The past ten years have seen GlobeCast’s evolution from a capacity reselling division of France Telecom, to a satellite service provider, to a content management and delivery company. Fifteen teleports and technical operations centres on five continents feed more than 100 transponders on up to 40 satellites. Each hub is interconnected, via proprietary fibre, to move content along any point on the network for one-hop delivery to the company’s channel distribution platforms. GlobeCast also furnishes end-to-end delivery, including aggregation, multiplexing, encryption, transmission and reception, supporting all major transmission standards from MPEG-2 and -4, to IP, HDTV and WM9. With such a wide selection of offerings, GlobeCast Asia’s CEO David Justin simplifies the company’s business into two categories: permanent and ad hoc. He says the split between the two is currently around 50:50 in the region, with considerable growth anticipated. “Around 80% of GlobeCast Asia’s permanent lines of business, currently, is the export of content to the West. We have seen our permanent business rise by 50% year-on-year.” Justin says developments in technology are enabling cheaper ways to do this – and there are new networks and IPTV networks aplenty wanting to differentiate themselves from the existing players. “For example, an IPTV network in France is showing the Great World bouquet of 17 (Chinese) channels – the likes of AT&T and Verizon are similarly differentiating themselves from the competition by offering niche and difficult to find content.” He adds that Asian content may attract higher subscriber numbers in Asia, but can generate higher ARPU’s in the West. “In 2007 we saw the growth of our permanent business as the number of channels we carry increased,” says Justin. These include World TV, fourteen channels from India and the subcontinent, being exported to Europe. The BBC’s bouquet has grown from BBC World and BBC Prime to become BBC Global Channels, comprising BBC World, (Prime rebranded as) BBC Entertainment, CBeebies, BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle. Justin also sees an increasing trend of European and US channels being imported into Asia. And big players from the US, in the hands of new CEO’s, are increasingly looking to outsource much of what was previously handled inhouse. “They are seeing the cost efficiencies of outsourcing to companies that combine resources to provide cheaper solutions.” “We are also trying to make it easier for channels from Europe to get into Asia, by helping them negotiate the rules and regulations, even down to currency intricacies. Getting into India, for example, involves complicated licensing agreements, down-link agreements and then carriage agreements – hence GlobeCast introduced a consultancy service a few months ago.” Looking to the year ahead, Justin says HD will be a big focus, with every major US or European broadcaster factoring HD into the equation in 2008. “Apart from the obvious Japan and South Korea, HD services have launched, or are launching, in most of the region’s major markets – Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan and India – and MPEG4 offers twice the capacity for HD. HD will definitely bring in more revenues for us in 2008.” He continues, “Also value-added services, like consultancy, as networks regionalize their content via localization and dubbing, localizing feeds for advertising. For many of the broadcasters, their initial capex needs reviewing and renewing, hence increased opportunities for outsourcing companies like GlobeCast. We are buying the bandwidth and guaranteeing the quality.” Justin adds that the company’s telecommunications origins are also proving an asset when it comes to IPTV and mobile TV. “Coming from a telco we understand both the broadcasters and the telcos; we are also a content management and delivery company.” For mobile TV, GlobeCast has been streaming linear channels to 3G phones, having built a headend for France’s Orange which streams 100 channels onto mobile phones. The challenges, he says include the wide picture requiring extra bandwidth and the fact that ARPU’s are still quite low. On the upside, advertising can be up to four times more effective on the mobile phone than on ‘traditional’ mass media. “We see considerable opportunities for mobile broadcasting in the region, although regulations are still grey in many markets.” On the ad hoc business side, Globecast’s main focus in 2008 will be the Beijing Olympics, for which it has set up a considerable infrastructure. “Others tried (to do the same) but did not succeed,” says Justin. Already two years in the planning and execution, the company has been putting into place “the right partners, the right square feet, the right positions,” from which nonrights holders can broadcast live. Some contracts are signed already, with more expected in the 3-5 month run-up to the event itself. With some uncertainties still surrounding press freedom, Justin says demand for the facilities is still quite unpredictable, and very much dictated by the Olympiad’s breaking news stories.