Mediaset Premium Play using Accenture platform to reach growing number of online viewers
Italy’s Mediaset Premium is now using Accenture technology to broadcast Champions League matches to fans watching on the Internet. Since the launch of the service, monthly unique visitor numbers are reported to have doubled.
The collaboration between Mediaset and Accenture revolves around a streaming video service called Mediaset Premium Play, which is available in Italy on more than 300 types of devices, including smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, connected TVs and games consoles.
The service is now attracting some 600,000 unique users per month – doubling the total registered when the service was introduced in July last year.
Mediaset Premium Play combines the intelligence and the power of the Video Solution (AVS) by Accenture platform, with the modularity, scalability and capabilities of Amazon Cloud Web Services. On the basis of the demand of those who want to use the service, the platform dynamically adapts the technological infrastructure capacity needed to ensure the vision of the streamed matches. In this way Mediaset Premium uses only the resources needed at any given time, optimising costs on a “best effort” intelligent scheme. Accenture Video Solution also provides real-time information about user behaviour, helping Mediaset Premium to deliver customised services.
‘Tremendous accomplishment’
Franco Ricci, CEO of Mediaset Premium, remarks upon the service: “Mediaset Premium managed to reach one million subscribers to this new service in just three months, using the cloud. In the television industry this is a tremendous accomplishment, made possible thanks to a solution that Accenture has implemented intelligently, easily and efficiently using Accenture Video Solution and its Digital Delivery Factory, [which is] a set of tools and methodologies that integrate products, architecture and technologies to ensure the continued use of digital content.”
Francesco Venturini, Accenture’s global managing director Media, Entertainment and Digital video businesses, comments: “[As a result of this set-up] Mediaset Premium can offer over-the-top programming which is competitive and of the highest quality at a great number of spectators. The growth of users and extremely low time-to-market are the results of absolute excellence in the European television landscape and confirm the success of the collaboration between Accenture and Mediaset Premium in recent years.”
Video Solution is an innovative software solution created by Accenture that enables operators to deliver digital content video on demand and live on broadband networks, ensuring full integration with the broadcast world. The software offers many possibilities including live adaptive streaming, event monitoring, and capture and transmission of video based on IP. This range of services allows companies to enable new models of over-the-top TV on a wide range of devices. The viewer can then enjoy an experience “video anywhere”-style, facilitated by features that simplify registration and offer new methods of interaction.
Competitive advantage
Accenture declares that its video solution is able to be adapted to the specific needs of different operators in a short time-frame – as little as three months. By using the tailormade SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model it is possible to package a software that allows companies to move into the video broadband market in a quick, efficient and convenient way.
This solution constitutes a competitive advantage in a market where the spread of Internet-connected devices – Smart TV, tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes and gaming consoles – is opening up the path for a rapid spread of services dedicated to the production, distribution and monetisation of video on demand and live content over broadband networks. It is evident that the use of on-demand and live video over an IP network represents a huge market opportunity for broadcasters, telcos and content aggregators.