Virgin Media taps Globecast for pop-up playout

Liberty Global-owned Virgin Media has tapped media services provider Globecast to provide playout for its pop-up HD exercise channel Get Moving.

Virgin Media initially launched the channel itself but then turned to Globecast for fully-managed playout of the service, which was targeted at lockdown-confined consumers looking for ways to exercise.

Globecast is providing Cinergy-based playout at its London facility, along with scheduling, 24-hour monitoring and fibre delivery services. It’s also providing compliance assurance for the channel.

The Get Moving channel features sessions led by Olympic gold medallists, including Daley Thompson, and includes Yoga classes, fitness workouts and family-oriented PE sessions.

“We already have a strong relationship with Virgin Media via our partnership in launching the UK’s first dedicated 4K Ultra HD entertainment channel in autumn 2018 – Virgin TV Ultra HD. We’re really pleased that they have once again turned to us to provide the quality of service and robustness needed, as well as quick turnaround launch,” said Juliet Bayliss, sales director, Globecast.

“We have worked to a tight timescale with this launch, using all our playout expertise. We provided Virgin Media with a range of playout options, from which its team selected a preferred option. One issue we had to overcome was completing this project while adhering to all of the Covid workplace restrictions, a situation that required all our years of expertise to overcome.

In other Globecast news, Botswana-based  production company Plastique has turned to the media services provider as its technical partner to supply an OTT service for Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet), Botswana’s wholesale provider of national and international telecommunications infrastructure.

The first phase of the project involves providing a live streaming linear channel and video sharing platform TV station called Now TV. Working with Plastique, Globecast has created an OTT platform with a branded web interface including login and subscriber management. Globecast ingests an IP feed with satellite backup for the linear channel and has also created an EPG as well as a video sharing asset management portal with remote ingest and storage.