LONDON—7fivefive said it will expand its work for BBC Studios’ Global Media & Streaming team and that it is helping the U.K. public broadcaster’s studio arm scale its virtual infrastructure.

As part of that effort, 7fivefive is delivering the remote editing backbone that supports postproduction and content-based workflows. In addition, 7fivefive is working in tandem with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the selected cloud provider, to help BBC Studios realize its cloud-first strategy.

7fivefive’s cloud expertise now underpins the Global Media & Streaming teams’ postproduction process, enabling creative teams to manage resources efficiently and collaborate across different time zones. Throughout the project, 7fivefive has provided strategic consultation, designing and implementing solutions that maximize responsiveness and reduce overheads, the integrator said.

The system is designed to dynamically scale active resources, with automated controls enhancing productivity. Virtual workstations can be provisioned and optimized based on real-time requirements, empowering users to self-serve without compromising on performance. Different teams receive customized resources that are best suited to specific creative tasks, across editing, graphics, color grading, compliance and branding.

The latest phase of the project harnesses the capabilities of Adobe and AWS within a unified cloud environment. Regional departments can seamlessly transition between projects, access secure content from anywhere, manage allocation and act on data-driven insights. Predictive cost metrics and automated budget management are based on detailed analytics. This ensures that business objectives are met without compromising on creative quality or operational goals.

“7fivefive's cloud expertise and practical insight has been key in helping us modernize our creative technology stack and post-production workflows, allowing us to implement meaningful optimizations with confidence and efficiency,” said Emma Ellis, creative services technology manager, Global Technology, at BBC Studios. “These enhancements have increased flexibility across our creative teams, allowing seamless access to remote editing resources and global media content from anywhere. This shift has not only introduced additional operational efficiencies, but has ensured we can continue delivering high-quality, engaging content to our audiences worldwide.”

Added 7fivefive Managing Director Tim Burton: "We are extremely proud to continue our long-standing partnership with BBC Studios, providing the technology, insights, and strategic support that helps to power its cloud-first approach to post-production infrastructure. These workflows enable creative teams to focus on the task at hand, whilst the complexity of integrated cloud resources is handled via an intuitive interface. Our shared commitment to innovation ensures that hey are well-equipped for the challenges of tomorrow’s media landscape.”

Adam Jakubowski, vice president of technical operations, Global Technology at BBC Studios, said: “The collaboration with 7fivefive has played a key role in our cloud trajectory. We have scaled virtual post-production workflows over the past five years, and adaptive resource allocation continues to provide significant cost and workflow efficiency gains. The flexibility of this solution means we can respond to evolving business and industry needs and enhance the autonomy and agility of our creative teams.”

More information is available here.

LONDON—Getty Images and BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC, has announced the launch of a new platform giving its customers unprecedented access to BBC archive video along with new search, purchase and download capabilities.  

Designed to intuitively enable end-users to select and order content, the platform is powered by MAM software specialists VIDA Content OS.

The platform allows easy access to over 57,000 programs from the BBC archive which was previously only available offline by a heavily manual process. Customers can now securely search the entire digitized library, view, annotate, clip, share, and download previews for use within projects. Post clearance, the high-resolution masters are available immediately, providing significant benefits for fast turnaround projects.

It also offers curated collections around upcoming events and commissioning trends as well as the latest Speech to Text tools to enable program makers to ‘transcript search’ all assets, bringing to light previously hidden content from BBC Motion Gallery’s vast archive. 

“The VIDA platform is a significant breakthrough in making BBC content more accessible for our customers around the world,” said Paul Davis, vice president of media and production EMEA at Getty Images said, Our team is increasingly working as a creative partner, able to assist from ideas stage through production and this platform will considerably enable our efforts in supporting producers to derive successful, returnable shows for the global market.” 

“Our partnership with Getty Images is focused on getting BBC content into the hands of program makers around the world,” added Chris Hulse, head of BBC Motion Gallery at BBC Studios added. “This new platform is a game changer for us, surfacing a wealth of previously offline BBC content, now accessible on-demand for the first time ever.” 

“We’re delighted to power the integration of BBC Motion Gallery and Getty Images,” noted Symon Roue, managing director at VIDA. “As the archive footage licensing industry grows year over year, customers expect an integrated and efficient supply chain for servicing of catalogue. Accessibility to the clips that matter, using the latest cloud and AI technology, is where Content OS excels.”

The new platform expands the on-demand offering of BBC content for Getty Images customers who can already access over 200,000 BBC editorial and creative clips on gettyimages.com. 

Getty Images offers an expansive video library of over 25 million video clips, including footage from a range of world-renowned broadcast, studio, film-maker and archive partners. Available to customers are contemporary, archive and creative footage, including more than 12 million clips in 4K and vast offline archives from BBC Motion Gallery and NBC News. 

NEW YORK—BBC Studios has announced a deal with Amazon Freevee to exclusively launch five new FAST channels to audiences across the U.S. 

At launch on October 17th, the new FAST channels will showcase over 1,000 hours of content, including “The Catherine Tate Show”, “Misfits”, and “Without Limits” will be available to stream on Amazon Freevee in the U.S.

“With an extensive catalog spanning countless genres, we’re uniquely positioned to curate new entertainment experiences that leverage the best of our fan-favored British content, for every type of audience,” said Beth Anderson, general manager, senior vice president of FAST & VOD Sales, North America and Latin America at BBC Studios. “As more and more viewers discover the joys of discovering classic TV shows on FAST platforms, we’re delighted to debut our new suite of customized channels on Amazon Freevee in the US. FAST is becoming a larger part of the TV-viewing landscape, and we’re committed to meeting the demand and growing our FAST footprint here in the US.”

This significant content deal marks BBC Studios' latest launch with a major FAST service platform since first entering the FAST space in 2019. 

With the new launches, BBC Studios will be offering seventeen editorially-curated FAST channels in the U.S. 

The companies described the five new channels as follows: 

• BBC Comedy. Laugh your way through 300+ hours of comedy content featuring Catherine Tate, Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie. From talk shows to sketch to stand-up, this channel offers the best in British comedy. 
• BBC Gameshows. Test your trivia mettle with BBC Game Shows, featuring the best British quiz and competition programming. With big money and bragging rights on the line, play along with contestants in games of strategy, chance, and cunning, with celebrity special guests. 
• BBC Sci-Fi. Travel to a new dimension with 200+ hours of mind-bending science fiction. Embark on a cosmic journey across genres, including hilarious space comedies, sci-fi panel shows, supernatural teen dramas, and cutting-edge scientific documentaries. 
• BBC Travel. Journey to diverse destinations across the globe with BBC Travel. With a host of celebrity presenters like Stephen Fry and Ewan McGregor, programs range from the funny to the fantastic, showcasing the captivating people and places of our world. 
• Silent Witness/New Tricks. Crack the case with these beloved long-running crime dramas. Follow teams of pathologists and retired detectives as they work to unravel mysterious murders. 

LUXEMBOURG—SES has been selected by BBC Studios (BBCS) and its subsidiary UKTV to manage the playout and distribution of more than 50 linear channels, as well as their associated video on demand services via a new multi-year agreement.

SES will now provide playout, content processing, distribution and VOD services for the delivery of BBCS and UKTV content to affiliates across the globe and in the U.K. The services will be based on SES’s European global delivery services—technical playout infrastructure will be provided from SES’s new London facility; the company’s Munich playout facility will oversee operational management.

“Our London and Munich service delivery approach is specially crafted so that broadcasters and production houses like BBCS and UKTV can focus on producing great content while we take care of the content preparation, playout and delivery,” said Steve Collar, CEO of SES. “This dual facility approach is fundamental to our success in ensuring that we have always-on, fully backed-up content delivery services and will enable us to provide the highest quality of service for BBCS.”

“By selecting SES, we believe we have found a partner that is committed to delivering innovation and can meet our business needs going into the future,” added Marcus Arthur, president, U.K., Ireland BBC Studios & CEO UKTV.

The deal is said to also build on BBCS and UKTV’s desire for cloud innovation in the media industry, per SES’s announcement.

For more information, visit www.ses.com. 

ELSTREE, ENGLAND – BBC Studios and Post Production have reevaluated its audio mixing architecture and has decided to replace the HARMAN Studer Vista 8 with the new HARMAN Studer Vista X at the George Lucas stages in Elstree, England.

BBC Studio's Sound Supervisor, Andy Tapley, working on the Vista X.

A fully redundant setup, the new system offers increased I/O capacity and processing featuring a new Infinity Core, with 12 high-capacity/high-speed A-link audio interfaces that provide more than 5,000 inputs and outputs and more than 800 audio DSP channels. The system also includes VistaMix for automated microphone mixing.

The Vista X is accompanied by four high-density D23m frames, which break out the A-link fiber connections to standard analogue, digital and video interfaces. The new frames are also backwards compatible with D21 cards. Studer’s new design philosophy - moving DSP from SHARC to Intel CPUS - offers more power and expandability. Other features include a history display to show the last 50 seconds of waveform audio for each fader, and FaderGlow, which provides a color reference on the desk to identify the right fader.

HARMAN develops connected audio, visual and infotainment systems and is based out of Stamford, Conn.