“BroadView allows me to do in less than a day, what used to take 3 weeks”
Summary: Our team at BroadView was contacted to help a premium television network improve their linear and non-linear scheduling functionality. Their existing vendor had not kept the product up to date, and their scheduling and traffic departments found their current system too complex, and too costly, to maintain. Over a series of meetings and workflow analyses, it was determined that they were overdue for an overhaul of their scheduling system. Our team was able to offer an easily implementable and integrated, streamlined solution for their linear and non-linear scheduling that transformed their operations.
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Our team at BroadView was contacted to help a premium television network improve their linear and non-linear scheduling functionality. This network was an established international broadcaster who aired their programming across cable, satellite and streaming services to over 70 countries. It had grown to be a powerhouse of subscription and on-demand programming with a mix that included a variety of movies, first-run TV shows and reality series.
Over a series of meetings and workflow analyses, it was determined that they were overdue for an overhaul of their scheduling system. Working closely with our team, they articulated the need for a more streamlined solution for their linear and non-linear scheduling. Their existing vendor had not kept the product up to date, and their scheduling and traffic departments found their current system too complex, and too costly, to maintain.
Our team arrived in late 2017 and initiated a complete process analysis, followed by a very successful implementation and training of our industry-leading OnDemand 2.0, with the linear scheduling team. As we were undertaking the linear scheduling implementation, the needs of the non-linear team continued to grow. Pleased with the ease and efficiency of our linear solution, they asked us to implementation our OnDemand 2.0 product for their non-linear scheduling needs. The first phase of this implementation was completed in August of 2019.
Striking during the on-demand implementation were these words from a senior user, that: “BroadView allowed me to do in less than a day, what used to take three weeks”.
The Challenge
For years, this broadcaster had been using a complex and archaic system to fulfill their non-linear scheduling needs. The system relied on excel spreadsheets populated by visual basic formulas as the foundation of their workflow. It would take users up to three weeks to input a fairly simple one-month non-linear schedule, with no more than 50 titles; each MSO required delivery of different metadata, which necessitated complex formulas to derive the necessary data for each MSO. Users complained that their current system was outdated, time-consuming and required an increasingly demanding workflow to complete.
This laborious workflow only fulfilled the content management piece (planning and scheduling) of their on-demand programming workflow. Once these tasks were complete, they would then undertake the fulfillment side, preparing the media for delivery. Overall, a monthly schedule would sometimes take an entire month of the team’s effort to prepare.
With the increasing number of titles to be delivered, and platforms and MSOs that must be supported, the spreadsheet approach became increasingly cumbersome and at some point, simply did not work. It became evident that they needed support for two aggregators and a total of eleven platforms / MSOs for both SVOD and TVOD delivery methods. From a delivery perspective, that meant generating eleven different planners and for each title, eleven different XML files based on platform.
They recognized that their current system was inefficient and needed to be updated, and contacted us. They further expressed growing frustration internally within their scheduling department, who was struggling to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex multi-platform broadcast environment. Their current system was taxing their time, and resources and they were worried that if they didn’t streamline and synthesize their workflow, they would fail to meet the growing demands of their MSO’s. They needed to find a solution that would modernize and simplify the on-demand workflow process.
In our needs assessment, they identified wanting a scheduling software that:
- Streamlined workflow
- Reduced staff time and effort
- Managed Reporting
- Increased efficiency
- Was tied in with their linear schedule and operations
- Allowed for seamless integration and updates
- Provided a singular solution
- Was easily implemented
- Provided 24/7 product support
The Solution
Upon operational assessment of this legacy broadcaster’s needs, BroadView’s team recommended implementing OnDemand 2.0 for its on demand needs. Its core offering provides clients with a multi-platform ecosystem, using smart tools that help streamline non-linear scheduling workflow and fulfillment drivers across OTT, VOD, SVOD, TVOD, Mobile and future platforms.
Highly integratable, we knew that OnDemand 2.0’s powerful programming tools would help manage more than just scheduling (both linear and non-linear), but also their rights, asset metadata, program packaging, reporting and analytics and finally tie into their fulfillment workflows.
For the internal fulfillment workflow BroadView also provided four different fulfillment planners and a generalized workflow tracker. Together these planners and the tracker allowed the scheduling department to stay on track and on time in making their deliveries to the eleven current platforms.
A very important feature of BroadView’s OnDemand 2.0 offering is configuration. The addition of new platforms, including setting up new planners and XML files, requires no custom code. Thus, the product is very agile and allows programmers to add new platforms very quickly, in a matter of hours, through configuration work they can perform themselves or that our team at BroadView can assist them with.
To summarize, BroadView provided a fully-integrated programming and traffic solution that include considerable benefits to any broadcast operations:
- Ease of scheduling
- Access to rights, dates and other metadata at scheduling
- Automated casting from linear schedules as well as library based scheduling wizards
- The ability to build the MSO file within BroadView instead of exporting to Excel
- VOD-specific metadata (price, cast, directors, genre, duration, viewing window, file location)
- Built-in spell check and character length viewer
- At-a-glance viewing of number of hours and titles committed with highlighting of over commitments
- Access to historical airing dates
- The ability to include artwork
- Assigning house numbers that do not go outside the range limitations
Enhanced workflow functionality also significantly streamlined the Traffic operations and removed the need for manual processes:
- Set up approvers
- Send items for approval
- Show the approval status during the process
- Show the user, date, time and notes entered
- Monitor the status of content during the approval process
Timeline
BroadView’s team initiated phase one of their broadcast operations update, using the linear module of BroadView’s OnDemand 2.0 software.
After the successful launch of the linear operations, we initiated phase two of their update. To meet the changing needs of the program operations department, our implementation and training team went back onsite to install and train on our non-linear module, OnDemand 2.0, expanding the broadcasters overall OTT capacity.
In August 2019, BroadView successfully completed their OnDemand 2.0 integration.
Results
From three weeks to less than a day!
The launch was a resounding and much-lauded success. We provided their programming department with an unparalleled on-demand platform that offered a singular solution for all their scheduling needs.
The broadcaster has reported significantly reduced timelines, costs, complexity and headaches. OnDemand 2.0 allowed schedulers to accomplish in one day what used to take 3 weeks – bringing efficiency, simplicity and modernization to their overall broadcast operations, while seamlessly accommodating their MSO’s unique metadata requirements.
Why OnDemand 2.0?
- Multi-Platform ecosystem with smart tools that streamline scheduling workflow;
- Award-winning product implementation and support team for conversions of linear and non-linear scheduling and workflow across OTT, VOD, SVOD, TVOD, Mobile and any future platforms;
- Powerful programming tools to manage scheduling (both linear and non-linear), rights, asset metadata, program packaging, reporting and analytics.
- OnDemand 2.0 is the only single-software system that integrates with other workflow systems within any broadcast operations environment, including systems for Publishing, Platforms and media delivery. These integrations can be via API for easy data access and/or file exchange.
