StreamGuys To Deliver Philippine TV

StreamGuys, Inc., a streaming media and content delivery provider based in Northern California, is now handling content delivery for ABS-CBN’s IPTV service in Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea.

ABS-CBN Broadcasting is the largest integrated media and entertainment corporation in the Philippines, with 35 television stations, 19 owned-and operated AM and FM radio stations, and 10 affiliated radio stations throughout the Philippines.

The broadcaster has been using StreamGuys for content delivery for four years, mainly for on-demand streaming and downloads of ABS-CBN programming over the public internet through its pioneering service, TFCnow!

According to Enrique Olives, Director of Business Development for ABS-CBN Global, there are approximately 8 million Filipinos living abroad.

There has, for many years, been a steady and relentless drain of educated Filipinos from the county seeking work around the world.

A nurse working abroad can earn as much as ten times the salary available in her home country.

This has led to a very large population of expat Filipinos living in many western countries to seek a better standard of living.

As many as 10% of the population of the Philippines is considered to be OFWs, or “Overseas Filipino Workers”.

This population, although English speaking, still obviously prefers the entertainment style they grew up with.

This is the market that ABS-CBN is hoping to exploit through IPTV.

“There is a huge market for ABS-CBN programming outside of the Philippines, and it’s important to make our content available on as many platforms as possible,” said Olives.

“Content delivery networks like StreamGuys are ideal for IP-based broadcast distribution because you are essentially leveraging on their relationships with ISPs around the world instead of just purchasing raw bandwidth.

This relationship allows ABS-CBN to focus on its core competency of producing content instead of managing the network.”

StreamGuys delivers ABS-CBN programming as MPEG-4 standard-definition video for IPTV and Windows Media for internet streaming and download services.

For the growing IPTV service, StreamGuys built out a cluster of servers in the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands to ensure plenty of network capacity.

StreamGuys designed the IPTV server infrastructure to communicate directly with IP addressable consumer set-top boxes, allowing consumers to view content immediately on demand.

“The rise of the internet and IPTV delivery platform for distributing high-quality broadcast content makes it possible for broadcasters to reach almost every corner of the globe. The relationships between broadcasters and content delivery networks have grown stronger as IPTV network infrastructure management becomes more complex,” said Jonathan Speaker, COO of StreamGuys, Inc.