Warner Bros. Discovery outsourced distribution of 18 of its most popular channels to India's largest OTT platform, while Skandha automated all playout services and monitoring at its MCC.
Warner Bros. Discovery has outsourced the distribution of some of its most popular channels – including Discovery, Animal Planet, CNN International, Eurosport, Pogo and Cartoon Network – to India's largest OTT platform.
The company has partnered with Skandha Media Services, a broadcast and digital operations company that uses cloud infrastructure, automation, AI and machine learning to carry out managed services for broadcasters, OTT platforms, content owners and aggregators and rights holders. The company specialises in scalable playout systems and centralised resources.
Within a limited timeframe, Skandha configured 18 channels to Warner Bros. Discovery's specifications in time for distribution to go live on the specified OTT platform on 15 June. Automated services for Warner Bros. Discovery are performed from Skandha's Media Capability Centre (MCC) in Mumbai, including downlinking, transcoding, packaging, distribution and 24/7 monitoring of each channel.
A key factor in Warner Bros. Discovery's decision to partner with Skandha was the company's reputation among Asia's larger media and entertainment organizations for delivering mainstream channels, brands and franchises across streaming, OTT and linear broadcast channels.
Skandha's Mumbai Media Capability Centre
Skandha has devoted considerable effort into the development of Media Capability Centres (MCC) in India as a valuable means of outsourcing. According to a recent report by EY, India now hosts about 50 MCCs, which are a specialised type of Global Media Capability Center focussed on the M&E industry. MCCs are hubs built to centralise, optimise and scale media operations across broadcast, digital, sports, gaming, publishing and advertising. They are able to address the special demands of M&E businesses, which need to blend creative, operational and technical expertise.
An MCC’s centralised approach creates efficiencies not only in localization, compliance, audience insights and data analytics, but also in sourcing talent and skills in content creation, post-production and VFX. Other advantages exist for global-scaled delivery and high-volume media workflows.
In all, Skandha sees MCCs as a practical way for organisations to limit their CAPEX for infrastructure investment, and reduce in-house OPEX over time. Organizations keep control over their own operations without relying on third parties, while scaling up or down, and have flexibility in terms of, people, technology infrastructure and process. In response, Skandha has developed an MCC AI-driven workflow, security features and automated QC.
India itself has advantages such as 24x7 operations, multilingual media handling, existing expertise in broadcast and OTT and cost efficiency.
Complete Content Life Cycle
Skandha’s expertise covers the complete content life cycle – from software development and system architecture design to downlinking, hosting, playout, ad monetization and digital operations – for major live events, and for VOD and OTT channels across Asia and beyond. As well as tailored linear and VOD services, Skandha develops a live stream monetization platform and customises packages for content production. Supporting large scale media organizations, Skandha has executed over 25,000 playout operations and streamed more than 150,000 hours of content, with nearly 60 million views to date.
"Skandha's proven track record in serving top tier brands and managing all types of broadcasters gave us confidence in their ability to deliver our channels to diverse audiences as part of our recent collaboration with India's premier on-demand video platform," said Prashant Dhar, Director Technical Operations, Distribution & Broadcast at Warner Bros. Discovery. "In the short time we've worked with Skandha, they've already demonstrated dependable support, efficiency and professionalism using structured processes to meet our requirements.” www.skandhams.com
