Bbc & Encompass Annual Review
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BBC & ENCOMPASS ANNUAL REVIEW 2019 | 2020 www.encompass.tv CONTENTS Chief Executive’s Foreword .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 03 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 04 International Operations ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 05 Projects – A Year in Review .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 06 Interview – Nick Thompson & Nigel Fry ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 08 Focus on A’Seela ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Customer Survey 2019 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Satellite Operations and Contract Management ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 DRM – Bringing affordable Digital Radio to global audiences ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Looking Ahead .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16 The Encompass Team .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Contacts ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 18 YOUR CONTENT. DELIVERED. 2 Chief Executive’s Foreword Bill Tillson | CEO | Encompass Digital Media Hello, and welcome to this year’s Annual Review of Encompass’ relationship with the BBC World Service. It’s now been 23 years since the original outsourcing of World Service radio distribution and transmission. Although the name of the company delivering the services has changed a few times over the years, the core operating principles and values remain the same – to deliver the BBC’s world-class content to audiences around the world while maintaining high availability figures. Encompass continues to be proud to support the BBC’s ambition to reach 500 million audience members around the world each week. We have a growing international broadcast business with prestigious customers all over the world, and we are well aware of the important role we play in the success of those customers. The BBC is the linchpin of Encompass’ portfolio of global technology products – focused on supporting television and radio broadcasters, cable networks and OTT service providers. This year, we’ve completed another important milestone: the integration of the ex-Babcock business with Encompass and more specifically the migration of broadcast facilities from Wyvil Court (Vauxhall) to Encompass’ EMEA headquarters in Chiswick, creating a world-class, cutting edge technical facility – the London Media Centre (LMC). The LMC is now home to over a thousand services, including playout channels, VOD services, OTT solutions and live event streaming, and delivers content throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It’s also the central point of management and monitoring of the international radio and TV distribution services we provide to the BBC. In this year’s review, we highlight the continued growth of the BBC’s global audience through the expansion of international partners, involving close cooperation between the World Service’s Business Development and Encompass’ International Operations teams, as well as major capital projects such as the work in Cyprus and on Ascension Island to maintain and improve the BBC’s broadcast infrastructure at key FM radio relays. With our combined resources and new capabilities, Encompass now offers the BBC even more solutions to process and deliver content from any source, in any format, to any destination in the world. I’m looking forward to the next twelve months as we continue to build on our very successful relationship. YOUR CONTENT. DELIVERED. 3 Executive Summary Paul Firth | Commercial Director | Radio Services As we enter the 2020/21 financial year, we do so with a great deal of uncertainty compared to the previous 12 months. The coronavirus outbreak across the world is affecting the majority of the population one way or another. Some people have lost their loved ones while some have lost their jobs and their livelihoods. Others have had their freedom of movement restricted and many children are not going to school, all while a brave number of medical teams around the world work tirelessly every day to look after us all. At Encompass, like the BBC, we have members of staff who are working day and night to keep broadcasts on air and ensure audiences continue to receive news and entertainment. We thank them greatly. We hope the world can get on top of the virus as soon as possible and things can start to return to normal. In the pages of this review, all of the articles were, of course, collated at a time before coronavirus as it is a look back at the previous 12 months. The last year has seen tremendous work at a number of sites to maintain, improve and upgrade existing broadcast infrastructure: you will see this in the “projects” section, with a particular focus on a couple of interesting projects in Cyprus. All our HF station teams work very hard to ensure broadcasts reach audiences around the world. Each station faces unique challenges in their day-to-day operation, and in this review, we focus on the BBC shortwave and medium wave station in Oman at A’Seela. I’m sure you will find it fascinating reading all about life at the station surrounded by both desert and ocean! As ever, we are always keen to understand where we can improve our service to the BBC, and we have captured some of our feedback via the annual customer survey, with the results discussed in more detail here in this review. No matter how many years I’ve been doing this job, something always comes up that surprises me and lately that has been the case with the planned refuelling of the IS10-02 satellite mid-flight. What might seem like an interesting and pioneering exercise in satellite technology actually has a potentially large impact on millions people on the ground consuming content. It’s been a challenge to know what to do for the best for audiences around the world. The last 12 months has seen an incredible amount of interest in the world of digital international radio and in particular DRM. While the standard has been around for many years, it feels like we are at a tipping point, with receivers starting to be made more available to consumers and governments actively starting to declare it as a preferred standard. You will read about some of the advances that have been made here in this review. Finally, while we are living in unusual