The Traffic Flows Fast: Commercials of RAI Runs ETERE

10 August 2005

Etere performs and integrates his own Traffic system to perfectly manage the interactive advertising of the RAI channels transmitted in Digital Terrestrial.

To perfectly manage the interactive advertising of the RAI channels transmitted in Digital Terrestrial, Etere has made even more fast, performing and integrated his own Traffic system, exploited to support of the whole "planet advertising" of the Italian public broadcaster. A consistent appointment that has also involved Sipra, Rai Centro Ricerche, Rai Produzione Tv and Rai Trade.

The persons responsible of numerous radio and television broadcasting stations have already started to appreciate for years the benefits guaranteed by Traffic, the sophisticated ETERE software that revolutionizes the way of programming and of managing the advertising. Using Traffic, in fact, the schedule results separated in blocks of planning, and not in hourly blocks, each of which is characterized by one or more advertising interruptions, of each of them it is possible to define in advance and exactly the quantity, the total or partial duration as well as - very important thing - the composition (for example, first a promo, then one or more "billboards" and finally a break).

Particularly, in the case of an advertising break booked by an advertiser ‘A’ but not yet purchased, the same break can be purchased "at once" from an advertiser ‘B’, annulling the booking not confirmed of the first client. Besides, that deal with an automatic or manual schedule, Etere Traffic always keeps in mind all the indications and/or the parameters fixed by the operator: crowding, conflict among commercial categories, head or last of cluster, and so on.

The system, able to insert more than 300 spots per minute and to effect in real time the control of the crowding, allows also - through a simple "drag&drop" - to skid the whole block of schedule (comprehensive of programs, promos, advertising breaks and "billboards") to another block of schedule of the same day or of any other following day.

A further ability of Etere Traffic is represented by the fact that the booking of a space is independent from the transmitted tape (thing that the planning of long period makes very simple), while, through the synergy with Etere Web:
- the agents of sale can check their contracts and interface with the clients in real time;
- the advertising agency can check in turn the contracts that concern it;
- the client/advertiser is able, among various other things, to visualize in low resolution the preview of its spot, without this involves some increase of the cost of production.

ABout Etere
Etere was established in 1987 in Italy and it is amongst the worldwide leaders in Media Asset Management (MAM) and channel-in-a-box software solutions. Etere Media Enterprise Resource Planning (MERP) framework of scalable solutions is used by media enterprises across the end-to-end workflow. Etere MERP modular software including Media Asset Management (MAM), Airsales, Ad Insertion, Playout Automation, Broadcast Management System, HSM Archive, NRCS Newsroom, Broadcast Management System, Broadcast video over IP, IP Multiviewer and Live Censorship are built with an innovative architecture, offering the best flexibility and reliability in the market. Etere is headquartered in Singapore, with a dedicated 24/7 support centre in Italy. Е-mail: info@etere.com

Lately the system Traffic - already very performing - has been made even more “sprinted", synergic and integrated to be able to satisfy a series of specific application demands required by the RAI, broadcaster that,
from April 2005, has begun to propose to the public the first applications of interactive advertising through the
channels RaiUno, RaiDue and RaiTre transmitted in Digital Terrestrial.
To know more on the matter we went to the CPTV Rai of Via Teulada in Rome, bursting in the middle of a meeting, in which participated Roberto Cecatto (Head of Structure Engineering of the Direction Production TV), Stefano Marchetti (Head of Planning System of Broadcasting) and Fabio Gattari (president and founder of Etere Company), who was came back some hours earlier from New York. "With the strong emphasis - Cecatto started - conferred by the RAI to the use of the new tools of software of
transmissions DTT, had already emerged, from our side, the intention to broadcast interactive advertising.
The problem, however, was that to succeed in synchronizing the issue of the classical tabular publicity with the
structure of broadcasting the interactive applications MHP: a "sync" other than easy to reach within an operational reality of great dimensions as the RAI. We have however definite to proceed in the undertaking, foreseeing a specific upgrade of the automated system for the management of the broadcasting of linear advertising, system that had already been made 7-8 years ago available on a videoserver Profile (with shared architecture) developed in joined way with the Etere Company."
"In practice - Stefano Marchetti has spoken - we have succeeded in strengthening this base, so that, for the interactive applications tied up to the advertising, it traced the pre-existing flow of the linear video clips.
The project of expansion has represented the fruit of a joined job among Rai Trade (which from the CPTV of via
Teulada handles the ingestion, the legal and qualitative control, the planning and the edition of the spots), Rai
Produzione Tv (which from the CPTV of Saxa Rubra takes care of “on-air”) and the Research Centre & IT Rai in Turin. This latest has developed the carousel generator of the applications interactive MHP, that are unloaded on the DTT domestic set-top-box, to be therefore selected from the consumer. Then, from Etere, there has been a strong appointment finalized to opportunely adjust the whole part software of the system (to start from that regarding the on-air), as well as to increase the interface of communication with the same carousel generator."
"In effects – this are the declarations of Fabio Gattari - it was a hard-working and complex appointment, developed in total and mutual collaboration, between RAI and Etere, and the results represented the good prize to our works. RAI, in fact, has an integrated and shared system, able to manage in unison, with precision to the frame, the linear and interactive television advertising (included tele-promotion), as well as the logistic-communicative-administrative part related to the whole "planet advertising" of the Italian public broadcaster.

The same system succeeds in managing linear advertising of the radio and sat broadcast channels RAI, being also open to the possibility of communicating in the future with the interactive advertising through further channels DTT."
Gattari has also underlined that this super-integrated base, despite his architectural complexity, never introduces some point of "block" or deceleration, through the great fluency guaranteed by Etere Traffic: a complete solution and user friendly that, exploiting procedures automatic and specific connections on line, has succeeded moreover in the decrease of the high number of phone calls (finalized to the control and the edition of the advertising schedule) between Sipra in Turin and RAI of via Teulada and Saxa Rubra in Rome. "I have to say - again Cecatto – that it has been interesting to work with a company like Etere, which has succeeded to solve ours specific "requirements", increasing them (besides very quickly) within the system. On the other hand, in RAI we are always happy to be able to make trust on the Italian industries that, moreover they show to be also particularly effective and economic, as it as well as the system integration.
That's why we invite these same industries to maintain theirs "releases" always to the state of the art, so that the ability to innovate - with reliability and stability of product - constantly remains to levels top"...
At this time Gabriella Tosto arrives (Head of Quality Control for RAI Trade), than she has kindly invited us to
visit "on the room" the logistic-operational central of RAI Trade. At the end of the visit (of which report apart),
Fabio Gattari has called by mobile a taxi to go to the airport, and therefore to fly to Singapore for the BroadcastAsia exhibition.

We have just had the time to ask him one opinion of the future of the broadcasting automation. "In future perspective - it has been the answer of the manager - I see more and more a kind of automation integrated, that will go to involve to 360° all the necessities of the broadcaster, included those regarding the
opening and the closing of the curtains. In the meantime, considering the cars chaos of the great cities, it would not be badly if someone tried to find a solution able to make more flowing the urban traffic. Just as we have done us, in broadcasting market, with Etere Traffic!".
RAI logo
A Beautiful Enterprise
Lately the system Traffic - already very performing - has been made even more “sprinted", synergic and integrated to be able to satisfy a series of specific application demands required by the RAI, broadcaster that, from April 2005, has begun to propose to the public the first applications of interactive advertising through the channels RaiUno, RaiDue and RaiTre transmitted in Digital Terrestrial. To know more on the matter we went to the CPTV Rai of Via Teulada in Rome, bursting in the middle of a meeting, in which participated Roberto Cecatto (Head of Structure Engineering of the Direction Production TV), Stefano Marchetti (Head of Planning System of Broadcasting) and Fabio Gattari (president and founder of Etere Company), who was came back some hours earlier from New York. "With the strong emphasis - Cecatto started - conferred by the RAI to the use of the new tools of software of transmissions DTT, had already emerged, from our side, the intention to broadcast interactive advertising. The problem, however, was that to succeed in synchronizing the issue of the classical tabular publicity with the structure of broadcasting the interactive applications MHP: a "sync" other than easy to reach within an operational reality of great dimensions as the RAI. We have however definite to proceed in the undertaking, foreseeing a specific upgrade of the automated system for the management of the broadcasting of linear advertising, system that had already been made 7-8 years ago available on a videoserver Profile (with shared architecture) developed in joined way with the Etere Company." "In practice - Stefano Marchetti has spoken - we have succeeded in strengthening this base, so that, for the interactive applications tied up to the advertising, it traced the pre-existing flow of the linear video clips. The project of expansion has represented the fruit of a joined job among Rai Trade (which from the CPTV of via Teulada handles the ingestion, the legal and qualitative control, the planning and the edition of the spots), Rai Produzione Tv (which from the CPTV of Saxa Rubra takes care of “on-air”) and the Research Centre & IT Rai in Turin. This latest has developed the carousel generator of the applications interactive MHP, that are unloaded on the DTT domestic set-top-box, to be therefore selected from the consumer. Then, from Etere, there has been a strong appointment finalized to opportunely adjust the whole part software of the system (to start from that regarding the on-air), as well as to increase the interface of communication with the same carousel generator."
Etere Traffic Etere Traffic
A super-Integrated Base
"In effects – this are the declarations of Fabio Gattari - it was a hard-working and complex appointment, developed in total and mutual collaboration, between RAI and Etere, and the results represented the good prize to our works. RAI, in fact, has an integrated and shared system, able to manage in unison, with precision to the frame, the linear and interactive television advertising (included tele-promotion), as well as the logistic-communicative-administrative part related to the whole "planet advertising" of the Italian public broadcaster. The same system succeeds in managing linear advertising of the radio and sat broadcast channels RAI, being also open to the possibility of communicating in the future with the interactive advertising through further channels DTT." Gattari has also underlined that this super-integrated base, despite his architectural complexity, never introduces some point of "block" or deceleration, through the great fluency guaranteed by Etere Traffic: a complete solution and user friendly that, exploiting procedures automatic and specific connections on line, has succeeded moreover in the decrease of the high number of phone calls (finalized to the control and the edition of the advertising schedule) between Sipra in Turin and RAI of via Teulada and Saxa Rubra in Rome. "I have to say - again Cecatto – that it has been interesting to work with a company like Etere, which has succeeded to solve ours specific "requirements", increasing them (besides very quickly) within the system. On the other hand, in RAI we are always happy to be able to make trust on the Italian industries that, moreover they show to be also particularly effective and economic, as it as well as the system integration. That's why we invite these same industries to maintain theirs "releases" always to the state of the art, so that the ability to innovate - with reliability and stability of product - constantly remains to levels top"...
Rai
A Nice Smile
At this time Gabriella Tosto arrives (Head of Quality Control for RAI Trade), than she has kindly invited us to visit "on the room" the logistic-operational central of RAI Trade. At the end of the visit (of which report apart), Fabio Gattari has called by mobile a taxi to go to the airport, and therefore to fly to Singapore for the BroadcastAsia exhibition. We have just had the time to ask him one opinion of the future of the broadcasting automation. "In future perspective - it has been the answer of the manager - I see more and more a kind of automation integrated, that will go to involve to 360° all the necessities of the broadcaster, included those regarding the opening and the closing of the curtains. In the meantime, considering the cars chaos of the great cities, it would not be badly if someone tried to find a solution able to make more flowing the urban traffic. Just as we have done us, in broadcasting market, with Etere Traffic!".