Case Studies

Virgin Media Television (VMtv)

Virgin Media Television (VMtv) is a division of the UK entertainment and communications business Virgin Media, and with nearly 10 million customers is the largest Virgin company in the world. VMtv’s seven wholly owned channels are many of the strongest entertainment brands in U.K. multichannel television, and include LIVING, LIVING2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Challenge, Challenge Jackpot, and Virgin1. The portfolio spans pay and free-to-air television and has a growing presence on broadband, mobile, and on-demand platforms. VMtv is also a fifty percent partner in BBC Worldwide’s UKTV portfolio of ten channels.

In managing this significant volume of work, VMtv relies on newly upgraded ScheduALL Enterprise Resource Management (ERM) software. With ScheduALL, the Creative Village facility manages lines recording as well as the staff, rooms, and equipment in promo creation and compliance versioning, for programming delivered to major digital television platforms including Virgin Media, Sky Digital, and Freeview.

Arqiva

Arqiva has experienced spectacular growth in its satellite services business over the past five years, going from $50 million to $350 million in yearly revenues through a combination of acquisitions and new business. With this growth in resources came the ability to provide broadcasters, channel providers, and content owners with a complete portfolio of satellite and terrestrial broadcast media solutions. To pull its existing and newly acquired resources together in offering such services, the company sought to replace legacy and manual scheduling systems with a robust resource management solution that would enable it to identify and then allocate service components in a way that fits the customer’s product and delivery model.

“ScheduALL was an obvious candidate for our operations because the company already completed successful software implementations in the broadcast and satellite space,” says Julian Portman, finance director at Arqiva Satellite and Media. “Our operations present a significant challenge because they require the application of features across many different business areas. As a result, ScheduALL’s experience in addressing resource allocation across companies like Arqiva’s was key to our decision to work with ScheduLINK. We plan to grow our business along with the software, competing with other businesses in providing everything from the simplest service to the most complex package.”

VMMa

ScheduALL provides greater end-to-end visibility and control over its resources, and VMMa uses the software to centralize and simplify studio and shift planning, holiday planning, external cost processing, completion and reconciliation of jobs, and internal billing.

“ScheduALL was the only firm to give us a firm foundation on which to build our resource planning and cost accounting processes, which meant we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel as we adapted the system to our operations,” said Gerrit Libbrecht, project manager at VMMa. “We found that 80 percent of ScheduALL’s functionality was already suited to our organization, and the software’s flexibility enabled us to further meet our needs and tailor its implementation to our timeline.”

Mediaset Group

Commercial broadcasters and post-production facilities worldwide are feeling the pinch of today’s challenging economic climate, as well as the pressure of increasing competition in providing media to consumers. These media companies understand that continued profitability depends on their ability to do more with less, and this means maximizing the efficiency of workflows, improving the management of personnel, establishing beneficial vendor relationships, increasing productivity and controlling costs – all of which are elemental to realizing a consistent return on investment (ROI) throughout the business. Italy’s Mediaset serves as an excellent example of how a company can maximize its ROI through comprehensive resource management.

Al Jazeera English

As difficult market conditions make lean operations an imperative across all industries, broadcasters are seeking more aggressive means of streamlining their workflows, reducing costs, and improving productivity with existing resources. Al Jazeera English is an example of one broadcast channel that has been built from the ground up to leverage efficient resource planning toward a positive return on investment (ROI) and long-term viability within a competitive marketplace and challenging economy.

m2

To keep pace with its rapid growth, m2 needed to maximize the efficiencies of its staff and streamline its booking and scheduling processes. Replacing an outmoded manual system based on disconnected Microsoft® Word and Excel® documents, m2 chose to restructure its business around the ScheduALL EDGE™ resource management and scheduling solution. EDGE has equipped m2 with a powerful competitive advantage by enabling more productive project management, more effective financial management, and better strategic decision-making to boost profitability and overall financial performance.

NBC Olympics

Prior to its first ScheduALL implementation for the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, NBC relied on a manual process for managing and scheduling feeds. “Even in those days, sharing information and tracking the different components of a broadcast had become very burdensome. Now that we’re repurposing huge volumes of content for broadband streaming, in addition to providing 24-hour broadcasts from any number of our networks, we have far too many feeds to handle manually,” said Errol Foremaster, Vice President of Engineering Operations for NBC Olympics. “In such a high-pressure situation, we have no margin for error — so we can’t afford not to choose the absolute best-of-the-best technology solutions that work flawlessly and effectively. That’s why we continue to partner with ScheduALL.”