Who hasn’t heard of it: the Eurovision Song Contest, with extravagant shows from all over Europe and far beyond? The 2021 edition was of course different than other editions because of COVID. How could participating countries see their own rehearsals if they were not physically present? And how could you keep the press informed if journalists could not get in touch with the artists? The answer was streaming. And Eurovision trusts this to Jet-Stream.

Eurovision & Jet-Stream

Since Covid, streaming became a mission-critical core part for the Eurovision Song Contest. A number of strict conditions were therefore rightly imposed. Think of streams that must always work, at high video quality, but also making sure broadcasts could be viewable as far as Australia. Jet-Stream was selected in 2021 and in 2022 by Eurovision because they were one of the few suppliers that could meet the combination of requirements.

When the 2023 contest was held in the UK, the chosen vendor could not match high performance standards set by Jet-Stream. As a result, Eurovision has decided to continue using Jet-Stream Cloud for the next three years.

Livestream Eurovision Song Contest

Why Jet-Stream?

Source streams are redundantly sent from the event location to Jet-Stream’s new European Streaming Cloud, which live transcodes the streams to multi bit rate adaptive streams in real-time. The Jet-Stream Cloud is purpose-built for streaming, offering the latest technologies in high quality media processing up to 8K video, media protection and ultra-fast streaming delivery throughout the European continent.

The show must go on

The internet is a patchwork of interconnected infrastructures that can fail. Imagine the damage if streams buffer or break during such important events as the Eurovision Song Contest. Jet-Stream Cloud integrates multiple Content Delivery Networks to globally deliver high performing streams. All streams and CDNs are actively monitored across the globe. Active load balancing algorithms select the most optimal path for each viewer upon start and mid-stream to guarantee the highest possible uptime and performance for each viewer, even when a global CDN suffers from a minor or major outage.

Media security

Rehearsals absolutely must not leak; the show needs to remain a surprise. To prevent unauthorized access to streams, Jet-Stream Cloud protects Eurovision streams with encrypted connections and URL signing technologies that prevent deep linking outside the Let’s Get Digital online event platform.

Uniformity of branding

To offer the viewers an exclusive Eurovision branding experience across any device, Jet-Stream’s Privacy Player Pro is built into Let’s Get Digitals’ platform, matching the look and feel of the Eurovision brand. Privacy Player Pro is responsive, adaptive and supports mid-stream switching and comes with an interactive API.

European data shielding

Jet-Stream Cloud is European owned and built on European soil. Third parties have no access to logs and analytics that are stored in the secure Jet-Stream Cloud. Therefore, the entire Eurovision streaming service is fully GDPR compliant. Jet-Stream Cloud actively protects the privacy of the Eurovision viewers and protects Eurovision’s data.

Eurovision’s workflow on Jet-Stream Cloud, highlighted in orange.

Support from the experts

Let’s Get Digital and Eurovision setup, process, protect and publish themselves with Jet-Stream’s easy to use and user-friendly services. The technical teams at Eurovision are 24/7 supported by the Jet-Stream team in the Netherlands. Our experts have nearly 30 years of streaming experience (they invented streaming in 1994) and offer support to make sure that the show goes on, no matter what. We are supporting with glass-to-glass checks of the entire chain: from encoder tuning to player integration, from upstream connection monitoring to livestream monitoring. 

“We’re absolutely delighted to extend our collaboration with Jet-Stream for the Eurovision Song Contest. Their commitment to meeting rigorous standards for reliability, quality, and security is truly outstanding. With Jet-Stream on board, we’re confident in providing Eurovision fans worldwide with an unforgettable experience.”. 

Bas Krijgsman, founder of Let’s Get Digital.

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