26 TVBEurope
www.tvbeurope.com August 2013
“We estimate that the net cost saving and avoidance per year is about €400k” —Myles Donoghue, RTE
Creating a holistic media organisation for content creation and distribution in a multiplatform world
By Melanie Dayasena-Lowe
FRENCH SOFTWARE company ProConsultant Informatique (PCI) is dedicated to the development, design and implementation of business management solutions for content providers. According to Hervé Obed, CEO, PCI has spent the last 17 years innovating and working side-by- side with its customers to tackle some of the most dramatic challenges and changes the media and broadcast industry has ever faced. Talking about its partnership with customer TFO (the French language cultural and educational TV network of Ontario, Canada), PCI has been working together with the network by sharing goals, challenging ideas and a traditional viewpoint involving workflows and teaming up to solve problems. Obed explained that one of PCI’s core products Louise has
played a key role and has been used across TFO as an integral part of its workflows. “TFO and PCI have worked to find ways to break down production styles and create more transparency and efficiency across many workflows. The end result — a dramatic improvement in their productivity and output,” he added. As an example, Eric Minoli,
chief technology officer/chief information officer for TFO, shared his experience of how the network began moving to a tapeless environment six years ago and outlined what the challenges were. TFO focuses on three different
groups for its programmes: youth, society and culture. It comprises one commercial-free TV channel, broadcast throughout Canada and 220 different automated websites. More than 20,000 videos are available through web, tablet and smartphone. There are more than 100 hours of content available to cable operators for VoD and more than 200 hours of in-house productions per season. 2007 was a
big year for TFO. Previously operated by TVO, that year the Ontario government granted TFO full autonomy. The next year TFO moved to a fully HD tapeless environment. In the old
Hervé Obed: “TFO and PCI have worked to find ways to break down production styles and create more transparency and efficiency across many workflows”
environment, TFO used Beta SP composite facilities and edit
to tape in Beta SP. Avid was used to edit in-house productions. There were 55,000 Beta SP tapes in the inventory and over 40 different databases in use. “The plan was to set aside 20 years of work practice. The idea is not to look at what you’re doing now, look at what you want to do. How do you want to move forward? Rationalise your operation. We needed to be more efficient because we were moving to a smaller entity so we needed to be able to save costs,” explained Minoli. It was also important to automate processes and workflows. The project involved starting with one centralised database to
TFO’s Eric Minoli highlighted the importance of
empowering people and making them accountable
requirements, fast turnaround requirements and old infrastructure was more oriented toward broadcasting than IT. There was a need to supply content to different nonlinear platforms and production equipment was changing all the time, depending on the flavour of the day. In terms of organisational changes, TFO decided to
systems make information easy to access. PCI’s business management
software Louise was used for scheduling on-air, VoD, web, podcast and cellular programming, rights and copyright management for acquired/in-house or co-productions, dynamic branding, HD tapeless
In terms of organisational change, TFO decided to merge the IT and broadcast departments. Web staff were integrated into the production team and a workflow specialist was hired
manage all of TFO’s operational needs, to organise the HD tapeless workflow and build the technical infrastructure around this centralised database and manage content for multiple distribution platforms. Minoli explained the golden rules: the person who has the information will enter it and share it, go back to needs and listen to end users, make the technical environment highly flexible to adapt to changing trends and markets and maintain interoperability. So what were the challenges? Complex rights management
merge the IT and broadcast departments. Minoli highlighted the importance of empowering people and making them accountable as well as making sure there was no more separation between the technical and content people. Web staff were integrated into the production team and a software and workflow specialist was hired. The new centralised database meant that all users use one database, data structure is standardised, mistakes affect all users, data is readily reusable and the flexible reporting
workflow plus task and picture management. A growing number of
automated tasks were managed by Louise. In 2011 there were 150,000 tasks, growing to 250,000 last year and a projected 350,000 in 2013. Minoli explained how
employees coped with the changes. It was essential that everyone was ready to adjust and that all systems worked in harmony. TFO provides workshops and training sessions frequently and encourages motivation/teamwork, for example, by allowing staff to elect their own manager.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68