Arqiva and MainStreaming in streaming video distribution partnership

14 November 2022

Arqiva and MainStreaming in streaming video distribution partnership

Arqiva and MainStreaming have forged a technology and services partnership, to jointly offer distribution services for the media streaming market.

The partners will explore how the combination of MainStreaming’s cutting-edge CDN technology and broadcast-grade streaming experience with Arqiva’s global media infrastructure and managed services capability can offer more scalable, flexible, and programming-centric content distribution services for the media streaming market.

With ever-growing viewer numbers on streaming services and the increasing strategic value of online audiences, the streaming needs of the biggest broadcasters and service providers are greater than ever. The combination of a large audience served, consistently high video quality, and low latency is the tough combination to get right hour after hour. As such, secure, scalable and cost-effective content distribution networks are vital.

Existing streaming distribution networks are not well suited to deliver either the quality of service required by service providers or the quality of experience expected by audiences. The growing carbon footprint of streaming services is also a concern for both providers and audiences. Arqiva and MainStreaming are coming together to address these issues and to challenge conventional approaches to content distribution.

“MainStreaming’s technology makes true edge computing for the media industry a reality, and already delivers important benefits for our industry-leading customers,” said Antonio G. Corrado, CEO, MainStreaming. “We are excited to work together with Arqiva and the media industry to take advantage of our real-time, ultra-low latency, highly scalable streaming capabilities to deliver broadcast-grade streaming and also create new and exciting edge applications for video delivery.”

Clive White, CTO, Arqiva, commented: “The streaming world is changing fast and navigating the commercial and technical issues has never been harder. Arqiva and MainStreaming will be collaborating on a range of new capabilities and service offerings to meet these challenges with a view to optimising the customer experience and adding value to the biggest broadcasters in our core markets.”

Iran International journalists receive credible threats to life – in the UK

8 November 2022

Iran International journalists receive credible threats to life – in the UK

Iran International, the independent UK-based Farsi-language news channel has said that is shocked and deeply concerned by the credible threats to life its journalists have received from the IRGC.

Two of the channel’s British-Iranian journalists have, in recent days, been notified of an increase in the threats to them. The Metropolitan Police have now formally notified both journalists that these threats represent an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families. Other members of Iran International staff have also been informed directly by the Metropolitan Police of separate threats.

Iran International say its journalists are subject to abuse 24/7 on social media. “But these threats to life of British-Iranian journalists working in the UK marks a significant and dangerous escalation of a state-sponsored campaign to intimidate Iranian journalists working abroad. These lethal threats to British citizens on British soil come after several weeks of warnings from the IRGC and Iranian government about the work of a free and uncensored Farsi-language media working in London,” the channel said in a statement.

“Britain is the home of free speech,” the statement continues. “Iran International stands as part of that tradition, proud to serve the 85m people of Iran with independent, uncensored information. The Islamic Republic of Iran, and specifically the IRGC cannot be allowed to export their pernicious media crackdown to the UK. The IRGC cannot be allowed to act abroad with impunity.

“We hope that the UK Government, international governments and other organisations will join us in condemning these horrific threats and continue to highlight the importance of media freedom.

“We would like to thank the Metropolitan Police for their considerable efforts in keeping journalists safe.”

The AIB continues to support channels and their staff under threat from bad actors.

Image: William Barton/Shutterstock

Iran increases pressure on international broadcasters

10 October 2022

Iran increases pressure on international broadcasters

The Iranian government is stepping up its pressure on Farsi-language broadcasters as protests against the regime continue to escalate across Iran.

Bearing the brunt of the attacks over the weekend of 8-9 October is London-based Iran International TV. The Secretary of the legal and judicial committee of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad-Taghi Naqdali, known as a hardline cleric, called on the Iranian government to “use capabilities in the international arena” to take steps against Iran International that he claims “make calls for riots, destruction of property and regime change.”

Naqdali’s comments follow extensive jamming traced to Iran of international satellites operated by Eutelsat and Arabsat that were stepped up after demonstrations against the Iranian government increased following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September.

The Iranian cleric suggested that his government should lodge complaints about Iran International with UK media regulator Ofcom, saying that the regulator “can be used by the [Iranian] foreign ministry and the Judiciary” to get the broadcaster shut down. In 2019, Iran’s ambassador to the the United Kingdom raised a complaint with Ofcom about a broadcast in September 2018 that was overruled by the regulator with the regulator finding that Iran International had kept within the UK’s Broadcasting Code.

Iran has long been involved in the jamming of TV and radio broadcasts from outside the country where news and information is strictly controlled by the Iranian government. This is contrary to international law, and the ITU Radio Regulations to which Iran is a signatory.

The AIB is working closely with its Members affected by Iranian jamming and by the Iranian government’s attempts to silence their operations.

[Image: By Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98521741]

Iran jamming Eutelsat – again

7 October 2022

Iran jamming Eutelsat – again

Following the anti-government protests that flared up following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody last month, the Iranian authorities appear to be stepping up their efforts to restrict information coming into the country.

Satellite operator Eutelsat reports that it has been suffering jamming on two of its satellites since 26 September. These attempts at causing deliberate harmful interference are affecting the transmission of a number of TV and radio channels that provide services to Farsi-speaking audiences in Iran. The jamming affects other channels that are not targeted towards Iran as well.

Eutelsat says that it has carried out research using a specially designed interference detection system. The result show that the source of the jamming transmissions is within Iran.

Eutelsat says that it has “decided to take action simultaneously along two main lines: on the diplomatic front, and using all appropriate national and international procedures, Eutelsat has immediately notified the relevant authorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran, demanding that the harmful jamming operations be immediately and permanently stopped. Eutelsat has also reminded the relevant Iranian authorities that intentional jamming is explicitly prohibited by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radio Regulations.”

Broadcasters such as London-based Iran International say that their transmissions have been affected by the illegal jamming by the Iranian authorities.

Iran has employed satellite jamming for many years in the regime’s attempts to limit access to free and impartial information getting into the country. In spite of their efforts, audiences for Farsi-language channels from outside the country continue to grow as viewers and listeners find ways to circumvent their government’s efforts.

The AIB will be monitoring the situation and taking action on behalf of its Members affected by the illegal jamming of their signals.

Read more: the AIB’s brief history of jamming

Photo: satellite antennas on roofs in Iran

The DPP becomes an independent organisation

4 October 2022

The DPP becomes an independent organisation

Building on its success as a membership organisation, the DPP has announced plans to become fully self-sufficient. The founding shareholder members, BBC, ITV and C4 will relinquish their Board positions and revert to normal DPP membership.

This change in control acknowledges the evolution of the DPP since it was founded in 2015. It has fulfilled its original purpose of helping to accelerate the transition of the media industry to file-based digital working, and has now become an international membership organisation providing strategic insight and a huge range of events, as well as facilitating technical collaboration.

To support this strategy, the Board has appointed two new Non-Executive Directors. The first is Sadie Groom, Founder and CEO of Bubble, a global PR, Events and Marketing Agency, and also the Founder of Rise – a group for gender diversity in media technology. The second is Danny Meaney, Founder and CEO of UP Ventures Group.

Other DPP Board members will be existing Non-Executive Director, Emma Springham, CMO of TSB Bank; DPP CEO Mark Harrison; DPP CTO Rowan de Pomerai; and DPP COO Kelvin Jones. The Board will continue to be Chaired by Helen Stevens, Operations Officer for Content & Delivery at ITV through the transition before a new Chair is confirmed later this year.

“The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are proud of the contribution they have made to the media and entertainment industry by helping to found and guide the DPP” says Helen Stevens. “Now is the moment for the DPP to fully explore its potential as a global membership organisation that can deliver value to any company that works with audio visual content.”

“We feel privileged that each day we get to work with an incredible range of companies from across the whole media supply chain, and from around the world,” added Mark Harrison. “It is their input that enables us to keep evolving and refining our work so that we meet our aim of being a valued, independent, and expert resource in a constantly changing market.”

The DPP is currently delivering major insight work around the future of news production, the role of standards, innovation in localisation, and how to build more effective relationships between customers and suppliers. Its Leaders’ Briefing conference will take place in London on 16-17 November; and it will hold further conferences in Berlin in March 2023 and New York in June 2023.

[Source: The DPP press release 3 October 2022]

Arqiva and MediaKind launch Arqplex head-end service

12 September 2022

New headend-as-a-service simplifies content processing for broadcast and OTT networks

Arqiva and MediaKind have announced the next stage of their pioneering partnership with the launch of Arqplex, a new hybrid content processing service that is set to transform headend services for broadcast and OTT networks.

The fully managed headend-as-a-service has been designed and developed for a broad range of broadcasters and network or platform operators, including leading global, regional, and national broadcasters and regional cable and satellite network operators.

The Arqplex service provides secure and reliable content aggregation, encoding, multiplexing and packaging for content distribution and will unify OTT and broadcast operations, reducing complexity, increasing efficiency and delivering rapid speed to market for customers.

About Arqplex

Arqplex is underpinned by decades of experience in broadcast and broadband services for tier-one service providers. The partnership combines MediaKind’s cloud-native multiplexing, encoding, and packaging headend media processing technology delivering globally renowned content quality and distribution reliability with Arqiva’s expertise in systems integration, connectivity, and managed services. Arqiva’s operational teams fully manage and monitor the service, bringing real economies of scale to headend operations.

Through MediaKind’s cloud-native headend software, Arqplex will deliver broadcast-grade service levels to OTT operations. The service utilises Arqiva’s global content network to collect content from any source, whether satellite, fibre, cloud, or the internet. It also includes options to manage ad insertion and catch-up functionality for customers.

The highly scalable and flexible Arqplex service is built on a cloud-based subscription model, removing the need for large capex investment in the latest technology advances. Customers can have technology upgrades and patches securely applied as soon as they are available, removing the need to source and install updates.

Media service providers can use AWS public cloud, an alternative cloud provider or Arqiva’s UK-based datacentres. Where customers opt for cloud processing, operations can be sited in the region most appropriate for their services. The Arqplex service also integrates seamlessly with other products across the Arqiva portfolio.

The existing Arqplex roadmap will be extended further, with Arqiva and MediaKind integrating a range of partners to expand the service’s capabilities. Arqiva has already begun the process of migrating existing headend customers to the new headend-as-a-service offering.

Arqplex will radically simplify the headend operations of broadcast and OTT operators, enabling them to focus on growth. The ways in which content is consumed, and the content itself, have become increasingly diverse in recent years. At Arqiva, we’re embracing cloud technology to remove hassle and empower agility for our customers, so that they can meet the needs of their consumers. We’ve already begun the process of migrating existing headend customers to the new headend-as-a-service offering. We’re excited to be leveraging our partnership with MediaKind once more, building on our cloud-migration proposition.

Shuja Khan, Chief Executive Officer, Arqiva