With Saudi Arabia experiencing a corporate gold rush, the Kingdom’s media assets have become highly coveted on the global stage. Seizing this opportunity, Saudi Broadcasting Authority has launched an online platform offering access to a rich repository of the Kingdom’s visual and audio treasures. In an exclusive interview with Vijaya Cherian, Turki Al Otaibi, SBA’s Digital Archiving Manager, reveals how this platform integrates cutting-edge technology and robust licensing models, heralding a new era in Saudi content distribution.
Saudi Broadcasting Authority (SBA) has launched a new digital content marketplace named Sayma, offering both newly produced and legacy content from its extensive archives to clients such as production companies, content creators, agencies, media organisations and other parties seeking Saudi content online. GCC systems integrator MAAS World developed and manages the entire platform, integrating solutions from various service providers in the digital streaming space.
SBA owns a massive archive of legacy content and produces fresh material daily, according to Turki Al Otaibi, Digital Archiving Manager and Head of Copyright, who led this project. “We have seen a lot of interest in Saudi content over the years, which motivated us to embark on this project. The Sayma platform offers a smooth and efficient way to navigate SBA’s rich archive and license the content they need through a simple online process.”
Al Otaibi has worked at SBA for over 12 years, focusing on digitising the organisation’s vast array of tapes. “Although SBA has been digitising its media assets for a long time, the current archival project began six years ago in 2018 to digitise its 1.2m assets, which translates to approximately 400,000 hours of content.”
Significant project milestones included preparing these assets, integrating them with SBA’s operating systems, setting up media hosting and streaming services, and developing a bespoke content management system (CMS) alongside a user-friendly UI/UX interface.
Al Otaibi elaborates on the project’s tech highlights: “We used AI to improve around 150,000 items and digitise 10,000 more. This project focused on preparing short-form content and ready-produced material, enriching the metadata of archived content, and integrating the SBA archive – and potentially other Saudi entities – into the marketplace. This automation made it easier to add content to the platform. Hosting and streaming of media content were critical components, as was building the CMS to meet Sayma’s specific requirements. The project also included designing and developing a UI/UX interface to simplify online purchasing and content delivery.”
The project spanned approximately one year from the initial planning phase to completion. While the platform had a soft launch, SBA is awaiting the green light from the authorities for an official launch. Al Otaibi anticipates that it will go live within the next month, allowing users to register and access its services.
Content from the Kingdom has generated considerable interest, Al Otaibi notes. “In our first year of operations in 2019, we sold around SAR 2m ($500m) worth of assets, and now we are at SAR 15m ($4m) a year.”
The Sayma platform will now offer various licensing models tailored for production companies, channels and government sectors interested in using video related to the Kingdom. “This flexibility is crucial because we are one of the largest countries in the region with an extensive repository of content.”
SBA previously processed content requests through email, a system Al Otaibi describes as effective yet not as efficient as desired. “Customers send us requests, we share some videos for them to review, they decide what they want, and then they pay. We transfer the content via a link. The whole process takes between 24 to 48 hours. With the online platform, however, they can view a range of footage and choose what they want; the transaction is immediate.”
As the Sayma platform is intended to attract clients from all over the world, it will be available in both English and Arabic. Current customers include production houses and news agencies such as the BBC and Sky News, along with airlines like Emirates and Saudi Airlines.
Al Otaibi’s role involves leading a team of around 30 people dedicated to this project. Each year, they archive around 30,000 media assets across 15 channels under the SBA.
Data security was a top priority in this project. Advanced cybersecurity measures were implemented to protect the intellectual property of all media materials. Digital rights management (DRM) has been implemented alongside HLS encryption to safeguard video content on the platform and control access to copyrighted material, enabling rights holders and content creators to manage what users can do with their content, such as how many devices they can access media on and whether they can share it. Additionally, the AI system was hosted on-premises to comply with Saudi regulations and the CMS was developed in accordance with Saudi cybersecurity standards to ensure the security of data both in storage and during transmission.
One impressive part of this platform is the AI technology integrated into it. “We trained the AI for speech-to-text in Arabic, providing it with audio samples to improve accuracy. This is an ongoing process; we continue to upgrade the system and assist the AI in learning better,” Al Otaibi says.
This project involved extensive collaboration between the vendors, who tailored their solutions to meet the client’s needs. Brightcove Zencoder was used to transcode all the content from the Sayma archive into the Brightcove Video Cloud. Each piece of content is ingested into Brightcove with multiple renditions, to ensure smooth video streaming. Tedial’s MAM system was integrated with Brightcove for hosting and streaming, as well as with IDenTV’s AI platform for metadata enrichment. It also handled transcoding and slicing of the content for AI processing by IDenTV.
A custom-developed CMS was created to manage the marketplace, linking the Tedial MAM system, IDenTV AI tools and Brightcove’s video hosting services. This was crucial for automating workflows and simplifying backend operations for the Sayma platform. Once the results are ready, the CMS pushes the metadata into Tedial, initiating a QA/QC process to enhance the outcomes. These modifications will be tracked and stored for retraining the AI module.
“We have been very careful in selecting technologies for this project,” explains Al Otaibi. “Brightcove provided the best quality with minimal download requirements. This was critical to meet Sayma’s goal of delivering a seamless streaming experience to clients.”
Sayma partnered with IDenTV to work closely on training the AI modules to handle both old and new content, and the ability to host the AI platform on Sayma’s premises to comply with Saudi regulations was also a determining factor, he adds.
An important element was the archival process, which primarily dealt with audio, video and photo formats. These different media types were digitised and prepared for online access and purchase through the Sayma marketplace.
Undertaking such a massive project brought a range of challenges. One major challenge involved transitioning to digital services for both content provision and financial payments. Another was the discovery and cataloguing of content, which was addressed by leveraging top-tier AI systems. The high volume of content within the MAM system needed to be managed efficiently and integrated with the platform.
Additionally, integrating SBA’s vast archive with AI platforms, media hosting and streaming services, and a marketplace CMS required a highly automated workflow. Content preparation needed careful consideration, as Sayma wanted to provide short-form content for use in other productions and marketing collateral. It also wanted to offer licensing for both legacy and ready-produced content.
The vendors and suppliers collaborated extensively to address each of these needs, explains MAAS World Executive Director Adeeb Abed, adding that extensive training followed.
“Once the project was completed, a comprehensive training programme was rolled out, which included video tutorials outlining the implementation steps in detail. Live training sessions were also conducted, followed by tests to ensure that the team could execute all the required processes effectively and manage the system post-launch. The team gained experience through hands-on experimentation with the system during the testing phase, ensuring that they understood the processes and were prepared to maintain the platform correctly after the project’s completion,” he says.
MAAS provides ongoing technical support for the project, with a 24/7 helpline available to address any technical issues that may arise for users or the platform itself. The broadcast network has clear monetisation strategies in place to maximise SBA’s assets, primarily through licensing its media content.
“Our platform’s commercial strategy is built around different licensing models, providing various types of content such as rushes and edited short-form content. The flexibility in licensing allows media companies and content creators to access and use the archived materials in their productions or marketing efforts,” explains Al Otaibi.
“In addition, the project will generate new income streams through content partnerships with both government and private sector entities. Additionally, licences will be provided to content display platforms, creating further revenue opportunities.”
Sayma’s success is attributed to the robust technology partnerships that have facilitated its development. With 200-250 current users and growing interest from over five streaming platforms, the project is set to open new avenues for content monetisation and distribution.
As Al Otaibi looks to the future, he concludes by highlighting plans to expand the platform’s offerings.
“We are signing contracts with other production companies and government entities to include their archives in our platform. We are also considering multiple tools to enhance the marketplace in the future, such as AI search and content discovery tools to help our clients find content. We are looking to add more security tools to protect content in the marketplace. In addition, there are several other features in the pipeline.”
