LONDON -- April 3, 2012 -- Pilat Media Global plc (AIM: PGB), a leading supplier of business management software to the media industry, today announced that its flagship Integrated Broadcast Management System (IBMS) has been enhanced with a powerful set of new features for catch-up TV services. The new tools enable broadcasters to accelerate the availability of catch-up TV offerings across multiple delivery platforms and devices through advanced scheduling automation.
"Catch-up or replay TV services are becoming more popular as viewers demand the ability to watch their favorite shows on their own schedule, and on the devices of their choice. Our broadcasting customers have been asking for a more efficient and cost-effective means of scheduling and managing these services," said Avi Engel, CEO of Pilat Media. "Whereas the scheduling of catch-up TV previously required operators to identify programs individually for the service and then manually create a catch-up slot on the schedule for each program, these new features take advantage of the built-in workflow configuration tools in IBMS to provide a new level of automation and control."
With the new catch-up functionality, the IBMS:OnDemand add-on module links linear schedules to catch-up schedules and applies rights-aware business rules to determine which programs have catch-up rights. IBMS then automatically creates a catch-up offer based on the rights and additional criteria defined by the broadcaster. For instance, a program's rights might specify that only a certain number of episodes within a season can be made available for catch-up, and only on certain platforms, and the broadcaster has determined that the offer will be available for the week following the original broadcast. IBMS therefore takes into account all variations in rights, scheduling parameters, and delivery platforms for multiple catch-up services.
"The new catch-up features are just one more example of how broadcasters can use IBMS to schedule both linear and on-demand programs all within a single system -- even for a highly complex array of offerings," said Engel. "In addition to the new efficiencies and cost savings that come with automating formerly manual scheduling tasks, IBMS helps broadcasters to better monetize programs and develop new revenue streams through such services as catch-up and VOD."
More information about the complete IBMS product family is available at www.pilatmedia.com.
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About Pilat Media
Pilat Media Global plc (AIM: PGB) develops, markets, and supports business management software solutions for content and service providers in the media industry. Designed with the direct involvement of top-tier broadcasters, Pilat Media's systems improve business performance; accelerate time to market; and enable diversification and growth of content programming, advertising sales, traffic, and media operations for multiplatform linear and on-demand services. More than 60 blue-chip media companies around the world use Pilat Media solutions, including CBS, Corus, Discovery, SABC, Chello DMC, the BBC World Service, Media General, Sky Italia, ESPN Star Sports, and Foxtel. These and other deployments represent the management of billions of dollars in advertising revenue and programming that reaches hundreds of millions of viewers. More information is available at www.pilatmedia.com.
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