Beijing, China – Irdeto announced that China International Broadcasting Network (CIBN), a subsidiary of China Radio International, is its first Chinese customer for Irdeto Rights with China DRM Support. CIBN is one of the seven broadcasting networks that are licensed to distribute over-the-top (OTT) content in China by The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China (SAPPRFT). Through this new partnership, Irdeto will help establish CIBN as a frontrunner for premium content offerings, especially Hollywood content, through OTT distribution.
This will also provide studios and content providers with greater confidence to enter the Chinese market.As global video-on-demand services grow, China is emerging as one of the largest markets for OTT demand and new offerings. A jointly produced whitepaper by Dentsu Aegis Network China with OTT media powerhouses iQiyi, LeTV, MangoTV, Tencent, Youku and iPinyou, as well as research partners Miaozhen and Nielsen, estimated that 95 out of 100 TV sets sold in the country will be OTT-enabled by the end of 2016, amounting to more than 10 million TVs. Findings from the same whitepaper indicated that among China’s massive TV audience of 1.3 billion, the percentage of people viewing content via OTT platforms has increased from 13% in 2013 to 30% in 2015, and is set to reach approximately 49% by 2017.
“We are delighted to partner with Irdeto to integrate its China DRM solution to our OTT applications and set-top boxes (STBs), which will safeguard premium content on our network and platforms,” said Fu Qiang, Deputy General Manager, CIBN. “We expect revenues generated from premium OTT services in China to continue to grow over the next few years as demand for premium content increases. We are confident that our collaboration with Irdeto will improve overall viewer experience for our customers and instill greater confidence for the studios and content providers to enter the Chinese market, which will in turn generate revenue growth for our paid OTT offerings.”
By implementing Irdeto Rights with China DRM support, CIBN will be able to get the content protection they need in order to securely stream content to their customers, including premium content such as 4K and UHD. The solution also allows CIBN to accelerate the release of content more efficiently, an essential component given the industry is evolving rapidly. Operators and content owners will need to continually adapt and evolve with changing times to improve their content offerings and ensure a seamless user experience.
