GLOBECAST - Valoriser les infrastructure cloud AWS dans des offres de services aux broadcasters

I'll just give a brief introduction. I arrived at Globecast on the very first day of lockdown — about two and a half years now. For almost two years I barely saw anyone in person. Starting a transformation at a company when you can't see people is a vast topic. By the way, when I almost came to Globecast — I say 'almost' because I refused at first. I didn't believe in it. I thought, 'They're too old, doing stuff with satellites — no, I'm not going.' But then I met Philippe Bernard, who told me, 'Don't worry, we're going to force destiny here, we can make this work.' So I'm going to tell you what Globecast was, very quickly since I think many of you already know, and then what we do today. This is a real company transformation.

Our job today is to help all our clients manage the major transformation they're facing — whether it's DTT, satellite, or otherwise. These are all transformations, as you heard in Cristina's presentation and everyone else's. We operate in a new ecosystem with orchestration challenges, cost challenges, content contribution, media supply chain, delivery, and playout. Our positioning is to sell end-to-end solutions where we bear full operational responsibility. We have 800 clients today, everywhere on the planet — basically the 800 biggest broadcasters on earth. Technology and skills are extremely important, but Globecast's real value today is its clients. We have eight physical points of presence worldwide, and we're moving toward cloud-based services. We have eight points of presence with operations worldwide, with building blocks that look like clouds where we're heading. We do contribution, playout, logistics, DVB, and satellite. We're also doing OTT with real success — about fifteen clients, including one significant one on the French market where we positioned an end-to-end channel with a delivery platform on AWS, with Viaccess-Orca.

I'll move fast because otherwise I'll still be here in an hour. We launched a company-wide transformation program called Globecast 2024, which identifies four business transformations. The first, which we'll set aside for now, is called 'Digital Platform' — it's about our new clients: YouTube, Facebook Watch, Amazon, DAZN, Twitch, all the platforms to whom we deliver content including sports. Facebook Watch carries significant weight in our business today. From an offer structuring standpoint, we talk about OTT, media supply chain, and remote production infrastructure. Unlike most broadcasters here, Globecast doesn't aim to do in-house production — we'll never do that, it's not our business. But setting up infrastructure for multi-camera production from all French stadiums within two years — that is our business, in France and internationally with major sports organizations. When I met Kevin, I roughly sketched something similar to his slides — I actually copied them, but they were happy about it. This structuring is really important for us.

Content contribution, arriving at the audience — at each stage there's a software dimension becoming more important. We're trying to limit capex as much as possible, moving toward software and expertise. Remote production is coming — it's complicated, requires enormous resources, and there's an ecosystem to stabilize with major production companies to interface with. We're getting there. Media supply chain — I confirm, it's the most complicated topic we handle. Logistics, asset management, play out, pop-up channels, disaster recovery, localization — what does doing media supply chain in the cloud bring? Flexibility and business agility for our clients. That's the key point. Satellite remains important — 27 satellites, 4,100 satellite ports, 7,000 channels passing through our network daily in Paris alone. This slide about automation is important: yes, we can automate everything, put software everywhere, but behind all of that you still need people to push a button at the right moment, because the match isn't over and you can't cut the transmission. Our vision is that the transition from the old world to today's world is a smooth, guided transformation — you don't change a business overnight.

So that's our business today: cloud, software, integration. When I arrived at Globecast, I kept saying what a shame — we haven't developed anything in-house, we don't have our own technology. After three months, I changed my mind. That's Globecast's great strength: we find the best partners and innovations, whether tiny or very large, for each project. Change management is extremely important. The decision to go to the cloud is technical but the impact is truly at every level — even HR needs cloud training to know how to find the right profiles. I was in London yesterday because the team needs to recruit. I'm not an engineering expert, but recruiting a commercial person in the UK who talks about OTT and cloud, I know how to do that. The impact is everywhere — from the CEO down. Without clear willingness from top management, we'll never get there. You need to open ecosystems. When I arrived, we had a few suppliers and clients; now we have a partnership director managing 40 to 50 partners. A development done in London relies on building blocks set up by Singapore for a service operated in Los Angeles — that truly globalizes us.

Which cloud to choose? There are technical considerations — global coverage, security — but in our business there's the real-time problem. What really made us switch to AWS was the clients. All major clients are present on AWS, and Discovery planted a very strong seed in my president Philippe Bernard's mind when he understood they were moving all their playout. He said, 'It's not possible — we can't continue our business if Discovery does that and we don't.' Beyond the community, there are already functional building blocks in place, and our job is to select the right ones based on client needs, adding technology from AWS partners to reach the expected service. Regarding the community, the functional bricks, the security — we have three pillars for Globecast's transformation. First, our vision is toward full public cloud with microservices. Second, we're a technology integrator, which implies massive team transformations — adding developer profiles very different from what we had. Third, there's a very strong impact on operations, because all of this doesn't work the same way.

What's the reality today? I'm very proud to share that we just signed in Singapore a live chain for beIN Sport — fully in the cloud on AWS. That means many feeds coming from everywhere that need to be coordinated, plus nine simultaneous pop-up channels created based on events, matching the granularity we discussed. Similarly, Clan Médias — we do the same for American clients with operations in Singapore, cloud on AWS. PMU — very interesting, I'll keep it short. PMU resells live race content internationally, but they don't have the rights to distribute the same channels everywhere. They need blackout handling across 35 countries. We worked with KWS and built a product called GCM CN — Globecast Managed Cloud Network — which does exactly that. It's a building block we'll rely on heavily in the next 12 to 18 months for extremely flexible, cost-efficient transport. France Télévisions — we did a risky experiment in Réunion Island for La Diagonale des Fous: remote production via 5G, transport over internet on cloud, return to Réunion, broadcast on local DTT, on Facebook, and on France.tv — all in 4K. This demonstrates multi-trade integration expertise, not just software.

Why did we suddenly accelerate? It's simple. Our biggest clients — the very large broadcasters — have made big decisions. Sky is part of that. Either we move and accompany our clients, or they'll go without us. And I think we have real value to bring. It's a decision from the steering committee that must concern the entire company. Thanks to AWS for helping bring us to the steering committee level and at every level — HR building training programs, sales teams being trained on OTT and cloud, because the world they come from is so different. We're also recruiting new people with different profiles. That's it — just a bit of marketing and detail on the famous service called GCM CN: Globecast Managed Cloud Network. Thank you.