Quality of user experience drives EBU platforms project

The EBU Strategic Program element on platforms is being chaired by Anssi Komulainen, chief innovation officer with YLE. Asked why he had taken the job he said: “The only way for us to survive as a European storyteller and to keep telling stories of what the cultures of Europe are, is to join forces.

“We have to see ourselves as an ecosystem where we have to collaborate and work on common goals, and understand ourselves as a continent,” he added.

The EBU coordinator for SP Platforms is Sebastien Noir, senior manager for software engineering. He said: “What we aim to do is to be on the side of the end users. There are obvious technology questions, but it is not so much about how you transmit the content. It is all around what kind of end-user experience we are trying to shape.”

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YLE Arena is the only OTT service that beats Netflix in its own territory, so Komulainen is well placed to balance the primary objectives set by the EBU technical committee with facing up to the giants of OTT.

“I guess we have to differentiate the third-party platforms, where we want to partner with another platform and distribute our content via their services,” he said. “Then we have our own platforms. We are a network of public service broadcasters and together we are not tiny. It is a sizeable market.

“We have to find a way to combine our forces,” he added. “As a public services broadcaster we need to present as many platforms as we can, and we need to be delivering the best possible user experience. Sebastien and I are trying to organise the SP in a way that we first ask EBU members to identify the shared common problems or issues that we all want to address together. Then we will set up the project groups.”