A culture economy live in 28 countries: this is what Europa Specials proposes to its audience. The free, ad-supported pan-European streaming platform, created by the French company OKAST, was launched at MIPCOM Cannes.

As a European initiative based on community and sharing and funded by Creative Europe-MEDIA, its aim is “to be a place where you can find and showcase content that reflects who we are as individual countries and also as Europeans,” explains OKAST CEO and co-founder Cédric Monnier.

(L'article continue plus bas - Inf. publicitaire)

OKAST started as a tech company before specialising in developing and distributing more than 200 FAST channels in Europe, as well as creating white label streaming platforms for other companies and broadcasters. "With Europa Specials, we are our own customers," Monnier points out.

The French CEO presented the new platform within the ambit of the MIP Innovation Lab, the MIPCOM programme dedicated to discovering the technologies and emerging models transforming how content is created, produced, distributed and experienced.

The title of his presentation (“We Built a Streaming Platform in 90 Days. AI Didn’t Do It Alone”) hints at the dual nature of the project, which is the result of human and artificial intelligence, with the former leading the game. The metaphor used to describe the creation of the platform during the event  – “AI was the copilot. Editors flew the plane” – compared Europa Specials to a journey into what Monnier calls “deep culture”: “We don't have action movies, for example. Seventy per cent of our catalogue consists of documentaries about history, arts, crafts and travel.”

On this journey, to extend the metaphor, three different paths are available. Firstly, there is the VoD platform offering free, ad-supported content – ie. “More than 2,000 hours of documentaries (mostly), as well as some films, short films and podcasts.” Then, there are 50  FAST Channels in five languages (French, Italian, German, Spanish and English) where everything is geo-blocked. Finally, there are the so-called “Corners”, which offer “sneak peeks” into other platforms. “There are a lot of smaller local platforms, such as WeShort in Italy and Memoir in France. We want to be the hub where you can discover their value. Each of them has its own page with a presentation and information and you can preview some of their content for free.  We are exposing them to a larger audience – and if it works, it will generate subscriptions for them,” says Monnier.  As this is a promotional service, the streamer pays a fee, but that is the only case..

The VoD platform and the FAST Channels work with classic promos ads or short sponsorship videos, as well as other, “‘less intrusive” methods, in line with the cultural mission of Europa Specials. “We have the paused ads, which show up when the user pauses the content, or the L-shaped ads, which we often use in FAST Channels, where the ad is revealed in a corner while the main video is temporarily resized.”

Another interesting option is the incorporation of shoppable features connecting the content with products, widgets, QR codes or affiliate links to then measure impressions, interactions, conversions and revenue.

“A video content is not necessarily a ‘final destination’ – it could be the beginning of something or just a stepping stone. You might watch a documentary about an artist, for example, and then want to buy their biography, or a ticket for a concert. We want to bridge the online and the offline worlds.” Which is why at MIPCOM, Europa Specials was looking for different kinds of partners, such as producers and distributors for the VoD catalogue of FAST channels as well as broadcasters and streamers interested in Corners, but also festivals and cultural and academic institutions.

The system thus created is a circular system in which culture both enters and exits, and the brain coordinating this circulation is both human and artificial. Curiosa, the AI technology developed by Europa Specials, allows the user to “stop scrolling and start asking.” From the content introduced into it, Curiosa extracts a lot of information (storylines, scenes, people and locations) and builds a huge database of knowledge that users can ask questions to, expressing what they would like to watch. Local curators also control it by crafting editorial initiatives which may vary according to the territory they are meant for: “We choose works that have something to say and somehow trigger different points of view. That is an editorial decision. Technology helps us reveal the connections and gives viewers more ways to explore,” underlines Francesco Denti, Europa Specials’ Chief Content Officer.