Abe Naga

As broadcasters worldwide move towards delivering content on multiple screens,  we witness a similar revolution among top-tier broadcasters in the Middle East. In an exclusive interview with Vijaya Cherian, the digital heads of FTA network  MBC and pay-TV operator OSN talk about their varied business models, the  technologies they have adopted and the challenges that lie ahead. We begin with Abe Naga, Head of Digital Business at MBC Group

In July 2013, MBC Group proudly declared that its Shahid.net app for Apple devices had hit 1.1 million downloads. Between Shahid.net, the web site and the app, MBC today boasts around 3.6 million users watching content. The average visitor duration on the web site is approximately 28 minutes. During Ramadan this year, a whopping 38 million videos were watched on Shahid.net. These figures are no small achievement for the television network that has revolutionised the free-to-air television space in the Arab world.

Shahid.net is MBC’s video-on-demand (VoD) and catch up service portal. Although it was launched as a minor VoD service in 2008 on the MBC web site; it was eventually made into a standalone portal called Shahid.net in 2010 and developed into a catchup service offering series, programmes, cartoons, and documentaries from MBC’s Arabic bouquet. The web site has witnessed exponential growth in the last three years, and broke all records this Ramadan with the 38 million videos.

MBC’s aim is to target the Arab-speaking community and, therefore, its VoD service is primarily focused on Arabic content, explains Abe Naga, Head of Digital Business at MBC Group.

“Our focus is on Arabic content because this is where the internet is lacking. Western content is well catered for globally through Netflix and other platforms. We want to lead in this area by offering Arabic content on multiple devices,” he says.

Naga was perfectly suited to lead the digital group at MBC. The American Egyptian brought many skills to the table. With a Degree in Business and a Masters in Information Technology (IT) as well as work experience as Creative Director in advertising with a special focus on online media, Naga had all of the skills necessary to lead the team at MBC Group.

Since then, there has been no turning back for Naga, who has helped launch each of MBC’s web sites, several apps for various programmes, Shahid online and as recently as last month, MBC Now.

As MBC’s digital product offering has grown, so has its digital team of developers, designers, editors and engineers who are spread across the region in several different cities including Dubai, Cairo, Riyadh, Amman and Beirut.

One month after the launch of MBC Now, the broadcaster reported 606,000 downloads of its app across iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry devices. The app enables viewers to engage with its programmes and with each other.

MBC Now is actually the culmination of previous efforts in 2011 by MBC to introduce apps for specific shows.

“For all of our flagship programmes such as Arab Idol, Arabs Got Talent and The Voice, we had developed separate companion apps that allowed the viewer to engage with the show, during the show when it aired and in between episodes. So we have always had programme-focused, second-screen applications that were very successful. The apps go beyond enabling you to interact with the show to helping you know more about the programme than what you see on TV, reading more about it, watching more content, interacting with the show itself and interacting with other users. So it really has a social spin to it. People tend to watch TV together in groups and even if you are alone, you can connect with other people in their homes through these applications,” explains Naga.

In addition, each app allows the user to engage with the show differently. For example, with Arabs Got Talent last year, the app had a buzzer that allowed users to buzz the contestant if they did not like their performance. The app created for Arab Idol allowed people to record their own auditions and submit it and, in turn, allowed other people to rate it.

“Each app offered the user a completely different spin to their experience,” says Naga.

“But we thought we would take this to the next level. We wanted our viewers to have the same level of engagement with our entire network, not just some select shows. That is how MBC Now came about,” he adds.

Most of these apps have been developed by external vendors.

“For apps, we work with not less than eight different development companies. Each company specialises in something different — whether it’s the OS they develop for iOS, Android, Windows or Blackberry devices or the nature of the project itself like an interactive game or a second screen or VOD.

“These apps also need to tie into our infrastructure so we use one content management system (CMS) i.e. Magnolia for all of our content. There are aspects that are built into it internally and others that are outsourced because we are making apps for the Blackberry, iOS, Android and a lot of devices. It’s difficult to develop everything internally.”

Unlike MBC’s linear broadcast operations, its digital facility is fairly new and, therefore, runs as a separate entity within the network.

“The broadcast systems designed for rights management, scheduling and playout are built specifically for broadcasting, not web publishing. There are synergies between the broadcasting and online systems but not all of our systems have to talk to each other at all levels,” clarifies Naga.

One of the key elements within this digital facility is the Magnolia CMS, which MBC has customised significantly to cater to its broadcast requirements.

“We use Magnolia to manage all of MBC’s online properties including MBC.net, Shahid.net and Al Arabiya. Two years ago, we decided to use a single CMS for all of our sites and started migrating one site after the other onto Magnolia. Primarily, we started with mbc.net.

“Since Magnolia is an open source platform, we were able to customise and develop it further to suit our specific business needs and requirements as a broadcaster. We developed our own custom workflows and developed specific modules for managing programme schedules across the network. We also made some core changes to how content is pooled within the CMS to allow for re-using the content across different channels or even programmes. We worked closely with Aperto on the development and system integration as they are Magnolia’s official partner. They were also involved in the development of the latest major release, most notably the Standard Templating Kit (STK) it contains.”

Naga, however, is quick to add that MBC begins its major projects by working with specialised systems integrators but “gradually builds up the expertise and experience within the company”.

Delivering content to multiple platforms and devices is not without its challenges however. One of the big issues is identifying the right standard.

Flash, for instance, has been the standard for years when it came to online video but Apple announced that it would not support Flash on any of its mobile and tablet devices and would only support HTML5.

“Nowadays, the technologies used and the standards that are adopted are primarily based on a device-distribution strategy. Each device has different specs and supports different standards starting from the OS to the middleware to the applications and that can run all the way to the videos they can play,” explains Naga.

“In our case, we chose to standardise our video encoding and format to MP4 (H.264) and our delivery protocol to HLS. But in order to do so, we had to use special plugins to support HLS on Windows phones (for instance) as they are not supported natively,” he adds.

MBC has also been careful to keep its workflow fairly uncomplicated.

A typical workflow would see a 50 Mbps HD file that is used for traditional TV taken from the storage server and transcoded down to a mezzanine format, reducing it to a 5 Mbps H.264 MP4 file to make it web ready. It is then uploaded to MBC’s cloud-based video platform.

In the cloud, the file is then transcoded to six different renditions, then segmented to small chunks for adaptive bit rate streaming and finally made available for delivery through the content delivery network (CDN).

MBC presently works with three CDNs including Limelight, Level 3 and Akamai to maximise the reach of its content in different markets.

“We chose to work with three CDNs instead of one because each of them are strong in different markets. Each of them have varying points of presence (PoP) in different countries and territories, so their performance will also vary from one territory to the other. Even in territories where PoPs are not available, proximity to other PoPs in combination with how traffic is routed will vary from one CDN to the other,” he adds.

This, however, meant, making some changes to MBC’s video delivery architecture as its origin servers are hosted with only one of the CDN providers.

“As a result, after the files are transcoded and segmented, and stored in our origin storage servers, we now have an independent caching layer in place for caching all of these assets. Each CDN will request it from this caching layer, which is a neutral environment from where they can all connect,” he explains.

Using three different CDNs also enables the broadcaster to shift between the providers if any of their respective performances slacken, says Naga.

Historically, CDNs have not been very active in the region and the scarcity of PoPs and the lack of peering agreements between ISPs and each other have made online video delivery a significant challenge in the region. However, all of that has changed in the last two years with CDNs showing greater interest in this region.

There have also been recent initiatives like the UAE-IX, the first carrier-neutral Internet exchange platform in the Middle East, that are aimed at resolving such issues.

Perhaps, one of the key topics of discussion with regards to multiple screens is the question of how well broadcasters are able to monetise the content that they are making available freely on multiple platforms.

MBC’s primary business model has always been securing revenue through ad sales and programme sponsorships. It is, however, developing other revenue models as well along the way.

For instance, viewers of popular Turkish drama series on MBC can subscribe by SMS to watch a five-minute recap of an episode one day prior to it being broadcast on television. In other cases, they may subscribe to an SMS news alert service.

Although not a pay TV provider, MBC reiterates that security is also an important issue for the broadcaster and all of its content is securely delivered and encrypted.

“Encryption is not just for pay TV companies. We don’t just encrypt our content to prevent users from watching it; we also encrypt it so that online pirates don’t steal it and put it on another web site,” explains Naga.

MBC, however, has only begun its digital journey. Shahid is currently available on Apple iPads and was also recently launched on Windows phones. However, there are plenty more devices in the pipeline.

“By the end of the year, Shahid will be available across all mobile and tablet devices,” claims Naga.

In addition, MBC is also working on apps for set-top boxes, game consoles and is in talks with connected TV vendors.

“This is an ongoing project,” Naga says.

“The digital medium has become more central to the media business. Social media may have been perceived as a fad before but now you rarely see a programme without Twitter or Facebook integrated in one way or the other.

“People seem to be spending more time in the digital world and it seems to be compelling viewers to consume more TV. Essentially, that’s the purpose of digital media extensions today. It helps to extend your TV consumption beyond the traditional screen.”