Sky, Europe's leading entertainment company, is launching the Sky Editorial Asset Centre, a new digital asset management platform, to enable easier sharing of its enormous stock of still images for commissioned and acquired shows and movies. The platform has been created by multi-channel publishing experts, Evolved Media Solutions, using software firm WoodWing's digital asset management (DAM) system, Elvis, as the basis of Sky's platform, but customized to Sky's own unique needs.
Sky briefed Evolved Media Solutions, a platinum partner of WoodWing, to create the Sky Editorial Asset Centre (SEAC) having identified the time being spent every week on servicing hundreds of requests for images by telephone and email. In addition, it had found that there was inconsistency (and sometimes inaccuracy) with the images being used to promote its TV programs and movies both internally and externally – in the media, for marketing and advertising campaigns, on its website and across the company's electronic program guides for different services (e.g. Sky and Now TV).
SEAC is set to revolutionize the way in which people can search, locate and distribute digital images for Sky's content. It will
• Store all images in a central repository
• Use a simple drag and drop system to assign usage and inherit metadata so that all images are easy to classify and retrieve
• Create a process to manage image requests and allow users (both at Sky and externally) to download approved imagery themselves if the image they are looking for is already available
• Where the required image is not yet available, enable users to make a request which they can then track
Michele Swaine, Transformation Director at Sky, says, "It's great to offer the Sky Editorial Asset Centre to our staff and external partners – we're already getting positive feedback from those using the new platform. Quite simply, it will transform the consistency, availability, accuracy and delivery efficiency of the millions of images we use to run and promote our business."
SEAC will be integrated with Sky's program schedule database so that its Stills Department can plan ahead for the images they will need before the start of each new series or upcoming movie. They can then easily upload the pictures and the system also incorporates approval tools so they can manage the picture rights, ensuring that images can only be used for the purpose assigned to them. People can then search for the images they want by channel, program, series, episode and transmission date.
Russell Pierpoint, Managing Director at Evolved Media Solutions, adds, "The Sky Editorial Asset Centre will streamline the whole process, allowing Sky to take control of the sharing of its digital assets, stop multiple teams across the company having to search for the same pictures over and over again, and make it much easier for users to access the images they need. Sky should see a good return on investment as a result of the efficiencies this new platform will provide."
Jeroen Sonnemans, Managing Director at WoodWing Europe, concludes: "Elvis DAM is inherently a powerful solution for the efficient management of very large amounts of digital assets. But thanks to its open architecture, the support of open standards and the powerful programming interface, Elvis DAM is also ideally suited as a technology platform for the development of highly customized DAM environments, enabling customers to extensively tailor the system to their individual requirements."
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