With declining advertising revenue, traditional media companies in the country face stiff competition from digital native platforms that feature agile, technology-driven operations.
These legacy media companies in Kenya, accustomed to traditional distribution channels can’t adapt quickly to the fragmented digital media landscape and tech giant Huawei is partnering with them to unlock new productivity, efficiency and innovations with their cloud computing technologies as the country pushes for digital transformation and supporting the creative industry.
Earlier today, Huawei held a Media and Entertainment summit with leading media companies in the country and the Kenya Film Commission. Topics included content production efficiency improvement, user experience improvement, and monetization to unlock new opportunities created by cloud advancement in the entertainment and media industry.
Cloud adaptation for traditional media allows them to dynamically scale resources up and down based on demand and facilitate remote work and collaboration. It also allows them to reduce capital expenditure and improve cost predictability, enhance innovation and agility plus provide redundancy measures.
Adhering to its strategy of Everything as a Service, Huawei’s cloud-native media infrastructure consists of one ecosystem, two service types, three engines, and four core capabilities and offers a brand-new experience.
Huawei Cloud’s one-stop OTT solution provides services such as one-stop live streaming (less than 800ms latency), Video on Demand (VOD), Media Processing Center (MPC), and Content Delivery Network (CDN). Instead of building multiple complex service systems on their own, traditional media and Internet application platforms can call Huawei Cloud APIs directly to quickly build OTT services and offer interactive video services with smooth HD.
- Media Processing Center advantages: low bitrate HD(30% less bandwidth), fast transcoding and copyright protection.
- Video on Demand advantages: one-stop purchases and on-demand combination, multiprotocol and multi-resolution transcoding and E2E content security and copyright protection, such as DRM, watermarking, HLS encryption, URL validation, and region restriction
- Huawei Cloud Live advantages: Interactive Livestreaming (latency < 5s), LLL (latency < 500 ms) and Media Live (latency < 5s)
- Content Delivery Network advantages: Global presence, Ultra-low latency and High security
Huawei Cloud is being used by Royal Media Services, Nation Media Group, Mediamax Network, the Standard Group, KBC and Tuko.
Chinese provincial satellite TV station, Mango TV also showcased how they use Huawei Cloud and they’re currently the country’s second-most-watched television channel. The station uses the Cloud’s bandwidth to adjust to traffic changes, which lets the broadcaster improve resource use and reduce public network costs.
Mango TV, Huawei and the three leading media houses signed an MOU that will now allow Kenyan media to air some of Mango TV’s programs in Kenya and the region showcase collaborative progress and foster cultural exchange between Kenya and China.
“China’s dynamic creative industry spanning from film and fashion and design has actually influenced the globe, in every great way to the extent we consider China today as a global cultural powerhouse due to its innovative approaches to creative production,” said Mr Timothy Owase, CEO, Kenya Film Commission.
“In Kenya, we are looking for opportunities for us to be able to collaborate with China and see to it that we’re able to expand our market, give opportunities to our young people and provide them with an avenue that the Chinese can be able to consume our content while also Kenya can consume the Chinese content,” he concluded.
“The future looks like it is changing, consumer habits of TV viewers are changing, they want content on demand so we have to be ready and that’s why we need partners like Huawei in terms of cloud computing,” said Fred Afune, Director of Technical, ICT and Radio programs, Royal Media Services.
“We need external partners cause we’re not able to generate enough content in here for the insatiable audiences that we serve,” he continued.
