iWorld
Viacom18 distribution among IBC finalists as Voot sees 77% visitor-to-video hike
MUMBAI: IBC has announced the shortlist for the IBC2017 Innovation Awards. Demonstrating a breadth of innovation in the electronic media, entertainment and technology industry, the international judging panel reviewed an array of compelling entries, settling on 11 finalists from around the world, all offering very different solutions.
The shortlist covers everything from a major football final to e-sports; from virtual studios to channel marketing; from mobile OTT on a massive scale to seamless content delivery on high speed trains. Taking to the stage during IBC Awards Ceremony on Sunday 17 September will be representatives from Toronto to Singapore, the UK to India, and Spain to the USA.
For 2017, IBC’s 50th anniversary year, categories in the Innovation Awards were updated to reflect and respond to the shifting industry landscape. Three awards will be presented for the most innovative projects in Content Creation, Content Distribution and Content Everywhere. What has not changed is the emphasis on collaborative work to tackle a real challenge, and the trophies are taken home not by the technology partners but by the broadcasters, media enterprises and service providers who commissioned the project.
“I was astounded by the quantity, and most important the quality, of entries this year,” said Michael Lumley, chair of the judging panel. “It took a lot of intense discussion to get down to 11 finalists – it was a very tough task and there were many excellent projects which did not make the shortlist, often by a very fine margin.”
“The international spread of 2017 finalists reflects the global reach of IBC, and the global significance of these most highly-coveted awards,” Lumley added. “I look forward to congratulating all the finalists and hearing the winners announced on Sunday night at IBC.”
Content Creation – three finalists
ITV in the UK has been shortlisted for its Project Phoenix. The broadcaster needed to develop a system which managed the production of promos and trailers from commissioning to transmission. The result creates more than 1,000 marketing assets every month, with almost all versioning carried out automatically. Technology partners alongside ITV were 100 Shapes, Cantemo, Codemill, NMR, Pixel Power and Vidispine.
Leading broadcaster Mediacorp made the shortlist for implementing a service-oriented architecture to break down silos across its global campuses and create a seamless production and delivery environment. Its new centre includes a 3,000 square metre newsroom producing online, television and radio news in four languages, together with six studios and a large theatre, more than 100 edit suites and OTT and broadcast delivery. Systems integrator Qvest Media brought in an enormous number of technology partners, including Actus, Adobe, ATCI, Autoscript, Avid, Axon, Baton, Blackmagic Design, Cisco, Dalet, DHD audio, EVS, Fairlight, Grass Valley, Harmonic, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Ihse, Lawo, Lund Halsey, Netia, Octopus, Oracle, Raritan, RCS, SAM, Scheduall, Shotoku, Sony, ST Electronics, Telestream, TriplePlay, TSL and Vizrt.
Groupe Média TFO has transformed itself from a small, French language broadcaster in Ontario, Canada, into a major online presence producing much-loved children’s programming. Its Laboratoire d’univers virtuels, or LUV, took a fresh approach to virtual sets, using the power and cost-effectiveness of the Unreal games engine from Epic Games. Today TFO produces as many as 40 short videos, in real time, each day, from a single studio. As well as Epic, technology partners were CEV, stYpe and Zero Density.
Content Distribution – four finalists
Arena Television is a UK-based outside broadcast provider, and led the industry in Europe with its first all-IP truck. It is regularly used to originate BT Sport’s 4k Ultra HD coverage of the English Premier League. Technology partners for this pioneering truck (and a second which is now also in service) were Cisco, Grass Valley, Lawo and Videlio Video Solutions.
Dutch media company DMC has migrated from broadcast playout centre to comprehensive media logistics service. As part of this it has migrated to a fully virtualised private broadcast cloud that provides DMC’s clients with the asset management, publishing and distribution services they need, linking international content owners with 700 million European viewers. The new platform was developed with Cisco, Equinix, Pebble Beach Systems, Red Hat, Super Micro and VMware.
Sinclair Broadcast Group operates 233 television stations in 108 US markets. As part of its programme to provide a common platform for on air and online services, it has developed a revolutionary approach to terrestrial transmission. The usual American model is “high tower, high power”: a single mast and transmitter. The new approach – developed by TeamCast and ONE Media for Sinclair – takes a cellular approach, using mini-transmitters just where they are needed in a large single frequency network.
Viacom 18 is a joint venture in India between media giant Viacom and local service provider Network 18, running a multi-channel OTT network called Voot. Faced with the prospect of delivering content to the 300 million smartphones in India, across networks which are often crowded and at high data costs, it took a fresh approach, developing a progressive web service that delivered high performance without taking valuable memory space. Within just a few days Voot saw a 77% increase in conversion from visitor to video viewer and a 39% increase in session time per user. Google provided technology support.
Content Everywhere – four finalists
BT Sport was host broadcaster for the 2017 Champions League Final in Cardiff, Wales, and went all in to engage with as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible. Separate trucks covered the game in HD and in 4k Ultra HD with Dolby Atmos sound – using the Arena truck nominated for the content distribution award. A unique 12 camera VR operation provided a rich 360˚ feed, including in-vision graphics, live replays and a separate commentary. The content was available online to all platforms as well as broadcast. Technology partners included Dolby, Ericsson, Moov, SAM, Sony, Telegenic and Timeline.
ESL, the Electronic Sports League, is an eSports company that organises gaming competitions worldwide. For the finals of the 2017 Intel Extreme Masters tournament, held in Poland, it needed to find a delivery partner that could deliver live feeds to 13 broadcasters in multiple regions, with additional OTT and digital cinema delivery to some territories. ESL partnered with Deluxe to enable the delivery of live ESL broadcast feeds over the public internet. The eSports tournament reached more than 46 million viewers.
For a decade Google Earth has given us the ability to explore the world using just the internet. Now we can immerse ourselves in its wonders using Google Earth VR. The new app uses touch, sight and sound to engage the viewer and to receive control feedback. New techniques render imagery smoothly, maintaining the immersion without confusion or motion sickness. Technology partners were Ant Food, Even/Odd, Joshua Moshier and Richard Devine.
The final project on this year’s shortlist is a real content everywhere application – ensuring consistent media delivery on trains travelling in excess of 300km an hour. Renfe, Spain’s national railway operator, worked with Telefonica to ensure its 19 million high speed rail passengers can access premium content and live sports on trains and at stations as if they were at home. The project was led by Telefonica, with technology partners including Accedo, Cires21, Cisco, Hispasat, Iecisa, Indra, Nagra, Signiant and Teldat.
The winners of these three awards will be announced during the IBC2017 Awards Ceremony, on 17 September. Special guest host for the evening is scientist and broadcaster Dr Helen Czerski. As well as the Innovation Awards, the ceremony will see the announcement of the Judges’ Prize, also in the gift of the same panel of international editors and consultants who have judged the Innovation Awards. Other awards to be presented during the ceremony include the IBC International Honour for Excellence, IBC’s highest award.
iWorld
Why Peaky Blinders is one of television’s biggest hits that still deserves more attention
Six seasons, multiple awards and the release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man bring the Shelby saga back into the spotlight
In the crowded universe of streaming content, only a handful of shows manage to leave a lasting cultural footprint. Peaky Blinders is overwhelmingly considered one of the biggest global hits of the past decade. Yet many viewers still haven’t fully explored the dark, gripping world of the Shelby family.
Originally produced for the UK’s BBC and later finding a massive global audience through Netflix, the series quietly grew from a British period drama into a worldwide streaming phenomenon.
Created by Steven Knight, the show follows the rise of the Shelby crime family in post-First World War Birmingham. What begins as a gritty street-gang story gradually expands into a sweeping narrative about ambition, politics, power and survival.
At the centre of the saga is Thomas Shelby, portrayed with extraordinary depth by Cillian Murphy. The casting of Murphy is widely regarded as perfect for the role. With piercing eyes, restrained dialogue and an almost hypnotic screen presence, he transforms Shelby into one of the most unforgettable characters in modern screen storytelling.
Murphy’s brilliance lies in his restraint. He rarely shouts or performs theatrically. Instead, a quiet stare, a calculated pause or a subtle shift in expression conveys the emotional storms within the character. Beneath the ruthless gang leader is a war veteran carrying trauma, guilt and loneliness. Murphy captures this complexity with remarkable precision, making Thomas Shelby both terrifying and deeply human.
Beyond its central performance, Peaky Blinders stands out for its unfiltered portrayal of reality. The show does not romanticise crime. Instead, it exposes the harsh social conditions of early 20th-century Britain, from poverty and class struggle to political extremism and the psychological scars left by war.
The series also presents powerful female characters who hold their own within the Shelby empire. Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, is the strategic backbone of the family and one of the most formidable figures in the story. Women in the series shape decisions, influence power structures and challenge the rigid social norms of the time.
Across six seasons, the narrative grows dramatically in scale. What begins in the smoky streets of Birmingham evolves into a story involving political conspiracies, fascism and international criminal networks.
The series has also earned significant critical acclaim. It won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2018 and multiple National Television Awards for Best Drama, cementing its reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated modern shows.
Another defining feature of the series is its iconic music. The show’s opening theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, became instantly recognisable and widely associated with the Shelby universe. Combined with a powerful soundtrack featuring artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, the music helped shape the show’s dark, stylish identity and became hugely popular among fans.
And the Shelby story is not over yet.
In fact, its legacy is unfolding right now. The long-awaited feature-length continuation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released on March 6, 2026, bringing the Shelby universe from streaming screens to cinemas and giving fans a new chapter in the saga.
For viewers who have not yet stepped into this world, the timing could not be better.
Six gripping seasons are ready to binge on Netflix. A new film has just arrived in theatres. And at the heart of it all stands one of the most magnetic performances in modern drama by Cillian Murphy.
So if Peaky Blinders has been sitting on your watchlist for years, this weekend is your moment.
So, by order of the Peaky fookin’ Blinders, consider this your cue to finally step into the ruthless world of Thomas Shelby. Pour yourself a drink, clear your schedule and press the play button. Because when the Peaky Blinders give an order, you listen.
