Accenture has been very busy helping Star India, 21st Century Fox’s main Indian business, build out a catch up TV service, using the video assets it developed in Europe. Already, the OTT platform has racked up 25 million live views during an Indian-Pakistan cricket match, to make it the most watched online sports event in India.
The beauty of this implementation is that given India’s poor broadband infrastructure with just 35 million phone lines, with only 12 million of those offering broadband, is that it was aimed first and foremost at affordable mobile phone delivery.
Star India is mostly a free to air TV service for India, but it also controls the 21st Century DTH interests represented by Tata Sky, one of the most successful DTH players in the region.
Star went to Accenture to develop hotstar, essentially a catch up system like BBC iPlayer delivered online. The service was launched on January 7th but Accenture’s involvement is only now coming out in the lead up to NAB. Once it is fully deployed, it will be available to India’s entire population.
hotstar was built around the Accenture Video Solution (AVS) software platform, which came out of work for Mediaset in Italy, KPN in the Netherlands and BT Sport in the UK. The new service is funded by advertising, using functions just added by Accenture, and it will give access to a catalog of 45,000 movies and TV series. Part of this solution comes from the code inherited from Myrio, which went into the KPN IPTV system. The multiscreen part of the system was engineered by Accenture itself.
Accenture helped Star India develop and launch the online video service to establish India’s largest online entertainment destination by building on a “mobile first” strategy. Leveraging AVS, Star can deliver broadcast-quality content to consumers on a wide variety of devices over WiFi, 4G, 3G and even 2G networks, including those with limited bandwidth resources such as 2G feature phones.
The world’s mobile phone operators are all preparing to shift viewing platforms to mobile devices, preferably in their control and seen over mobile, rather than WiFi networks. They may well beat a path to Accenture’s door if this implementation is successful.
“With hotstar, our ambition is nothing less than the establishment of a whole new model for on demand video consumption in the world,” said Sanjay Gupta, Star India COO. “We will drive dramatic innovation on this platform with benefits for both users and advertisers. Accenture has been a valuable partner in this effort.”
In addition to service delivery, Accenture is managing the hotstar operations using the client’s on-site team in Hyderabad and Accenture’s Global Video Operations Center in the Philippines.
The service supports more than 7,000 different digital devices with its mobile-friendly platform, which delivers video streaming and downloads in any of India’s urban and suburban areas.
“By creating a digital video service available on multiple screens, Star has secured its status as India’s most advanced next-generation content provider,” said Ashish Khanna, managing director for Accenture’s Communications, Media & Technology operating group in India. “It is one of the first services globally to offer entertainment, movies and sports on a single platform, for free while enabling new consumption models.”