The DPP released a new report to its members today on the localisation and versioning processes required for the international distribution of content. Home Truths: The Localisation Challenge explores the relationships between media companies as they prepare content for global markets – and how those relationships expose the need for greater industry collaboration.
The report comes from a private dinner for 22 senior executives hosted by the DPP and enabled by member company Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“Localisation and versioning is a topic that highlights all that’s exciting about the growth of modern media markets – but also many of the problems,” says DPP MD and author of the report, Mark Harrison. “Global distribution offers huge opportunities for new markets and services. But it also shines a spotlight on the challenges of exchanging content smoothly and efficiently.”
The processes required for the global exchange of content are largely common to all media companies. And yet, many of the executives argued, content providers tend to behave as if their needs are special and unique. As the volume and complexity of localisation work grows, this lack of trust and standardisation is becoming a major burden to many businesses.
The Localisation Challenge explores a number of opportunities for more effective working through industry collaboration, such as:
- The creation of standardised ways of performing quality control processes
- The building of greater trust between content companies through the centralised provision of assets in the cloud
- Greater transparency about the areas of activity that generate waste – which would, in turn, help vendors focus their efforts on the areas of greatest business need
- Tiering of content, by priority, to reduce bottlenecks and optimise the use of resources
“This report is both candid about the issues and highly constructive about the remedies,” says Harrison. “It is rare to see a piece of industry insight with such clarity. It will contribute hugely to the work we and our member companies will be undertaking in the year ahead.”
The Localisation Challenge builds on the DPP’s groundbreaking work on IMF for Broadcast & Online, which seeks to enable more efficient and effective versioning and localisation for content providers of all kinds. The DPP will hold technical workshops in November 2019 and February 2020 to develop this work, as well as undertaking further explorations of the business benefits of componentised media.
