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24-Mar-2010
by John Moulding
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France Telecom’s content management challenge
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Content
Raoul Roverato, Executive VP of France Telecom, told delegates at IPTV World Forum on Wednesday that the company did not want to become a major content owner in the league of companies like News Corp. despite its successful use of content to boost its IPTV and mobile platforms. The focus for France Telecom today is on being in front of the consumer wherever they are, on every screen they use, with a reassuring customer experience.
“The consumer is surrounded by screens all day long including in the car, on the bus and on the train. They are watching content and they want to communicate with their families and access banking services,” Roverato noted. “They are surrounded by Google and Apple and Microsoft but as a service provider, this is your customer and those are your eyeballs and if you lose them you will soon be disintermediated.”
Roverato said the focus at France Telecom has always been on a multi-screen experience and he revealed that the company’s four video applications for the Apple iPhone have been downloaded at total of 1.2 million times.
He identified content management as a major challenge that has had to be addressed as the IPTV platform has scaled. Roverato said that with fibre, mobile, DTH satellite and ADSL distribution, ingesting content for each platform becomes a significant undertaking and there is a danger of errors in metadata and subtitles, etc. if the Content Management System cannot scale effectively. The company is tackling this issue currently.
About the author
John Moulding joined Videonet as editor at the start of 2010, having spent over 10 years writing about digital TV and the various technologies that have simultaneously disrupted and enriched the television business. With Videonet he is focused on the unstoppable march towards multiplatform, connected and personalized television. John was editor of Cable & Satellite International (now CSI) for six years before helping launch New Video Technology, and helped develop the IPTV World Series conference programmes from 2006-07. At home, he takes a Sky triple-play bundle, watches around one-third of content time-shifted, enjoys BBC iPlayer on television through the Wii, and eagerly awaits the arrival of YouTube on his own TV (the killer TV application for late on a Friday night). He is still loyal to channels - but can also remember when TV shut down after lunch.
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