Customers

Channel 4

Channel 4"Business Objects Global Services has delivered in depth analysis of video on demand production, enabling Channel 4 to respond quickly to changes in the new 4oD business process."

John Telford
Project Manager
Channel 4

Challenge

Delivering innovative television services

Since the transmission of its first programme in 1982, Channel 4 has been continually exploring the boundaries of television production. In November 2006 the channel launched its latest innovation: 4oD, its first video on demand service. 4oD offers customers the chance to catch up on TV shows up to seven days after transmission for free as well as the option to rent or buy archive shows or films.

“In a market where customers have a fast growing range of entertainment options, 4oD is very important for Channel 4,” explains John Telford, project manager. “At the moment, the focus is on testing the market, ensuring the right mix of programmes and determining the payment and revenue model. In the long term, 4oD has the potential to be a very lucrative revenue stream for Channel 4.” Over time it is expected the number of provider platforms will increase significantly, as will the volume of programmes available in the 4oD format.

However, the creation of 4oD content is a new challenge for Channel 4. Content has to be delivered in a timely fashion to meet both internal and external Service Level Agreements (SLA). “Monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of the 4oD production process is critical to ensure content is delivered on time,” he confirms.

Approach

Transforming data quality

Channel 4 has created a new business process to request, select, produce and deliver 4oD content. To support the analysis of this process the organisation has turned to Business Objects Global Services. Using BusinessObjects Data Integrator™, Global Services is consolidating data from three different systems, Asset Selection Application, Media Management, and E-work Business Process Management, into a single data mart.

“Global Services has used Data Integrator to write excellent data cleansing processes and improve data quality,” Telford says. Data quality issues are identified, logged and fixed at the time of extraction. In addition, a set of validation rules is applied to extracted data to provide detailed reporting into overall data quality. He confirms, “These validation reports provide detailed insight into data quality, which is also fed back to those developing the operational systems to ensure problems can be addressed early to avoid compromising the business process.”

With Channel 4 constantly looking to improve 4oD production and develop the supporting applications, Global Services has developed highly scalable ETL processes that will enable easy addition of new data sources – both to support new providers and an expansion of 4oD content.

Results

Supporting process improvement

Using Data Integrator, information is loaded overnight into the data mart, with reports created using Business Objects XI™ to analyse and monitor the efficiency of the 4oD content creation process. Channel 4 now has rapid insight into the volume of content created and whether it is being delivered in line with partner specific SLAs.

“4oD is a very important service for Channel 4. Business Objects Global Services has designed strong systems that help the organisation understand how well the 4oD service is performing,” says Telford. “The ability to constantly monitor the 4oD content creation process is providing confidence in our ability to meet the SLAs. As 4oD attracts new service providers, Channel 4 has the excellent quality data required to support future market expansion.”

The benefits of the data mart and Business Objects XI reporting include:

Performance Management:

Resource Allocation:

Content Analysis:

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