A leading Fife technology company has secured a multi-million-pound earnings boost after playing a key role in the launch of telecom giant BT’s new subscription sports channels.
Kirkcaldy-based PayWizard was asked to come on board late last year to provide platform authentication services to the fledgling BT Sport project.
The firm’s role is essentially to facilitate access for Sky television subscribers across Great Britain and Northern Ireland to BT’s premier league football, rugby union and other sports content.
PayWizard software allows them to connect up BT’s internal subscriber management and Sky’s conditional access systems to authorise cross-platform subscription requests.
“BT launched their sports package earlier this year, but we have been helping since late last year to put the infrastructure in place to let them reach out to the digital satellite marketplace,” PayWizard commercial director Jamie Mackinlay said.
“Basically, we had a pre-existing integration into the conditional access environment that Sky use to turn on and off content. We have now done an integration back into BT’s main customer management system.
“If you have Sky at home and want to watch BT’s sports channels, you call BT and what they do is send a signal to us using our system and we will release the encryption on the channel.”
Mr Mackinlay said the multi-year BT tie-up the value of which has not been disclosed but which is understood to involve a seven-figure sum built on a long-standing relationship between the two companies.
“They (BT) came to us because they only had a very tight time to market from late last year to being ready in May,” Mr Mackinlay said.
“They were aware of the expertise that we have, and wanted to leverage the platform we had in place which already had this integration done.
“Part of the attraction of our platform is that it has a proven track record of delivering scalable solutions, and they needed that.”
Mr Mackinlay said he hoped PayWizard’s relationship with BT would continue to develop and grow in the years ahead.
“BT are very significant to us, and (the sports channel) has certainly outperformed market expectations,” he said.
“We have signed a multi-year agreement and it is our intention and we hope to be a partner of theirs into the longer term.”
BT Vision chief executive Marc Watson praised PayWizard’s involvement in the sport channel project.
“Extending audience reach without compromising content security is one of the biggest challenges facing premium content broadcasters today,” Mr Watson said.
“As a sports broadcaster with high-value content like premier league football and rugby union this is especially true.
“We have chosen PayWizard to help us overcome this challenge. Its robust platform and extensive experience in the media industry make it an ideal partner for such an important part of BT Sport.”
On an annual basis PayWizard which employs around 250 staff enables more than $400 million of pay TV revenues for a global client base which includes a raft of leading media companies such as NBC Universal, ITV and Virgin Media.