Connecting the Platform Behind Connected TV’s Loudest Voice

Connecting to Millions of Viewers Talpa Media’s voice is loud in the entertainment industry. So loud, that it’s heard in 180 countries worldwide. Who is Talpa? Part of the ITV Group as an independent label, Talpa is the global production company behind “The Voice,” “The Big Picture,” “Dance Dance Dance,” and many other wildly popular TV shows/formats that directly connect with their viewing audience. Instead of passively watching these shows from the living room couch, viewers actively participate via corresponding apps that enable play-along, voting, the submission of user generated content, and other interactive activities in real-time. This type of ‘connected viewing’ is the company’s response to the rapidly changing landscape of television, one that is getting more and more decentralized because viewers are using different devices and channels to watch content:

“We can basically distinguish two groups of viewers; traditional viewers who still watch television from the couch, and millennial viewers who watch our content from their mobiles. The big question is how can we reach both of these groups? Our strategy is to make connected formats that have global appeal and local relevance. Big shows that can be viewed on TV sets, but also with mobile devices, and to let everyone have great innovative experiences.” – Hylke Sprangers, Chief Technology Officer at Talpa

“The Winner Takes It All” illustrates Talpa’s connected TV strategy well. The show features regular people that sing famous songs competitively. Unlike other talent shows currently on air, it doesn’t have a panel of professional judges. Instead, viewers are the judges and vote on who should win or lose with the show’s app. With approximately 50% of viewers using the show’s app, The Winner Takes It All has generated the largest online jury in the Netherlands. And with the international success of “The Big Picture,” 500 million viewers regularly watching “The Voice,” and Talpa’s other shows generating millions of downloads globally, the company’s connected TV strategy is clearly working. Building a Connected Platform To create these connected formats, you need a very extensive and stable technology platform. The “Talpa Connect” platform makes it possible for the company to produce and run the most innovative multi-screen reality and entertainment shows globally. It is 100% cloud and API-based, and deploys a multi-format, multi-channel, multi-country strategy. With over 25 standardized back-end components and products, Talpa Connect enables the company to focus on innovation. In 2015, Talpa decided it was time to select an industry-standard online platform (OVP) to become part of Talpa Connect. After exploring several different solutions, Talpa chose thePlatform’s mpx to centralize, store, and manage all of its online video content:

“The end game here is that we have chosen thePlatform’s mpx to store and manage all our online video content, including user generated content. For apps, where users generate content, these will also be stored via mpx. So we are talking about hundreds of thousands of videos. Because we are a global company, and because of the success of The Voice, there’s a lot of online video content to manage.” - Hylke Sprangers, Chief Technology Officer at Talpa

Connecting with mpx Storing content and managing metadata in one central place will be an important step towards increasing Talpa’s workflow efficiency. Rather than using individual, disconnected components to store content and manage metadata for each of its 204 shows, Talpa’s production teams will use mpx to access and maintain all content:

“What was extremely important for us, as a global producer, is that we have a format-country- season-episode approach to metadata. If you are producing as many connected formats, apps and videos as we do, you need a very extensive metadata management system. mpx really stood out for metadata management since we needed to be able to categorize our videos in this way. We have a lot of formats being aired in a lot of countries. And a lot of seasons. Our new OVP needed to be very flexible and extensive, and that’s what mpx will provide.” - Hylke Sprangers, Chief Technology Officer at Talpa

Another important benefit that Talpa will gain from mpx is easier syndication. Talpa currently syndicates to a variety of media outlets, and heavily syndicates to YouTube. The YouTube connector in mpx will make it much easier for Talpa to syndicate to YouTube since it supports automation and content ID:

“On YouTube, we have generated approximately 9 billion video views so far. We currently operate about 85 YouTube channels. In the back-end, we need a very good OVP to support that. mpx will improve our workflow by putting everything in one central place and publish it to YouTube automatically with the connector.” - Bluette Sjardin, Vice President of Video Content at Talpa

And finally, standardization. As previously mentioned, standardization was the overriding goal of Talpa’s search for a new solution. Talpa needed an enterprise-class system with an open infrastructure that would let the company utilize new technologies:

2 “In the end, we wanted to go to an industry-standard platform because our focus is on innovation for our consumers. That’s our core. From a technology strategy point of view, we are trying to use as many standardized components… best-in-class components… AAA solutions in our back-end Talpa Connect platform. This was one of the missing pieces in our whole technology platform.” - Hylke Sprangers, Chief Technology Officer at Talpa

Although Talpa has been onboard with mpx for only a few months, the company says that it really likes mpx and believes that it has a great partnership with thePlatform. thePlatform Can Help You Connect For over 15 years, mpx has helped large media companies like Talpa improve video workflow efficiency, syndicate to hundreds of media outlets, and utilize the industry’s latest technologies. From metadata centralization to enterprise-class reliability, thePlatform can help your online video business thrive and in the future. Please give us a call to discuss your online video needs and learn how mpx can fulfill them: 1 (877) 436-7940

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