New opportunities are opening to broadcasters who are willing and ready to create audience-specific businesses. We are not talking about meeting the lowest denomination of entertainment or reality programming that piques the interest of a large number of anonymous people. We are, however, talking about how to meet the needs of specific audiences that are highly interested in something special: Themselves and their individual cultures. At ECS we call this specialty: Diaspora World Broadcasting.
We have uncovered three major trends in Diaspora broadcasting that makes this service an exciting as well as a quickly changing marketplace.
First, immigrants to a new region seek news, entertainment, sports and culture from their homeland. Additionally, social networks, TV and Internet broadcasts are the first places they search for updates from their home regions. This makes TV an attractive audience for advertisers, especially those from the viewers’ home markets.
Second, immigrants often create their own channels to serve joint interests. These ventures can be based either in the homeland (partnerships with those living outside the country of origin), or in the new areas or regions where they live.
Third are the successful immigrant entrepreneurs who have done well in their new countries and wish to create bridges between the old and the new worlds.
ECS has developed methodologies to penetrate this market with special attention to the three segments described above and to create a viable business opportunity for these broadcasters. We understand the way people access content is not the same everywhere—differences exist between countries and even between various regions within a country.
To meet this variety, we created a multi-platform broadcast solution to maintain and build communities. By understanding the intricacies and subtleties of language, faith, cultures and technology, our solutions can reach the largest possible number of viewers in a target market who want to watch, listen or surf for information.
Together with our partners, we explore various options, map out the requirements for each solution, and then build the required distribution and contribution connections. Often, we are able to produce an offering to our client that comes in under the budget they originally set.
One key question is how to reach the audience and meet them on a daily basis. For broadcasters that do not have the means or resources to invest in multiple platforms or run advertising campaigns reaching audiences that are spread over large regions, this question is critical. ECS invests time and resources to find the right lever that empowers the channel to become an integral part of a community’s culture.
With dozens, hundreds and, in some regions, thousands of channels available on a viewer’s remote control for immediate surfing, it is vital to locate the channel at the correct neighborhood to make it easy for the audience to find the broadcaster’s location during regular channel surfing.
Another ECS expertise is in the creation of a cost-effective, thorough and reliable Internet-based platform to reach potential audience members and open up the channel for additional income opportunities. For meeting audiences at more places, more often, and with additional services, we enable VoD, EPG, Catch Up services as well as archiving content using smart and easy to recover methods. We develop modular scalable solutions that meet broadcasters’ needs when they initiate operations as well as when they grow their business.
For resource-constricted broadcasters, a modular approach that includes various distribution options works well. At ECS, we assist in bringing communications resources to a level commensurate with the broadcaster’s needs. Our job, as quickly as possible, is to take the channel to as many viewers as possible to grow that base. Our abilities to create smart play out and distribution programs make it easier for a broadcaster to then focus on content and business growth.
Some diaspora broadcast operations have few employees. In addition, some channels are started by entrepreneurs with minimal broadcast experience. For these businesses, we provide a full service and operations package from play out and studio space to station links and backhaul satellites to fiber or Internet transmission for directly reaching homes.
With 24/7 monitoring and feedback setups, including tech and engineering support, we enable broadcasters to reduce their costs while finding the voices that resonate with audiences. To complete the network, we create the proper package for transmitting the television broadcast over the Internet. Again, this frees up the broadcaster to focus on branding and market penetration efforts.
A new service, OTT (Over the Top), is a cloud-based platform offering broadcasters multi-screen distribution on multiple devices, from tablets to smartphones, laptops to PCs, online TVs to IPTV. Now viewers can browse, chat and interact, all simultaneously, via a superior viewing experience. This brings the audience even closer to their co-patriots, locally and in their homeland markets.
A key point is that our system automatically analyzes the network and adapts the service to a user’s available network bandwidth and characteristics. With OTT, audiences can connect easily and quickly with the broadcaster to create communities and bring themselves closer—a win-win situation for all concerned.
Reaching and incubating far-flung audiences will accelerate as the world continues to move into a Diaspora environment. For broadcasters, these migrations are an important backbone of business growth. ECS will continue to bring our firm’s talents and deep understanding to the market with solutions that provide access and links between communities.
There’s additional information at the ECS website: http://www.ecs-tv.com/
About ECS
European Communication Services is a top provider of End-to-End TV and radio distribution services through premium satellite packages and leading cable operators enabling broadcasters to strengthen their market footprints. Specializing in broadcast solutions for DTH, DTT and IPTV, we offer TV Channels and broadcasters secure access to satellites, cable operators and terrestrial packages throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, Asia, and Australia. Being able to provide these services in a world in which immigration and emigration change local populations is especially important.