6 October 2008

New deal tracks ITV content worldwide

ITV and ISAN UK announced today that the broadcaster is adopting the International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN) for the content identification of all ITV programmes. This initiative is in support of ITV’s digital strategy and will enable the tracking and monitoring of ITV content throughout the world, across multimedia platforms.

Under the deal ITV will be investing in the future of the ISAN UK registration agency, which underlines ITV’s belief in the development of digital workflow and tools.  ISAN will also help ITV bring efficiencies to the large volume of reporting that the broadcaster has to provide to collection societies for the use of other rights, such as music.

ISAN UK was founded by Pact, MCPS-PRS and Soundmouse to gain adoption in the UK of a standard international code for content to be used throughout the whole audio-visual supply chain; from production to broadcast, through to distribution and reporting.

Because ITV will be able to track more accurately and report the use of music in their productions to, ISAN partner, the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the deal will mean more accurate payment of royalties to songwriters and publishers.

ISAN allocates a global unique 24 digit code to each piece of audio-visual content and is already used in many digital formats including Blu-ray discs and Microsoft Windows media.  It is expected that ITV’s backing of ISAN will increase its adoption both in the UK and throughout the world.

John Cresswell, ITV’s Chief Operating Officer, said “The ability to exploit our content effectively is a key part of ITV’s strategy and using ISAN will enhance our ability to do this.”     

 Max Graesser, ITV’s Director of Operations said “ITV is delighted to build this relationship with ISAN.   It reflects our commitment to digital working and our intent to ensure a secure supply chain model.”    

John McVay of Pact said “ITV have shown great foresight in adopting ISAN which will become a global standard in the digital age. Other UK broadcasters and producers should ensure that they have properly considered the commercial benefits of ISAN as they develop their own long –term strategies”

Steve Porter of MCPS-PRS said; “ITV’s buy-in to ISAN is great news for our 60,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members who receive royalties whenever their work is broadcast on ITV. ISAN technology will significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our monitoring of usage of our members’ work, resulting in more accurate royalty distributions.”

Charles Hodgkinson of Soundmouse said “In choosing the ISAN standard ITV have shown their forward thinking approach to structuring and harnessing both their content and the content-related metadata. We believe that this infrastructural initiative will prepare ITV for the broadcast industry’s future of multiple production sources and the proliferation in number of distribution platform opportunities.”

Clive Bishop of ISAN UK said "I’m delighted that ITV will be using ISAN and very excited about working with them to use ISAN in support of their digital strategy, which will also help them achieve operational efficiencies.  I hope this is the spring board to getting widespread adoption of ISAN in the UK."

Patrick Attallah of ISAN International Agency said “After its adoption earlier in the year by major audiovisual industry players such as Philips, Thomson, and Harris, having now ITV, a major UK broadcaster adopting it, demonstrates the benefits of using ISAN for universal content identification and tracking”

-Ends-

Press Contact:

Catherine George; 020 7306 4229 catherine.george@mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk

Notes to editors:

ISAN - The ISAN (International Standard Audiovisual Number) is a voluntary numbering system for the identification of audiovisual works.  It provides a unique, internationally recognised and permanent reference number for each audiovisual work registered in the ISAN system.  ISAN is an ISO standard (ISO 15706) reflecting the industry-wide consensus behind it.  The ISAN number remains the same for an audio-visual work regardless of where it is used, with associated version numbers (V-ISAN) available for different edits and formats of the underlying content.  ISAN is the content identifier for the AACS encryption system, which means ISAN numbers are required for all Blu-ray disc releases.For more information, please visit www.isan.org

ISAN UK Ltd runs the activities of ISAN in the UK and is based in the London offices of Pact.  Its activities include assisting UK customers register ISANs for TV productions, feature films, and many other forms of audiovisual content.  Services are also offered to UK customers to search and read the global ISAN database.  ISAN UK was founded by MCPS-PRS Music Alliance, Pact and Soundmouse.

Please contact info@isan.org.uk for more information on ISAN UK services.