Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), and occupy various positions of responsibility already in Portuguese territory such as TVI y Record TV For two decades, it faces its largest project to date with the firm purpose of “redrawing” the systems to “meet the needs of all departments” of the house. Palomo conveys his experience to date, accompanied by a photograph that allows us to anticipate what the transformation of Portuguese public radio and television will be like.

Where is RTP?

“Putting out fires”: this is how Cañete Palomo defines how the RTP engineering team has coexisted with its facilities and technological solutions in recent years. It will make no one raise an eyebrow: we are talking about an everlasting situation in many broadcast environments.

The day-to-day life of television has meant that the limited resources granted by public administrations have been used in the “best possible way” making “a lot with the little they had", acknowledges the technical director, who also clarifies that "very well done things have been done, but on islands, so that, sometimes, they have not been integrated with each other. I think the Administration felt this, since television sometimes failed to advance its projects. Now RTP has made the determination to redefine processes and platforms; modernize, integrate and prepare its entire infrastructure to face the current challenges of the market and all the future ones that are upon us with new consumer habits.”

RTP has made the determination to redefine processes and platforms; modernize, integrate and prepare your entire infrastructure to face the current challenges of mercado and all the futures that are coming upon us with the new consumer habits”.

Meeting after meeting, Palomo and his team identify the critical points to understand the situation of a complex television, with production infrastructures distributed in Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Faro, Madeira and Azores which are found in different levels of transformation: "We want to have a global vision for all projects. Maybe part of the team is carrying out tests with SRT encoders for one type of contribution, while another is doing it for a different goal. The objective will be to build a common contribution platform.”

A reorganization forced by the industry

"Where do we want to go? How are we going to do it?" These are two of the questions that he hopes to resolve in the short term. RTP to undertake its new technological stage. To do this, Cañete Palomo and his team are working on a timeline that will define the founding objectives of this new technological stage, without neglecting the immediate priorities of television: "Now we have the need to renew a studio in Porto. It is something that we want to do and that is urgent, but it cannot divert us from other basic projects: the central platforms that we have to replace."

Cañete Palomo identifies as core platforms to the teams core of infrastructure that are close to being discontinued after a long useful life, more than 15 years in some cases. Legacy systems still in use Quantel, Omnibus, the iTX playout platform from Grass Valley or the writing system Avid (prior to MediaCentral's SaaS transformation), are facing their last days of operation due to cessation of support or discontinuation of their manufacturing: "The broadcast market has changed. Companies have been bought, entire lines have disappeared... You can buy one thing and within a reasonable period of years it has already disappeared."

This new coordination of the basic components of the RTP production chain must coexist as far as possible with the last efforts carried out in the chain's production centers. For example, the headquarters of Azores, which had deteriorated over the years, received a notable investment with equipment more adapted to current broadcasting such as The valley, while for the infrastructure of Madeira, also recently renovated, Omnibus and ITX solutions were chosen, the same type as those found in Lisbon. In the short term this “mix of centralization in Lisbon and independent systems in the delegations” will become “as integrated as possible”, to enhance coherence between centers and make the smartest investments possible: "Depending on the budget, we will see how we can change all that. For example, we are already creating a BPM layer to be able to orchestrate everything in a coordinated manner."

A future SDI with an eye on IP

SIC, a private Portuguese channel and main leader in the audiovisual market in Portugal together with the also private ITV and RTP itself, undertook a profound transformation by IP in 2021 and 2022, taking advantage of their change of headquarters and anticipating a trend that is beginning to spread throughout Europe: "They were lucky that they were going to change locations, and if now we started anything from scratch, I would go to IP and that's it. The problem is when you have an infrastructure built and it is already in production," says Cañete Palomo, justifying the current commitment of the Portuguese public radio and television to SDI. The current RTP conditions as well as the nature of the IP, especially with problems such as cybersecurity, fault detection or the need to have superusers pending to accompany television in its new stage, leads the network to be extremely cautious with this leap. The issue of interoperability between equipment is also worrying: “It already happened with the MXF, which was a standard, but it already caused many compatibility problems.”

However, the technical director of RTP It is clear that in the medium term it will mark the future of the chain. For this reason, they are already taking the proper steps to make the most immediate renovations of radio and television take into account a possible transition in the future: "We had thought about doing a first IP study in Porto, but the point is that our technical force is here, and we want to have close monitoring so that it also serves as learning. Therefore, we are seeing in our budget the possibility of leaving it more or less prepared to migrate it in the future."

“I was recently speaking with His name is Casaos and he told me all the IP possibilities to change settings immediately that are applying in Telemadrid”.

Porto will remain in standby in relation to IP, but a door opens for the RTP facilities in Lisbon: "Although we have already made the transition to HD for all television, there is still one studio in SD, the last one. We are going to migrate it to HD more or less quickly for this year, but our idea is to do a total renovation at the end of the year so that it is already in IP." The Portuguese engineering team is tempted by possibilities, often because of the positive words from other colleagues: “I was recently talking to His name is Casaos and he told me all the possibilities of the IP to change the configuration immediately that they are applying in Telemadrid”.

The end of 2024 will be the date on which the IP will reach RTP, but in a “relatively simple, low risk” way, and the transition will continue step by step until, perhaps, it reaches the issuance processes in 2027: “In three years we are going to have to change all our playout. Because? Because ITX is discontinued. When that happens, we are going to try to put as much IP as possible into it.”

Imminent renewal at the crossroads between OPEX and CAPEX

Given that Cañete Palomo is immersed in a process of conversations to have the best possible photograph of the technological distribution of RTP and the needs of each work group, The continuity of any team on Portuguese television is not assured. Decisions are made as the weeks go by, which will make the equipment of studies, tracking systems, storage, MAM or playout vary with still undetermined solutions that will contribute to the technological homogenization of the Portuguese chain. Only a couple of privileged brands will continue in the medium term: “We continue buying, because we are very happy, coffee tables Theirs for both radio and television. In addition, we have just expanded the part of transcoding by Vantage (Telestream)”.

The rest of investments They will be decided keeping the worlds in mind SaaS, cloud and even the opportunities of virtualization, but even more the OPEX model complexity for the expenses of a public radio and television channel financed by a state: "The question is not how we see it, but how the government sees it. Take the issue of Omnibus, whose life cycle has been 15 years. If you have a system for which you are paying a subscription, you cannot stop paying it. But, on the other hand, you may think that you can buy two or three Omnibus equipment and leave them as a mirror. Because if your OPEX is very high, perhaps you will not be able to reach all the investments that you would like do for this model. It will have to be applied for some things for which yes it will make sense, because they will be equipment that will have to be updated. Imagine the broadcast, which is so important.”

Despite the benefits of the OPEX model, as well as the undoubted tendency of the broadcast industry towards this model, Cañete Palomo recognizes that “it is not going to be easy being a public television.”

UHD in RTP

At the same time that RTVE is taking its first steps into the UHD world with the launch of its 4K channel, RTP takes steps in this direction with the production of some formats with these characteristics in order to preservation and distribution through the corporation's digital platforms.

Cañete Palomo does not consider that UHD is a priority to respond to the demand of Portuguese society. Even so, he recognizes that the jump to the 4K, HDR, WCG experience and more of Portuguese public radio and television is possible and would respond, in any case, to a strategic issue: "Having an Ultra HD channel for now is not in our priorities, but tomorrow it may change. We will continue betting on UHD in specific events, as we are doing on our OTT platform or even recording concerts in UHD, but now we have so many things to do and technologies with so many real possibilities, such as cybersecurity or artificial intelligence..."

The conversion of mobile units

RTP currently has a fleet of four mobile units and several DSNG, which have been the heart of its outdoor coverage until the arrival of the 4G and 5G relay backpacks. Its versatility, stability and notable operational savings, like the rest of the global broadcast industry, have convinced the Portuguese company's team: “The standard we currently have is LiveU, but for me it can also be TVU, Quicklink… I have no problem with mixing platforms as long as they give us some advantage.”

Dependency on satellite reaches historic lows year after year, which has even led RTP to undertake a vehicle reconversion process DSNG a “light production units” that can facilitate renting a fiber circuit for an event that is especially demanding for mobile coverage to be able to send signals via SRT or even explore the possibilities of the receivers Starlink: “We want operators to try Starlink, 5G and do all kinds of tests so that they remove the fear of operating combining these types of systems.”

Digital platforms to reach new age groups

He public service that governs RTP decisions forces the corporation to position itself in each window in which its viewers are in order to reach and offer value to all viewers. Portuguese citizens. The explosion of video-on-demand platforms, as well as delocalized consumption through mobile devices, has pushed radio and television to create new formats aimed at alternative distribution methods: “We are working so that the platform with which we reach new audiences has all the technological support it needs.”

Whenever we have the necessary investment, we will try to trust a third party BPM product what we will customize, parameterize and integrate with our structure to support OTT platforms.

Cañete Palomo and his team have decided to trust a external supplier to build their new BPM platform, so that they can respond to the rapid evolution of the market to be at the forefront and thus support RTP video-on-demand platforms: "We are not a software company. We could do that development ourselves cheaper, but bringing numerous problems and disadvantages. As long as we have the necessary investment, we will try to rely on a third-party BPM product that we will customize, parameterize and integrate with our structure to support OTT platforms, among many other areas."

Working groups to define a new broadcast identity

RTP is at a point of key convergence to face a period full of challenges. The intelligence and logic in processes will be applied transversally throughout radio and television to achieve a optimization of human and technological resources that guarantees that public service work is carried out in a manner consistent, effective and responsible.

The decision making that will accompany the transition in solutions core of the production and distribution of Portuguese radio and television will be carried out accompanied by a “unification of standards at all levels” in order to “stop to analyze everything and redefine each element together”: “We want to reconvert, reinvent ourselves at the level of workflows and at the level of technological platforms that give us support for the current and future challenges that are going to come. We are also going to integrate new AI, cybersecurity or cloud technologies, which will be very important, for example, at the level of disaster recovery. Ultimately, we are going to redibujar in some way the systems that support us to be able to meet all the needs of all departments”.

A report by Sergio Julián Gómez