In August of 2006, Mary Frost was named the CEO of GlobeCast America and she became responsible for all of the company’s North and Latin American operations, having been with the company since 2003. An experienced leader was needed and Mary filled the bill… she had 18 years of experience in a variety of broadcast environments, from news and operations to engineering and management for such companies as Disney/ABC and WNET/Channel Thirteen New York. Prior to joining GlobeCast America, Mary was the President of NewMedia Technology. GlobeCast has a number of facilities in North America that include teleports in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Washington D.C. and Salt Lake City. We talked with Mary regarding the major focus change that occurred at GlobeCast as it moved from a provider of satellite services to that of a content management firm, as well as her view to the future…

SatMagazine
Mary, would you please provide our readers with some background history on GlobeCast America? As a subsidiary of France Telecom, how was the U.S. “division” started?

Mary
GlobeCast America is the US division of GlobeCast, a France Telecom company. GlobeCast was formed when France Telecom grouped its broadcast services division with smaller companies that it acquired worldwide, among them Keystone and IDC in the U.S. Today, GlobeCast is a global leader, one of the company’s biggest selling points. The company doesn’t operate as a separate entity in the United States. Broadcasters are offered worldwide solutions based on GlobeCast’s experience here in the US as well as abroad.

SatMagazine
GlobeCast began life as a satellite service provider and is now a global content management company. How did this transformation occur?

Mary
Actually, the transformation occurred out of necessity as well as opportunity. The days when a company could survive as a simple satellite up-linker are long gone. Broadcasters aren’t interested just in getting from point A to point B—they want value along the way, and they want to work with a company that can offer them more than capacity. They want someone to whom they can outsource part, or all, of the technical business of delivering a channel in order for them to focus on their content. GlobeCast had that expertise and discovered that, even though adapting was a necessity, it wasn’t a difficult pill to swallow, as the skills the broadcasters were seeking were already part of the company’s offering—it’s been a highly positive transformation.

SatMagazine
What is the role of World TV in relation to the company? Is it a separate entity, part of France Telecom, or a business unit of GlobeCast?

Mary
Legally, World TV is a brand of GlobeCast America, which is, itself, a subsidiary of France Telecom. To make things clear and simple, World TV is the division of GlobeCast that specializes in multicultural content. World TV manages a Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite TV platform with more than 200 channels in 40 languages. World TV is becoming a major aggregator of international content for IPTV bouquet operators and is the source for anyone looking for international content.

SatMagazine
World TV has experienced a great deal of expansion over the last few years. Why has this occurred? What can we expect to experience from World TV in the not-too-distant future, and in the immediate future?

Mary
World TV has been growing because the demand for multicultural content in the U.S. is growing. American audiences are more culturally diverse and more globally savvy than ever before and consumers want access to programming from around the world. Television bouquet operators are seeing this demand and acting on it. While the audiences for multicultural programming seem small when compared to the mainstream channels available, they are extremely loyal viewers and appreciate having access to this type of content. Consumers will choose one bouquet over another when one channel has access to a channel from their homeland and the other channel does not. TV bouquet operators, especially those who are thinking of breaking into IPTV, are experiencing multicultural content as a way to secure loyal audiences while differentiating their lineups from competitors.

SatMagazine
World TV also offers radio programming... what other services could one expect from World TV? In addition, what is Free to Air (FTA) programming?

Mary
World TV offers a DTH satellite television bouquet with more than 200 television channels, plus a number of radio stations. In most cases, these are companion channels to television programming. Some of the television channels are Free-to-Air, meaning that anyone with a dish and a set top box can tune in for free. Others are encrypted, subscription based channels.

In addition to this satellite bouquet, as previously mentioned, World TV offers aggregation, rights acquisition, and distribution of international programming where IPTV operators are concerned.

SatMagazine
There is definitely an “international flavor” to World TV programming... why would a U.S. customer be interested in obtaining World TV?

Mary
World TV is, by definition, the source for international programming in the U.S. The answer to the question lies in the question itself… what is a “U.S. customer?” We live in one of the most ethnically diverse countries on the planet, and that diversity is growing daily.
There is no one type of U.S. customer, but there are 23 million people in America who speak a language other than English or Spanish at home. That’s too large a market to be ignored, and it’s been underserved. That is, until now.

SatMagazine
There is a rather defined competition between fiber and satellite content delivery... how has the growth of fiber affected SatTV, or vice-versa?

Mary
GlobeCast uses both satellite and fiber infrastructure to deliver global signals anywhere. GlobeCast is a content management and delivery company. Now that it’s “network agnostic,” this difference is not of concern.

SatMagazine
Mobile TV appears to be a huge technological wave about to inundate content creation and delivery... add in IPTV, DTH TV, and VoWi-Fi, plus the myriad uses of broadband via satellite, and you have a mix of feature sets... how will such impact GlobeCast?

Mary
GlobeCast has been either offering such services, or experimenting on nearly every platform you can imagine for television delivery. The company is already heavily involved in headend services for both MPEG-4 IPTV and 3G mobile television delivery in Europe for Orange and built their entire super headend at their teleport in Paris. World TV offers IPTV in Canada in partnership with a company called NeuLion. Currently being finalized is a major agreement with one of the leading telecom companies in the U.S. for an IPTV deal. Broadcasters of all sizes on all continents are being dealt with, as well as with the bouquet operators themselves. Convergence for GlobeCast is certainly a reality at this point.

SatMagazine
International sporting events are a major market for GlobeCast. What are the company’s plans for Beijing Olympic Games coverage? Does GlobeCast see the Beijing Games as one of the events that’ll drive HD TV ever forward?

Mary
International sporting events are always a fun challenge for broadcasters. Each one is different and the clients have specific requirements. GlobeCast is noticing that the percentage of HD feeds increase with each major event and, in response, has set up a full production and transmission center in Beijing with Beijing Media Services for the Games. The center is completely HD ready.

Events by themselves don’t drive HD—customers who purchase HD ready screens do. As the number of HD sets rise, so does the demand for High Definition and the demand is booming now and growing exponentially. On a global level, last year GlobeCast completely upgraded its fiber network to provide reliability and increased capacity, especially for HD content. Here in the U.S. they’re currently expanding their ability to ingest and deliver HD content from anywhere in the country directly into their fiber network.

SatMagazine
What is GlobeCast’s focus for 2008?

Mary
Aside from the specific cases of the HD expansion I just mentioned, and the huge IPTV deal I alluded to earlier, in a general sense, 2008 is already a year of offering more content and services to the customers. More platforms, more possibilities, and a more global reach to channels looking to expand into new markets.

SatMagazine
How does the executive team see events unfolding over the next few years regarding capacity availability as HDTV drives into consumer homes and businesses?

Mary
It is certainly a challenge. HD increases the demand for capacity, while compression gear such as MPEG-4 somewhat reduces the required bandwidth. Although it’s not enough, capacity demand still exceeds supply. Future growth is really being driven by the consumer’s expectation of a TV “find-me” experience, whereby anything they want is available in the home on everything from their large HD flat screens to their mobile personal devices and social networking sites using “citizen” video.

The challenge now is to make that experience seamless and easy by providing content management solutions for the “content kings” — they are known as the customers.