As SBS Belgium evolves its video service offerings to cater for a wider and younger target audience, it is imperative for them to ensure not only the highest content but also viewing quality. SBS Belgium has the challenging task of making sure that their audio and video assets are played back correctly and reliably across devices, well protected, and optimally monetised.

“As we focus on offering our content through the internet, we have to ensure the best playback quality for our services. However, we were faced with several challenges with the use of our previous video player. This includes stability, peripheral integrations, after-sales support, and advertisement issues which negatively impacted our revenue,” says Michiel, former Digital Product Manager at SBS Belgium.

On top of a working solution, SBS Belgium was also in need of a player technology partner who can guide them through their platform evolution. A partner who understands their business landscape and is able to respond accordingly in a timely manner.

THE SOLUTION

“We were suggested to utilise THEO’s THEOplayer Universal Video Player solution for our streaming service. We knew it was the right solution when we analysed the benchmarking results. THEOplayer performs much better than our then-existing video player,” says Michiel.

THEOplayer easily met the MOAT and Google Ads pre-integration requirements, conveniently avoiding complex and lengthy implementation processes. Additionally, the geographical proximity of both THEO and SBS Belgium allows for a much more fluid communication.

“Not only that THEO has the solutions we required, their proximity, rate of growth, clear vision, and the reference we received made them the most ideal choice. We believe that THEO will be a long-term partner who will be able to walk alongside us, as our business continues to grow and evolve, providing us with consistent peace of mind.”
- Michiel
Former Digital Product Manager at SBS Belgium

THE RESULT

Better viewer acquisition and retention: With the help of THEO, SBS was able to achieve an impressive growth of 228% in viewership through their online platform in 2021, compared to the same period the year before.

Seamless playback for every use-case: SBS Belgium has been able to deliver a much better viewing quality to their OTT customers utilising THEOplayer UVP Web SDK. Additionally, they have also been able to optimise their ad-delivery on their mobile applications by leveraging THEOplayer UVP iOS and Android SDKs for advertisements playback. “Integrating THEO’s solutions into our system was very easy. It’s a plug and play for everything, from Web Browsers to iOS and Android platforms.”, says Michiel.

World-class Experts Support: “We need to only explain what we were going to do and our requirements for THEO to guide us through the completion of our projects.”, says Michiel. “They have always been there for us, suggesting the best approaches, what we should do and what we should not do,” Michiel added. He was also pleased with the technical documentation and THEO’s response time in resolving the tickets issued by his technical team.