2 page Case Study - Posted 6/27/2007
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Developers at U.K. TV Distributor Enhance Annual Festival with New Application
Every year, more than 500 representatives from television networks around the world are invited to Brighton, on the south coast of England, to view the best of British programming. The team saw a digitised BBC Showcase as a way to provide an excellent customer experience, while reducing the amount of man hours involved in preparing for the event. BBC Worldwide and Microsoft developers sought to establish the underlying processes and methodologies of the technology during a three-week proof of concept. This culminated in the creation of a demonstrator application. Developers have created an application that supports the reputation of BBC Worldwide as an innovative media body. The Digital Showcase application provides an enhanced delegate experience, supported by employees who are no longer occupied by time-consuming manual processes.
Business Needs
BBC Worldwide is the most successful exporter of television programmes in Europe. In 2006, the 40,000 hours of programming it sold accounted for around half of the United Kingdom’s total television exports. BBC Worldwide is responsible for providing a shop window for this content. For more than 30 years, it has done this through the annual BBC Showcase festival.
Every year, more than 500 representatives from television networks around the world are invited to Brighton, on the south coast of England, to view the best of British programming. Here, they decide which programmes they want to purchase to show on their own networks.
BBC employees dedicate much time and effort to prepare for this event. They identify relevant content in advance and then create a library of these selections. In the past, the material was compiled and duplicated manually on VHS. In recent years, however, content has been screened on DVD.
While the quality of the product guarantees the event is always a success, organisers recognised that processes could be streamlined. Employees found the preparation involved in manually duplicating DVDs time consuming, and delegates shared a similar experience queuing for content to view at their booths.
Showcase organisers recognised that the business intelligence obtained from the event was limited. They wanted a system that could provide sufficient insight into the decisions of delegates. Under the existing framework, they could tell what programmes a delegate had selected, but not how long they’d watched for or if they’d watched them at all.
The team saw a digitised BBC Showcase as a way to provide an excellent customer experience, while reducing the amount of man hours involved in preparing for the event. The project was also seen as a means to illustrate the innovative capabilities of the organisation.
Solution
BBC Worldwide executives expressed their interest in digitising the Showcase event during a meeting with their Microsoft® Account Manager. Working together, employees from the two organisations conceived a plan to explore the concept further. This started with an Architectural Design Session at the Microsoft Technology Centre, Thames Valley, United Kingdom.
At the two-day workshop, commercial and technology representatives from BBC Worldwide outlined their objectives and discussed how to achieve them. Their goal was to build a solution that would open directly into the BBC Worldwide catalogue of digital content.
BBC Worldwide and Microsoft developers sought to establish the underlying processes and methodologies of the technology during a three-week proof of concept. This culminated in the creation of a demonstrator application. When this was shown to BBC Worldwide Executives, they immediately approved the production of the Digital Showcase for 2007.
The BBC Worldwide development team—supported by Microsoft Services—built on the output from the proof of concept to produce a robust, intuitive, multimedia application using the Windows® Presentation Foundation. Developers found it easy to create an application that would impress delegates using the unified programming model for building rich Windows smart client user experiences.
Andrew Revell, Lead Developer at BBC Worldwide, says: “Our development team was very impressed with the capabilities of the technology. Using it, we created a natural, rich, and exciting user interface for the delegates, and we only scratched the surface of what Windows Presentation Foundation is capable of.”
The team completed the application in December 2006 and, following testing in January, were ready to roll it out at the Showcase in February. They populated 100 of the 500 booths at the event with cloned computers running the Windows Presentation Foundation client application on Windows XP SP2. The team connected these computers to a central Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database using the Windows Communication Foundation component of the .NET Framework 3.0.
Benefits
Developers have created an application that supports the reputation of BBC Worldwide as an innovative media body. The Digital Showcase application provides an enhanced delegate experience, supported by employees who are no longer occupied by time-consuming manual processes. The sales team also gets more from the event because it can use the application to analyse guests’ time at the showcase more effectively.
- Developers created the application quickly. This ensured the Digital Showcase application had time to undergo rigorous testing before the event in February. Craig Webb, Technology Manager at BBC Worldwide, says: “There was no room for failure—the delegates had to be able to view the content for all four days, or else they came halfway across the world for nothing.”
- The team do not have to spend time duplicating and distributing DVDs, giving them more time to focus on delegates’ enquiries.
Delegates don’t have to queue for programmes. They have immediate access to more than 700 hours of content in each booth.
- Sales employees can target content at specific customers. The application has a “BBC Worldwide Recommends” section pre-populated with viewing suggestions by sales officers. This provides good up-selling opportunities.
- The team developed an exciting user interface that impressed delegates. Revell says: “As a media company, it is very important for us to evoke a ‘wow’ reaction—to inspire with cutting-edge technology. Windows Presentation Foundation met this challenge and was an absolute joy to work with.”
- The new Showcase application can support the screening of HD content—something the event hasn’t been able to do in the past.
- Sales employees now have access to real-time information on customers’ viewing habits that can help them target content more accurately and increase revenue. They can easily find out what delegates watched and for how long, giving them valuable insight into a buyer’s decision-making process. Users are also requested to provide feedback on programmes they’ve just viewed.
- Delegates don’t miss events or screenings because the application reminds them of start times.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published June 2007
