As live sports and premium video continue their migration to streaming platforms, providers face mounting pressure to deliver flawless viewing experiences at unprecedented scale. In this interview, Jacques Le Mancq, CEO and president of Broadpeak, explores how the streaming landscape has evolved and why scale, piracy and monetization have emerged as the industry's biggest challenges. From record-breaking live audiences to the rise of connected TV advertising, he shares insights into the trends reshaping video delivery worldwide.
Le Mancq discusses how Broadpeak helps streaming providers prepare for traffic surges, protect content from piracy and unlock new revenue opportunities through advanced advertising capabilities. He also explains why ultra-low latency is becoming increasingly important for live sports and other real-time experiences. Learn how broadcasters, operators and streaming platforms can optimize their networks, improve performance and deliver live content that feels as close to being there in person as possible.
Bevin Fletcher:
Hi everyone. Welcome and thanks for joining us. My name's Devin Fletcher, senior editor of StreamTV Insider and I'm here with Jacques Le Mancq, CEO and president of Broadpeak. Hey Jacques, how are you?
Jacques Le Mancq:
I'm good. How are you doing?
Bevin Fletcher:
I'm doing well, thanks. Thanks for being here. Okay, so you've been at the helm of Broadpeak for over 15 years. I guess to start us off, could you just tell us a little bit about the company and from your experience there, what would you say is one or two of the most significant changes or developments, be it tech infrastructure, that's kind of impacting the industry right now?
Jacques Le Mancq:
So Broadpeak is a leader in video streaming technology. So basically what we do is that we provide software. We provide software that can run on-prem for some of the largest telecom operators, cable companies, like people like Charter in the US, for example, groups like BT or Orange in Europe, Astro in Malaysia. And we also provide software as a service for streaming platforms and new medias, people like Football TV in the US, for example, or people like TF1 or MC. So these types of players. So we do everything from the transcoding to the packaging to the delivery and to the advertising. And so we're very present on the full chain, I would say. And we headquartered in France, West of France and Brittany. And basically we present across 23 different countries. So basically we touched 250 million people with our technology. If you look at our different customers, if we aggregate the subscriber base.
So enough with Broadpeak, so your question was about I think what we've seen during the last 15 years or at least during the last few years, a few changes. So what is striking I would say is the fact that everything is streaming video now today. It was not the case before. When we started, there was still a lot of satellite TV, there was a lot of cable TV and now it seems that everything is streaming. Every TV you buy from Best Buy is connected to the internet. So everything is streaming, and that's a change that we've seen accelerating with time.
Something also striking is the opportunity for digital advertising. Digital advertising is changing because these TVs are connected, you have the opportunity to do more with that. And it's a big shift also in terms of advertising potential revenue. Things didn't change. Like for example, sports is still very popular, people love sport and people watch a lot of sports. So I would say it's still the same but different.
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah. You touch a lot of aspects and obviously different parts of the infrastructure network and I'm glad you touched on sports because I wanted to bring that up for a minute because live has obviously also made its way to streaming. I mean, we see niche sports, major sports, they had the Super Bowl on streaming. So I guess from your purview, you're on the backend doing the infrastructure networking. What are some of the biggest challenges or perhaps missteps when it comes to delivering a live streaming TV experience?
Jacques Le Mancq:
Live streaming, I believe it's maybe two or three big challenges for live streaming. The first one would be scale, of course. Scaling the live streaming. We know that ... I mean, even Netflix was pretty good at delivering videos. They struggle at some point. Remember the Mike Tyson [inaudible 00:03:26]. So that was actually not totally successful. So scaling is a big issue right now, especially since everything is streaming, so you don't have plan B. So before you could say, "I'm streaming, but it's still available on terrestrial or satellite." But now it's like the only way to deliver. Scale.
Piracy. Piracy is a nightmare. So piracy is a huge business and it's a shame. I get conversation with people, even CTOs as they tell me, "Oh, we know it's a problem, but by the way, my son is using one of these pirate boxes and it's not a big deal." So people don't realize that piracy is the big issue and I think it's hurting any content, but especially sports, I would say.
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah, with the price of live sports too.
Jacques Le Mancq:
Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And finally, advertising, maybe. Also, advertising, I would say it's also a big challenge because how do you monetize? You get that great content, it costs a lot of money, you get a good subscription, but if you can expand the number of users by throwing in a little bit of advertising, then it can be very useful. So probably 2.5, I would say, like scaling, fighting piracy and improving revenue with advertising.
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah. So all obviously key aspects to streamers and what they're doing. So maybe could you talk to me just a little bit about what Broadpeak does specifically to help on either any or all of those aspects? Maybe just call out a couple specific things in how you help piracy or monetization?
Jacques Le Mancq:
First of all, for the scale and we're probably very well known for this at Broadpeak because we really help our customers stream at scale. Scale is about density. It's about being able to stream a lot of content from the same server because if you have a CDN, if you have a distributed infrastructure with a lot of cache servers, you need to make sure you have the maximum density so that it costs less and it actually is easier also to deal with the peak of traffic. So density is where we're very strong and we can very help.
Also, one of the issues for some of our customers is that dealing with the peak is always a surprise because you don't know what kind of audience you will get. So it's also being able to sleep at night. And so multicast ABR has a great technology for this because you basically erase the peak. So you don't really care that much whether you have like one people watching or 10 million people watching because it's going to use the same from your network. So that's a big plus. That's where we really help with scaling.
For piracy, where we're very good is that ... The issue with piracy is that when you deliver a live game, it already looks like an attack because you have so many requests, you don't want to touch anything and you just want to deliver and make it smooth. It's only the day after you realize you had a lot of pirates and your content was shared. So where we can help at Broadpeak is that within seconds, we can detect people sharing tokens, people cheating and we can basically cut that service or we can even do more. What I love about what we do at Broadpeak is that we can educate people. I was telling you, some people, they cheat, they don't pay, but they don't realize it's very bad. And instead of playing the game, maybe you can play a commercial for the game or for the service so that they say, "Oh, maybe instead of not being here with my pizza ready, I cannot watch the game. Maybe I can pay for this. It's only 20, $25." So it's like an educational thing.
And for where we help with the advertising, for me, and you were asking me earlier what has changed in our industry, when we started Broadpeak, YouTube was like playing very small videos, tiny videos, and nobody knew exactly what the business model was or it was not clear for anybody. It's obvious today now that it generate $50 billion with YouTube and already one billion is sent to phone, when they can send a recommendation to the phone. I mean, you can get an ad, you can send to card, Amazon is doing this also.
So for me, the fact that every TV is connected, it's a huge opportunity for broadcasters and streaming platforms to tap into the digital ads revenue. There is a demand for this and we can help them there. So I would be really the three or 2.5, I would say scale, fight piracy and tap into the digital advertising revenue.
Bevin Fletcher:
Very cool. I want to come back for, I'm just curious, you mentioned kind of these peak traffic spikes. So what have you witnessed? Is there any main peak traffic or any kind of surprises or peaks that you saw examples you could give?
Jacques Le Mancq:
Yes. So they have many of them because they're beating the records every year. But one that is very special to me is JioStar, when they carry the IPL, where they stream the IPL, I believe we had a discussion with Akash Saxena, the CTO of JioStar, and he was saying that they're streaming 120 terabytes at peak, which is big. But what is even more crazy about the audience that they got is that they had 72 million people watching at the same time. And for me, I'm French and 72 million streams, it's more than we have people in France. So it's like every French person would be watching the game. So it's a type of peak that is tracking and it's only the beginning, I would say. These numbers are, for me, they're unbelievable and they're amazing.
Bevin Fletcher:
That's a lot of traffic. Okay. So one more for you with that. With that in mind and kind of looking ahead, is there anything that you would recommend streaming providers prioritize or kind of next steps when it comes to preparing or optimizing networks for a strong live delivery experience?
Jacques Le Mancq:
So anything we talked about for the scaling, different ways of deploying efficient cash that can also save energy, relying on multi-cast ABR, taking the piracy issue really seriously and, of course, starting monetizing. But what I see as one new parameter for the battleground for streaming is that is the latency, the low latency and the ultra low latency. We've been very active at Broadpeak on Media over QUIC and here there is an opportunity to stream video like if you were there. And of course, if you are exclusive on your territory, it's not a big deal, latency is not a big deal because you get the right, nobody's going to watch it from another source.
But sometimes I watch a game and I'm talking to a customer from the other side of the world and they're sending me a WhatsApp notification and WhatsApp messaging, it would be one demanding parameter for latency because your game to be spoiled and you want to make sure that you can offer live content like if you were there. I'm quoting one of my customers saying, I ask him, "How is latency important to you?" And he said, "It's very important." I said, "What are you talking about? What do you expect?" And he said, "I expect live like if I was there."
Bevin Fletcher:
Yeah, as close as to real time as possible. Well, this has been super interesting. That's all the time we have, but thank you for watching and thanks so much, Jacques, for sharing with us and being here.
Jacques Le Mancq:
Thank you. Thank you very much.