Page 49 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 2 2012

▼
▼RRsat’s
teleport at Emek
HaEla, Israel
Lior Rival
Below right
Hawley teleport
in the US
Bottom RRsat’s
playout centre
THE CHANNEL | ISSUE 2 2012 | 49
platform covering Latin America
and they are very popular to the
cable headends, and on the Ku
band for the Direct‐to‐Home we
have the Hispasat platform, all
being operated from our Hawley
Teleport, and fibre connected from
Latin America to Hawley.
So we also have a nice solution
for TV channels from Latin
America that want to distribute
original Latin American content to
other parts of the world.
What do customers want?
Our main customers are the
broadcasters, the TV channels ‐
from the small to the mid‐level to
the major TV channels. We provide
services to MGM, Disney, BBC, Sky
News, Fox Sports. Some need
global solution services, some need
local services.
Each contract is different of
course. For some customers we are
doing a simple turnaround, for
others we build an end‐to‐end
solution including content
management, playout, distribution
to several satellites, some Internet
and some fibre distribution.
What we do for God TV is a good
example. We do the live studio
production and editing for them at
our Jerusalem Studio and create 8
different versions of playout with
each version going to another part
of the world. We inject the dubbing
into different languages in our
Playout Centre. And of course
distribution is not just via satellite
but also via Internet streaming and
other added‐value services.
How important is IPTV?
Most customers choose the
traditional way of satellite and fibre
but we see more and more channels
migrating to the Internet. For us
this means more work ‐ creating
more versions, more ways of
distribution.
For some of these channels we do
additional distribution at a lower
bit rate than satellite. Itʹs a little bit
different and a big growth area.
Tell us about your contract with ETV.
In India we work with the big
networks. Earlier this year we
signed a contract with ETV, one of
the largest satellite TV networks in
India. For them we do backhaul
services from India to the States ‐
ETV Kannada and ETV Marathi are
downlinked at RRsatʹs main
teleport in Emek HaEla from Insat
4a satellite, then the channels are
converted from PAL to NTSC,
encoded, and with a time delay
delivered by fibre to Dish
Network USA.
Is the segment of niche
programming growing?
Yes, the niche and ethnic
programming is still growing as
many people live outside their
countries of origin but still want to
watch their home TV channels in
their mother tongue. This is one of
the markets where RRsat has a big
advantage because we can provide
a very creative solution which is
flexible and cost‐effective. Our
media division deals with
aggregating, packaging and
licensing international content for
global distribution which allows
multichannel platform operators to
receive a vast range of ethnic and
genre based programming for their
network distribution, and we also
offer several DTH platforms aimed
at niche markets.
Looking ahead…
At the moment the most
challenging issue is IPTV/Internet
TV – how it will work, what will be
the business model. For us, it is a
big challenge and also a big
opportunity because this will create
the need for additional services that
RRsat can provide – we distribute
TV channels in all kinds of ways. At
the moment we distribute more
than 630 TV channels 24/7 via our
global network, thatʹs not an easy
thing to do, with full back‐up in
order to provide a state‐of‐the‐art
and professional service.
Lior Rival, thank you.
DISTRIBUTION | THE CHANNEL
Asia, Africa
and Latin
America
are the
three big
developing
markets
“
”