"The 'brave new world' of advertising sales" - Australia's Network Ten begins roll-out of innovative Pilat Media solution

Press Release: 25 March 2002

London, 25 March 2002 - As part of a pioneering joint development and deployment project, Network Ten, one of Australia's leading commercial television stations, is rolling out the new cross media advertising sales modules of Pilat Media's Integrated Broadcast Management System (IBMS).

For software systems supplier Pilat Media, which numbers many leading broadcasters in Europe, North America and Australasia among its key clients, the roll-out marks the first major implementation of its advertising sales functionality.

The implementation follows Network Ten's decision to go live with IBMS' core content modules in August 2000. These now support all aspects of Network Ten's entire broadcast value chain including programme acquisition, scheduling and media management across the four different time zones in which the company operates.

The new advertising sales modules are designed to bring efficiencies to the broadcaster's sales infrastructure, enabling it to streamline internal processes, deliver targeted packages to agencies and clients and replace existing peripheral systems.

The efficiency of IBMS has already allowed Network Ten to create extra booking availability for clients through a new website targeted at advertising agencies, www.buyten.com.au. The broadcaster also believes that by ensuring its deal management is as efficient as possible, the Pilat Media system will help it maximise sales revenues.

Opting for Pilat Media

"We were attracted to Pilat Media because it offered an integrated and flexible content management solution and also because we shared a pragmatic vision of what could be achieved in streamlining the advertising sales process," says Bruce Nicholas, IT project manager, Network Ten.

When Pilat Media began working with the broadcaster, Network Ten had a complex infrastructure with five major sales offices across the country, and a total of 22 peripheral systems controlling content management. It was also necessary to consider Network Ten's links to its affiliate stations across the country, each with its own independent systems. "We needed a solution to help us manage the imminent transition to digital television and HDTV by reducing duplication across our network and by centralising and integrating our operations," added Nicholas. "Implementing Pilat Media's IBMS has helped us to accomplish that objective."

"IBMS is a modern, intelligent selling system which allows our business to grow and enables new and better ways of selling. We have been able to replace many peripheral systems, concentrate key elements of the acquisition-to-air process at our Sydney HQ and link our interstate sites to a central database, enabling our operators to have a single view of system data. We are confident that we can now start to generate the same efficiencies in advertising sales as we have already achieved in content management."

Network Ten was also impressed by the flexibility of IBMS. The system is based on an open architecture with a resilient database from Oracle at its centre. As a result, Pilat Media has been able to offer a high level of customisation in implementing the system.

"We believe that Network Ten represents the ideal partner for us to work with in developing our innovative advertising sales system," says Avi Engel, Pilat Media's CEO. "It is an existing IBMS customer with rich and complex sales requirements and it shares our belief that in today's competitive environment, advertising sales systems must provide more proactive selling, dynamic and market sensitive pricing and efficient contract delivery. We are looking forward to turning our shared vision of the future into a commercial reality."

-Ends-

About Network Ten

Network Ten is one of three commercial free-to-air television networks broadcasting to Australia's mainland capital cities. Network Ten owns and operates television stations in the Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth metropolitan markets. Through its affiliate agreement with Southern Cross Broadcasting Corporation, Network Ten programming is transmitted to viewers in regional Queensland, regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, regional Victoria and Tasmania.

Notes to editors:

Pilat Media is a UK company, currently 150 strong, operating from headquarters in London and offices in the USA, Australia and Israel.

Pilat Media's IBMS (Integrated Broadcast Management System) is a new generation software system for managing the business of broadcasting. It is the world's most comprehensive solution, designed to maximize revenues and reduce costs by integrating airtime sales, content programming and media trafficking across an unlimited number of different channels or stations, regions or even countries, all under a single centralized, scalable and digital ready system. Al these have been historically serviced by several, typically dispersed systems. IBMS' functional breadth, depth and flexibility to suit all types of broadcasters are unrivalled, making it the first truly global system of its kind.

IBMS' first version was originally developed by Pilat for BSkyB, to support their fast growing multi-channel programming needs. Pilat Media was established in 1999 to further develop and market the system as a generic product. IBMS's scope was subsequently more than doubled by adding the advertising sales functionality in partnership with Network Ten of Australia. Since then Pilat Media has rapidly established itself as a rising force in the market for business management software for broadcasters. Today, Pilat Media's software solutions have been selected by 35 broadcasters in Europe, North America and Australasia, representing a wide spectrum of business models, organizational size and transmission technologies - digital and analogue, on terrestrial, cable and satellite platforms. Additional clients include CTV (Canada), Discovery (International), five (UK), TV New Zealand, Playboy (US), Sky Italia and TV4 (Sweden).