Developing its Suite of Managed Services and New Distribution Platforms to Support Multiple Events and VOD Across Global Markets
Red Bee Media is at the center of the rapidly expanding industry of streaming live and on-demand content, with the global media services company seeing explosive demand for its cloud-based, over-the-top (OTT) platform across multiple markets worldwide. Over the past year, Red Bee’s customer base has more than doubled as organizations increasingly realize the benefits of streaming media services to reach fans, consumers, and audiences everywhere.
Red Bee’s success and unique competitive advantage stem from decades of experiences in managed media services and its cloud-based platforms, offering customers support across the entire content delivery chain: from feed acquisitions, distribution, and media management to playout and streaming, leveraging its established credentials in broadcast quality services – at scale. Red Bee’s media distribution offering is complemented by world class content enrichment, in the form of accessibility services (captions, signing and audio description) and content discovery (metadata).
The Red Bee OTT platform offers brands, sports organizations, and content owners a cost-effective, easily scalable and customizable model for reaching new audiences, engaging directly with fans, controlling their content and creating new revenue streams. Audiences can enjoy more immersive, viewing experiences and develop deeper connections with their favorite content.
“Companies always look for new ways to improve their relationships with end users,” said Steve Russell, Chief Product Officer, Red Bee. “Traditionally, there has been a bridge separating content and the audience watching it, preventing truly tactile, two-way user experiences. This keeps audiences at arm’s length. Direct streaming services shorten that distance and bring the fan and the content owner closer. We’re opening the door to an array of new business opportunities for our customers and building potentially lifelong audience loyalties.”
The built-in analytics of Red Bee’s OTT Platform, provides brands with up-to-the minute data on audience segmentation, viewing patterns, online traffic and more. This critical business intelligence allows brands to get a complete picture of their customers. The data also helps customers adapt to market trends faster, improve the user experiences for upcoming events and even make real-time adjustments during events.
“Our modern software architecture is fully cloud and microservices based, which enables us to launch new features and evolve faster than anyone else in the market,” said Anders Wassén, Head OTT Development, Red Bee “It is a huge competitive advantage and something that all customers highly appreciate, including traditional broadcasters, niche content owners and new media businesses.”
New Markets, New Opportunities – All Signs Point to Growth
Red Bee’s growth mirrors the broader trend of surging online viewing and content streaming over the past several years.
According to Statista, OTT media revenue worldwide is expected to reach more than $210 billion (USD) by 2026, more than double the 106 billion generated in 2020. This volume, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has also been steadily driven by new network bandwidth technologies like 5G, continually improving home entertainment systems and more consumers “cutting the cord” to rely solely on the internet for content viewing.
Red Bee is growing its traditional base of media, entertainment, live events and sports. The company is also broadening into new markets, including government, faith and corporate, even drawing the attention of brands looking to create niche content.
“Every brand has an audience to reach and a story to tell and live-streaming can deliver a message in a personalized, engaging voice,” added Steve Russell.
Recent customer launches on the Red Bee platform include:
- Extreme E – For this all-electric racing circuit taking place in the world’s most extreme environments to raise awareness of climate change, Red Bee handles global satellite distribution for linear broadcasters, as well as the digital distribution and streaming for their website and rights-holders across the world.
- Ekstraklasa TV – The Polish top tier football league Ekstraklasa chose Red Bee to develop and re-launch the Ekstraklasa.TV streaming platform, adding greater interactivity and personalization, improve the user experience and implement an advertising model.
- 67 Pall Mall – London’s Fine Wine Private Members’ Club launched 67PallMall.tv, a streaming service dedicated to fine wine. It features original content daily in 4K quality, with live-streamed professional winetasting and on-demand content available for wine enthusiasts worldwide.
- Fightzone – Worldwide streaming service dedicated to British and international boxing, where global audiences gain access to over 50 live events per year, in broadcast quality directly delivered to their preferred device through pay-per-view and subscription-based options.
- Friends of Amstel and The Streamers – Dutch media production company FabriQ Media Group partnered with Red Bee to deliver multiple livestreamed concerts to millions of viewers across the world.
- TV5MONDEplus – A global (190+ countries) free streaming service with French speaking series, films and documentaries in full HD quality, subtitled in 5 languages, secure and reliable broadcast-grade streaming, advertising options and advanced Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools.
Red Bee plans to continue blending its core expertise with new services to meet the growing demand for video-on-demand and live streaming in established and emerging markets. Red Bee’s OTT platform supports capabilities for screen overlays and second screens, to insert social media feeds and interactive chats, or allow fans to scan a QR code and buy merchandise.
A fast-growing new market like e-sports, where each event’s size and scope can vary greatly, is a perfect match for the flexibility of the Red Bee platform. Customers can create limited run “pop-up” OTT events quickly and at much lower costs than using traditional methods. The platform can also rapidly scale to handle online traffic surges, adding enough bandwidth to support 10-fold increases in just a few minutes.
“This is a pivotal time for brands to re-engage with fans in entirely new ways not possible with traditional methods,” said Steve Nylund, CEO, Red Bee. “By owning and investing in their content, brands can control their narrative and brand experience. Streaming is not going away. Within a live event, the audience is as much a part of the entertainment as the artist. A unique relationship is formed by those special little memories when a kid ran up on stage, or there was a fan marriage proposal or whatever else happens in the moment. Streaming can intimately translate that spontaneity to the online viewer and preserve it so everyone remembers it. That’s a powerful and lasting connection.”
About Red Bee Media
Red Bee Media is a leading global media services company headquartered in London, with 2300 media experts spread across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and North America. Every day, millions of people across the globe discover, enjoy and engage with content prepared, managed, broadcast and streamed through Red Bee’s services. The company empowers some of the world’s strongest media brands, broadcasters and content owners to instantly connect with audiences anyhow, anywhere, anytime. Through an end-to-end, managed services offering, Red Bee provides innovative solutions across the entire content delivery chain – covering Live & Remote production, Managed OTT, Distribution, Media Management, Access Services, Content Discovery, Playout and Post Production.
