Open Standards: Why, When, Who's going to use them?

Imagine trying to do business when buyers and sellers speak different languages and use their own terminology. I say Order , you say Buy, she says Contract ….

Maybe human trading partners can figure it out, but computers can't. Machines need to speak the same (Standard) language and use common (Standard) terms to pass information between them. And Standards need to be open/neutral, not proprietary, for eBusiness to enable all size trading partners and invite competitive technology.

Despite years of hard work by TVB's eBiz committees, few Open Standards were finalized. In early 2007, TVB's Board of Directors took this work out of committee and TVB hired Click IT Solutions to complete and publish Open Standards for local broadcast television. In addition, Click IT Solutions consulted with TVB on the development of a broadcast-funded eBiz platform (TVB ePort).

Open Standards for our core local broadcast transactions (including: Order, Makegood, Revision and Invoice) and new electronic transactions (including: Log Times and Avail Requests/Submissions) are now complete and available. These standards also support the transaction of web and other interactive business plus non-airtime charges.

What does system adoption mean? Writing to or adopting open standards means that buy and sell side vendors are incorporating the standards into their systems. As a result, buyers and sellers will be able to send and receive more electronic transactions and have new and more efficient ways of viewing and using buy data.

Open Standards are different from TVB ePort. ePort provides the connectivity to move the standard transactions between buy and sell side systems. Any trading partner with any in-house system can use ePort to send/receive electronic business. ePort has been operational since Fourth Quarter 2007.

Support for Open Standards and TVB ePort is strong. But don't take our word for it. Here's what leading media technologists have to say….

Nancy Hill, president and CEO, 4A’s (Agency trade association)

“The 4A’s supports this significant eBusiness solution!.”

John Shelton, President, Strata Marketing (Buy and Sell systems)

“We applaud the work that the TVB is doing to create Open Standards and promoting electronic systems within the TV industry. We at Strata will aggressively incorporate TVB standards in our systems and close the loop on electronic business . We believe that the introduction of ePort will dramatically increase the adoption of TV stations transacting business electronically , allowing Strata agencies to run more efficiently and provide better value to their own customers. In particular, confirmation from traffic systems and actual log times will go a long way to reduce discrepancies.”

Ed Adams, VP General Mgr., North America Media, Harris/OSI
(Buy, Traffic and Rep systems)

“Because Harris provides services to agencies, stations and rep firms, we recognize the importance of trading partners being able to communicate electronically….The work that the TVB is doing clearly helps everyone involved in the buying and selling of TV and will facilitate new transactions such as the execution of interactive business for TV stations. We intend to update all of our services including Spotdata to support the new TVB XML schema as soon as possible and hope that the other vendors will follow. With the introduction of ePort and the use of Open Standards, the most significant of the technical barriers for widespread use of electronic communication will be removed.”

Lowell Putnam, CEO and President, VCI (Traffic and Sales systems)

“ePort is a great initiative which will help move the use of the open standards along. The TVB's work to create open standards is something we have and will continue to support. We believe it is in the best interests of our clients and the industry.  We will incorporate those standards into our products going forward.”

Nick Jones, Director of Development, Spot Buy Spot
(Spot, Cable and Radio eBiz connectivity provider)

“I am very impressed; this is a remarkably complete and flexible (open standard) schema, and I appreciate the amount of documentation and the use cases that have been provided. Its modularity clearly has benefits for future modifications or development of new schemas.”

Joe Lampert, Managing Director, Harris Corp.

“ePort currently offers the most promising solution to meet the industry’s eBusiness needs and Harris remains committed to supporting its adoption.”

We invite you to contact TVB with questions/comments at info@tvb-eport.net and urge you to ask your system provider about their timetable to comply with the industry's Open Standards.