Australia’s SBS Taps Ericsson for Media Delivery Services

Ericsson has signed an exclusive media delivery services contract with Australian public service broadcaster, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). The contract, which followed a competitive tender process, sees Ericsson aggregate, prepare and deliver content from multiple international content owners and distributors through its broadcast and media services hub in London and deliver media assets directly into SBS’s headquarters in Sydney in a format ready for transmission.

Ericsson also provides Quality Control and delivers full technical metadata, adhering to SBS’s technical and editorial specifications.

Noel Leslie, Chief Technology Officer, SBS, says: “This is a fantastic milestone for SBS’s Acquired Content Delivery and Technology teams; transitioning from a manual delivery process to a digitised process when receiving international content. It gives us a more streamlined and efficient way to aggregate programs for our audience who enjoy watching global content.”

Thorsten Sauer, Head of Broadcast and Media Services, Ericsson, says: “We are proud that SBS has selected Ericsson to deliver these critical broadcast services. We have designed our media management services to help our clients to streamline their operations and provide them with the flexibility and agility they need to meet the demands of managing media assets in an always on, multi-screen world.

“This flexibility, combined with leading edge technology and efficient workflows, allows us to create a cost effective solution tailored to each client. This contract win is another milestone in our long-standing relationship with SBS and we look forward to strengthening this relationship further over the coming years.”

Ericsson is a global provider of broadcast and media services, and has worked with some of the world’s most well-known broadcasters, platforms and content producers, including BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT Sport, ITV, FOX, DreamWorks, Liberty Global, NPO, Canal+, NOS, Bonnier Group, Sky, HBO, TV5 Monde and France 24. Every year, Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services distributes more than 2.7 million hours of programming in more than 90 languages for more than 500 TV channels worldwide. Ericsson’s global content discovery portfolio spans more than 10 million movies and program titles covering over 35 languages. Globally more than 200 million people interact with Ericsson’s rich metadata each week. In addition, Ericsson provides over 230,000 hours of subtitling each year – more than 100,000 hours of which is live.

Earlier this year, Ericsson announced a multi-year access services contract with SBS to provide both live and file based captions for SBS TV.