Global digital media services company RR Media rebranded from RRsat in September 2014 to reflect its broader portfolio, following years of buying teleports, media centres and content service providers. SatelliteFinance Editor Jason Rainbow talks to CEO Avi Cohen to find out what lies ahead in the evolving company’s journey.
Global digital media services company RR Media rebranded from RRsat in September 2014 to reflect its broader portfolio, following years of buying teleports, media centres and content service providers.
SatelliteFinance Editor Jason Rainbow talks to CEO Avi Cohen to find out what lies ahead in the evolving company’s journey.
Jason Rainbow: What are the driving factors behind your company’s strategic shift to diversify and become RR Media?
Avi Cohen: Since its inception, RRsat had always been a satellite distribution company, but with the market changing fast – with more viewing alternatives, more channels, the multiscreen experience, the move to HD and other formats, and the globalisation of content – over the past few years we have been evolving from being mainly a content distribution firm with a focus on satellite, to becoming a full digital media services company.
The RRsat brand no longer conveyed an accurate portrayal of the company and its direction, so a rebrand seemed like a logical step after years of progress, including acquisitions, service enhancements, a strong foundation of customers and revenues, and investment in global infrastructure.
Our enhanced offering includes our scalable media service platform, enhanced media centres in the US, Europe and Middle East, and extended smart global distribution network with the ability to optimise content delivery across multiple screens and multiple devices.
The rebrand to RR Media reflected our commitment to offer a complete ecosystem of digital media services to our global customers, enabling customers to transform their original content into even more valuable media and entertainment products.
Since the rebrand, we’ve focused our service groups into four main areas: smart global content distribution network with an optimised combination of satellite, fibre and the internet; content management and channel origination; sports, news and live events; and online video services.
As part of our journey, we’ve recently launched solaRR, our open service platform, and solaRR Active, our customised sports media service platform, to help our customers maximise exposure and increase revenues through a virtualised, one-stop platform.
JR: Is RR Media still looking to branch out into other adjacent areas – what are you doing in OTT for instance?
AC: Absolutely, online video – including OTT – is one of our four main services areas. Converging broadcast and online video into one single workflow, we take the same piece of content and use that for traditional broadcast as well as online delivery. We actually do not see OTT as an adjacent area but rather as an expansion of our global services. We utilise our existing smart global network and infrastructure to take broadcast content to online audiences. This presents new business models for monetisation through subscriptions and advertising, and saves time and money to reach new audiences in multiple locations.
We also provide other online video services, such as content management systems, video-on-demand services, branded platforms, multi-screen delivery, connected device applications, web video portals and viewers’ measurement tools – using digital analytics.
JR: Is satellite TV in decline? How will it deal with increasing competition from internet TV?
AC: We see internet TV and online video as complementary to the traditional broadcast TV models. By combining our customers’ content offerings for both broadcast and online media audiences, we facilitate subscription and advertising opportunities in both domains.
Only a small number of companies have successfully managed to build a standalone online video business; all of these companies use broadcast TV original content in their core online video/internet TV offering. We should also remember that content companies’ revenue streams are still coming mainly from subscription and advertising of traditional TV and linear channels.
JR: How will you grow your business in broadcast services? I’ve heard that you want to double the size of your business in this area specifically.
AC: With the trend towards managed services, TV channels, broadcasters and media companies are increasingly outsourcing their operations and technical services to companies like ours.
RR Media’s innovative managed services model lets customers focus on creating exciting content, while we take care of everything else globally. With our new solaRR platform, we give our customers full visibility and control over their media operations and delivery so they feel confident with us managing and optimising their media assets.
JR: Recently, RR Media’s inorganic growth strategy appears to be increasingly focused on building scale – particularly in the broadcast services sector where you made your largest acquisition to date in June, buying up satellite transmissions group Satlink for US$19m. Are you still looking to grow with M&A?
AC: We continue to scale up organically and constantly look for the right opportunities to also grow inorganically, in order to enable greater audience reach and an improved user experience for our customers. We believe that consolidation is critical in order to create efficiency for our customers worldwide. Complexities of the services we provide are increasing and require an efficient global footprint to execute properly on our customers’ requirements.
With our virtualised solaRR platform and enhanced global media centers, we’re able to build on customers’ existing services quickly and efficiently, offering content preparation, management, playout and distribution to any screen, anywhere in the world.
As the fastest growing markets for broadcast and media services are in Asia and Latin America, we are also looking to grow our presence in these regions.
JR: How much is this need for scale being driven by larger players moving into your market, such as satellite fleet operator SES?
AC: Satellite operators increasingly need to provide value-added services, in addition to just satellite capacity. We see satellite operators slowly entering the services area, combining satellite capacity and networking services with other digital media services to offer a complete solution for their clients.
For satellite operators, moving into the media services space is a great challenge as they need to develop a new service offering and capabilities to address the changes in the market. It also forces them to completely relook at the ways they commercially engage with broadcast and media customers, offering them an integrated package of media and content distribution services.
We believe that the big players – around four to six – are here to stay as they enhance their infrastructure and delivery with value-added services to support the market requirements and new trends.
