The Channel | 2006 | July

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| 18
Leaders
Suranga Chandratillake
Founder and CTO, Blinkx
Surfing through the video
When he started exploring the capabilities of the BBCMicroModel B computer
– a very basic machine but one that helped launch the computer revolution in
Britain – Suranga Chandratillake didn’t realise that he’d end up connected
with the broadcast media. Today this Cambridge University graduate spends
most of his time on the west coast of the USA where he runs the company
he co-founded. is a video search engine that’s capable of sifting
through material, using visual analysis techniques to understand what’s going
on in the video and recognising key words in the speech. It’s got the potential
to revolutionise the way we access video material in the on-demand world.
KeepingupwithChandratillakeishardwork.Hisspeechisrapid-fire,demonstrating
the speed with which his brain processes information – he’s clearly one of the
cleverest people involved in media search technology, as his CV attests. He
says that is highly un-media in its make-up, with most of the people
involved in what he describes as the esoteric fields of pattern matching and
signal processing. What’s interesting is when you apply those techniques to
sorting and searching for content – text, video or audio – he says.
Chandratillake says that until fairly recently many people said “yes, but
so what?” when told about . There wasn’t a huge amount of
video content available on the web but, he says, in the last 12 months
there’s been a huge change – an explosion in user-generated content
(“garage video” as he describes it), video blogs, Youtube and Google
video, for example. In parallel, but rather more quietly says Chandratillake,
major media companies have started to make much more video content
available. Most of the sports networks have started to put material on
line and during the World Cup, FIFA put unprecedented amounts of
video on the web. US networks have started to stream programmes –
Desperate Housewives and Lost are available from ABC, for example.
The other change that is seeing is in the
way people consuming content on thewebwant
an experience akin towatching TV in a traditional
sense; in other words, they want to build a
schedule of high quality content of different
programmes. Maintaining the serendipity factor
of scheduled programmes is something that
Chandratillake sees as the biggest task facing
himandhis colleagues over the coming fiveyears.
They’ve gone some way with the launch of
which uses the principle of “you
liked that, so you’ll probably like this too”.
Chandratillake thinks that his business model beats the competition like
Google’s video service, since media owners don’t have to hand their
content over to a third party but can have the search engine directing
viewers to their own sites. This covers off lots of the rights issues,
Blinkxtv believes, and Chandratillake also thinks that his is the only
company with a truly scaleable solution that works. It’s a claim that
many start-ups make, but we have a feeling that in this case,
Chandratillake may be right. Meanwhile, spending all the time in the
office doesn’t give him too much time to enjoy the delights of life in the
Bay Area. Yeah, right! Despite his self-proclaimed workload, he does
get out with his fiancée to the vineyards of Napa Valley, to the Yosemite
for hiking and, taking his work everywhere with him, he’s considering
learning to surf – waves, that is, not the web.
Peter Einstein
President &CEO, ShowtimeArabia
Drumming up business
Peter Einstein is the only media leader we’ve come
across recently who keeps a drum set in his office
and regularly jams with a workplace band. It’s a result of his MTV background,
says Einstein, who was one of the people behind the launch of MTV a quarter
of a century ago in the US and then in Europe. And shouldn’t TV and media
be about having fun, he asks? Getting the most out of people around him is
something he’s obviously good at, and creating a fun place to work is high up
his personal agenda – it’s something that’s worked for almost a decade
since his appointment to the CEO and Presidency of Showtime Arabia. Fluent
in German, Einstein holds a BSc in Business Administration and Communications
from New York’s Ithaca College and an MBA in Marketing from Babson
College in Massachusetts.
This fun heritage is something sets him apart from a majority of other leaders
in the media world but more than that what’s caught out attention is the fact
that he’s pushing back boundaries in pay-TV in the
Arab-speaking world. This year, Einstein has overseen
the introduction of PVRs for his customers – branded
ShowBox – demonstrating that Showtime is at the
cutting edge of the Arab pay-TV market. Einstein says
it’s all about differentiating the product and making it
more appealing to the customer base. He’s overseen
the complete re-engineering of the Showtime facility in
Dubai Media City which has resulted in a brand new,
state-of-the-art broadcast centre with integrated presentation and workflow
and a complete end to tapes in the production environment. And now he’s
upped the ante within the Arabic pay-TV market through the launch of his VIP
viewing package, called Platinum. It’s designed to appeal to people in the same
way that platinum credit cards are attractive to high earner.
That’s not all. Einstein has gone out on a limb by saying that Showtime, the
pay network that’s partly owned by Viacom (parent of the MTV brand)
and by Saudi investors, should invest in its own programming, rather like
HBO does in the USA. It needs to be special and unique, he says, when
questioned about what exactly he has in mind for Arabic-language
commissioned programming. Remember that there’s huge production
potential within the Arab region (such as in Egypt, where he’s well connected
in the film industry) and a probable hunger for quality, unusual content
that’s far better than what’s on offer to free-to-air audiences.
Timescales aren’t confirmed, but it seems that Showtime’s investors will
back Einstein all the way as he moves the pay-TV company forward
through both technology and straightforward yet innovative ideas such
as home-grown programming. We believe that Peter Einstein is someone
who can help move TV in the Middle East up a notch or two.
Gerry Jackson
Station Manager, SW Radio Africa
Rocking on for the good of the people
Gerry Jackson has been involved in Zimbabwean radio for the last two
decades. She started life as a part-time presenter on state broadcaster
ZBC, specialising in classic rock and heavy metal music – one of her passions
– while at the same time running a film and video production company
(the pay at ZBC wasn’t enough to keep bread and butter, let alone jam, on
the table) and won the licence for Zimbabwe’s first private radio station
which went on air but was closed at gunpoint within six days, a clear
message, she thinks, that independent radio wasn’t welcome. That
experience led to her moving to London where, with a number of
Zimbabwean colleagues, she established SWRadioAfrica, broadcasting
news, current affairs and analysis programming back to the country from
studios in the north of the British capital.
Today, SWRadioAfrica is approaching its fifth birthday. The station has
been supported by organisations that want to see democracy promoted
and built within Zimbabwe – one of the current funders is George Soros’
Open Society Institute. Funding isn’t guaranteed and Jackson spends a
great deal of time making sure that the organisation has sufficient income