The new issue of the EBU's quarterly magazine tech-i examines how several Members are stepping up to the challenge of competing with the global streaming giants. As EBU Technology & Innovation Director Antonio Arcidiacono argues in his editorial, "accelerating media innovation is crucial if Europe wants to strengthen its digital sovereignty", and the area of online players is one where public broadcasters are fighting to stay competitive locally on the global marketplace.
- Anders Hebert is Product Owner for SVT Play on TV platforms. He describes here how the broadcaster has ensured its on-demand platform is prominently positioned in Swedish living rooms (p8).
- Italy's Rai has recently rebranded, re-engineered and reinvigorated its on-demand player RaiPlay. Taking care of product development at Rai Digital, Gianluca Visalli provides an overview of the changes (p10).
- Kari Haakana, Head of Services at Yle, puts the success of the Areena streaming platform down to a combination of several factors. He writes about the choices they made regarding devices and development (p9).
"Beating Netflix is going to be harder each year, but it’s still possible, if we continue making the right choices." Kari Haakana, Yle
Staying with the topic of online platforms and players, the magazine also includes articles on Loudness considerations (p14), a new collaborative development – called EuroVOX – on machine-based translation (p7) and a new EBU report on PSM presence on Spotify (p18).
Elsewhere in tech-i
- IRT's Michael Weitnauer describes how new standards and tools based on the EBU ADM Renderer are enabling reliable NGA workflows (p6)
- BBC's Diane Hamer reports on the growing problem of piracy of content that is perceived as being "free" because it is broadcast free-to-air (p11)
- Hege Marie Kallestad explains how Norway's TV 2 has completely renewed its content handling systems in a major transformation project (p13)
The usual Partner Profiles feature comes from the DASH Industry Forum (p17), there's a look back at what was achieved by recently completed MediaRoad project (p15), and Yle's Anssi Komulainen is "in the spotlight" (p19).