Case study

ORF Creates New Livestreaming Options for Millions of Viewers With Endava

Media and Entertainment
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Challenge

Austria's largest media provider looked for ways to enhance their live offerings and connect their viewers with more seamless experiences. They needed to develop a more user-friendly interface and upgrade their systems at scale.

Outcome

As ORF’s lead agency partner since 2009, we stepped in to help launch ORF ON, a new livestream offering that makes all four ORF TV channels continuously available in livestreams for the first time, providing nearly 30 hours of additional live programming to viewers per day.

In a world of 24/7 content and broadcasting, ORF, Austria's largest media provider, looked for ways to enhance their live offerings and connect their viewers with more seamless experiences.   

 

As ORF’s lead agency partner since 2009, we stepped in to help launch ORF ON, a new livestream offering that makes all four ORF TV channels continuously available in livestreams for the first time, providing nearly 30 hours of additional live programming to viewers per day.  

 

Working together on this initiative unlocked a new era of streaming for ORF, where viewers now have live content available at their fingertips, whenever they’re ready to watch.

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Navigating broadcasting upgrades at scale

ORF’s live offerings were at a crossroads. Due to licencing issues, only around 70% of ORF’s programming was available to all viewers, therefore creating many gaps in the user experience. Implementing upgrades at scale can be daunting, which led ORF to find a technology partner with expertise in streaming.  

 

ORF’s challenges included:

  • Making live content available to all viewers and implementing new features 
  • Creating a user-friendly experience to keep viewers engaged   
  • Engaging a partner that could provide end-to-end development from consulting to UX/UI design, concept and technology 
  • Modernising back-end systems using an API-centric approach

"With ORF ON, we have created a technically sophisticated, user-friendly streaming platform for our audience, to which Austrians can easily and quickly access ORF content from all their devices. From strategy development, conception and design to technical development, ORF technology has created an innovative, promising web and app world. Whether live or on demand – ORF ON offers a new experience for our viewers thanks to the new digital possibilities and numerous attractive features. 
 

The cooperation with Endava, which is responsible for a high-performance editorial system and a high-performance back-end structure on the one hand, and has developed ORF LIVE, a core of our new streaming platform, on the other hand, is particularly noteworthy for the successful implementation."

 

Dr. Harald Kräuter, Director of Technology and Digitisation, ORF 

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"With ORF ON, we have created a technically sophisticated, user-friendly streaming platform for our audience, to which Austrians can easily and quickly access ORF content from all their devices. From strategy development, conception and design to technical development, ORF technology has created an innovative, promising web and app world. Whether live or on demand – ORF ON offers a new experience for our viewers thanks to the new digital possibilities and numerous attractive features. 
 

The cooperation with Endava, which is responsible for a high-performance editorial system and a high-performance back-end structure on the one hand, and has developed ORF LIVE, a core of our new streaming platform, on the other hand, is particularly noteworthy for the successful implementation."

 

Dr. Harald Kräuter, Director of Technology and Digitisation, ORF 

Native client third-party integrating: To add more depth to the platform experience, the client prioritised adding apps that enable: 

  • Enterprise content management: With the assortment of content management systems already under the client’s umbrella of offerings, we instituted enhancements and new features to improve the platform’s functions across the many operating systems it serves. The work included rebranding the user experience and interface, security upgrades and resolving several internal and customer-flagged product issues.     

      

  • Social media syncing and emoji use: We assisted in adding an app that allows the client’s user to connect the platform to a well-known messaging app and use emojis within that integration. We worked with native and web-based engineering team to remove potential obstacles and de-bugged certain areas to make the integration more stable and ready for rollout.
  • Interoperable collaboration: We supported adding a collaborative board app into the client’s platform to allow collaboration without context switching. Work included authentication oversight, native integration into multiple operating systems, adding business/operation metrics and making the functions more accessible.
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Launching a new approach to livestreaming

To understand ORF’s vision for their livestream offerings, we hosted virtual and in-person workshops and assembled an agile team of experts in UX/UI design, architecture and APIs. Together, we built a plan for ORF to launch ORF ON, an updated livestreaming platform, and additional ORF LIVE capabilities.  

 

Our approach included:

  • Building user-friendly features for livestreams, such as parental controls, accessibility adaptations and regionalised access to content 
  • Synchronising user actions with the help of a complex server timestamp solution 
  • Optimising livestream transitions with an individual seamless playing solution 
  • Minimising network traffic and loading times with intelligent livestream data management 
  • Expanding capabilities such as picture-in-picture viewing and optimising for mobile devices 
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Allowing viewers to access content anytime, anywhere

Over a yearlong initiative, we worked closely with ORF and external service providers to launch ORF ON and LIVE, which are now available to ORF’s entire viewing network. Viewers no longer need to wait for the start of the next available livestream, and can easily access content whenever, wherever they want. 

 

Overall, the project achieved these key results: 

  • Successfully launched new, modernised streaming platform to millions of customers 
  • Implemented user-friendly features to enhance viewing experiences and increase customer satisfaction  
  • Developed a responsive front-end while maintaining development of a media library API and back-end systems 
  • Redeveloped APIs for all apps, ensuring continuity of service  

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