Tata Comms’ Dhaval Ponda Decodes ‘Remote Production’

Media and entertainment, especially Live, was redefined in a world, where remote production, triggered by the lockdown of 2020, is becoming commonplace. Tata Communications was among some of the companies that took the lead in bringing relevant solutions to a ‘blended’ or a ‘phygital’ world. In this conversation with BW Marketing World, Dhaval Ponda, Global Head, Media & Entertainment Services, Tata Communications shares some of the experiences of the year gone that has long lasting impact on the sector. Excerpts:

Tata Communications perhaps leaped in action fastest among its peer last year, when entertainment content, including Live such as sports, came under duress. What was some of your experience then?

Covid was indeed a very disruptive time for everyone. We manage several sporting events across markets such as US, Europe, India, and parts of Asia. Most of these are tier-one sporting events such as European Motorsports, or cricket and tennis properties. It typically reached to millions of viewers every year, but that stopped for some time in 2020. At a time when people really needed more content at home, this content influx was missing. We, along with our partners, had deliberated then, on how can we bring innovative content to households. 

We experimented with new things. For example, we worked with a large global motor sporting federation to distribute virtual game format. This had the same drivers, who would drive over the weekends, and used stimulators to superimpose on the same venues. All of this was done with people living in their own homes. It was received very well, and we went on to do 11 back-to-back weekends of content on similar lines.

We had deployed Secure Connected Digital Workplace at the time as well for ourselves and a number of organisations globally, which I believe was a big step from us at the time.

As events began coming back on, the question on how to safely produce these remained. We did motorsports in UK, Spain, Italy, where we restricted the number of people travelling. This meant that the production effort had to be done by a much smaller team, creating the need for remote production. The team would be situated thousands of miles away from venue. It would require low latency tools to enable a seamless, high quality feed. We deployed this for several customers in US, UK and in India. 

What are some of the practices that came about then, which still continue?

Even as the world is navigating through the crisis, it is still critical to understand the risk factor involved. When producing sporting events, the day-to-day operations and logistic is driven by local rules and there are still many restrictions to work with on that. India has been fairly consistent in its policies, and in many ways, it took the lead in establishing an operating protocol that was really helpful. Some elements are universal such as creating ‘bubbles’. So, every time a sporting event took place, there was a core team that was created in this bubble, that travelled together, was isolated from others and mitigated some of the risk. There were quite a few of similar steps that helped in creating processes to be followed during the crisis. Mental wellbeing came on the radar as well, as this was something we paid much attention to in every step of the process.

What are some of the challenges of remote production – cost for example. Do you see these creating issues for smaller, younger players?

We would have imagined that in the case of remote production, the chief technology officer would take the lead. But in fact, our internal champions have been the chief financial officers and the chief executives. A change of this nature requires the perspective of commercial and must make sense in the P&L. Remote production is an operating cost, based on the tenure but a lot of spend on remote production is funded by lesser spends on logistics. At the same time, this brings a step up in production quality. Earlier a company had to spend millions in hardware for production, but now it is a service. Even new entrants can leverage it, thereby creating a level playing field.

Do you see remote production continue to offer opportunities that will have an uptake even in the ‘next normal’?

Traditional ways of production were associated with large TV trucks and tons of hardware. Covid forced us to simplify this and become cost efficient. Accelerated digital adoption made the cloud work harder so that people could access applications without the hardware. Remote production not only unlocks the commercial potential that has become a norm. It brings convenience, and you can access talent pool from anywhere, doing newer things. Talent from even smaller cities can come in play now, which is a great thing for sports because this genre has fans everywhere. This will help the industry to do faster and better niche content as well.

Essentially, these changes in utilizing technology and doing things differently are here to stay?

You have to tie this back to consumer behaviour. These services and technology changes we have discussed is tied back to the end user experience. Consumer behaviour changed last year. They are consuming more content, irrespective the screen. They expect a higher level of video quality and are seeking newer forms of content including short form or gaming. These changes are here to stay. The technology changes will only help the industry in a big way to cater to these.

Why is it that we did not see much of this applying in scripted content?

There are examples of this too. At Tata Communications, we carry about 600 TV channels on our network. Much originate in the US and Western Europe and we take them globally. All that we have discussed so far is optimized for Live, which is perhaps the most difficult to execute. But it opened up doors for several other use cases in scripted content as well. In India, we have deployed several tools for entertainment content produced at home. Editors, from home, can comment and edit scenes. All of this is happening. 

How do you continue evolving the product given all the changes around?

Tata Communication owns and operates the largest submarine cable capacity in the world. It was a visionary move when the company started on the telecom operations side, which gives us several benefits. For example, we can create new video capabilities in a matter of days. This infrastructure ownership is our biggest strength that also gives assurance to our partners.

We have an active research and development team that is constantly looking at what is next. We have been working on remote production for over four years and two years ago, we had established that this can be achieved at scale. When Covid hit last year, many already were aware of our capability and had confidence in it.

We understand accountability. In media and entertainment, including live events, you cannot have a blank moment. We consider every single scenario, bringing end-to-end accountability. We would have thought of everything and put a Plan B and Plan C in place, so that the team on-ground feels empowered. We have already worked in several war room scenarios and have the battle scars to merit the trust our partners and customers place in us.