Back and Forth with Teleport Executive of the Year Bill Tillson
by Lou Zacharilla
Washington, D.C., April 6, 2012--At the Satellite 2012 show in Washington, D.C., Bill Tillson, President and Chief Operating Officer of Encompass Digital Media in the United States was named the teleport industry’s 2012 Executive of the Year by World Teleport Association. In a ceremony in Washington, D.C., hosted by SES, Tillson was honored by his peers, including most of the world’s leading teleport operators, satellite companies and technology providers
.The German writer Goethe once said, “Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who YOU are.” What was noticeable about Bill, was the degree to which his customers and competitors, among them the most respected names in the industry, are friends and admirers. Many were seated at the Encompass table during the awards luncheon, including Ed Horowitz, director of U.S. Space, along with Vincent H. Roberts, Chief Technology Officer at the Disney/ABC Television Group. Both had submitted letters on Bill’s behalf, each of which began with what they believed to be his most striking characteristics. They included words such as “integrity,” “honesty” and “incredibly smart.” Tillson was offered the highest accolade by Horowitz, who said that he was a person “demonstrating the best qualities a human being can possess.”
These are not generally the characteristics the old business stereotype would offer up to a guy who led a series of acquisitions in a tough industry. These included the purchase of Andrita Studios in Los Angeles, and finished with Bill and his group picking up the tab for the content distribution business of Ascent Media. In the process, Encompass has emerged as a teleport operator and digital media services company with a global footprint. It is a major player now. Will the acquisitions work in the long-term? If anyone can do it, friends say, it will be Bill. Is he building a new type of teleport-enabled operation? What is the lesson for teleport operators and want-to-be’s with ground assets?
In the past 12 months he has expanded the focus of his company beyond sports, media and entertainment, and has launched 60 new channels. The company today delivers nearly 285,000 transmissions across its 132 antennas, fiber and an IP backbone network.
As I prepared my remarks as Master of Ceremonies for the WTA luncheon, I kept thinking, “It is hard to bust the chops of a guy like this.” But it was easy to choose him as the subject for this segment of “Back and Forth.” And, as his testimonial letters also said, “he has a great sense of humor.”
Excerpts of our exchange follows:
Lou: On February 29thyou were named Teleport Executive of the Year. When you were named, what was your first reaction?
Tillson: I was very flattered. The executives who represent the WTA members are all senior executives in our industry and it is very special to be honored by them, because they are my peers.
Lou: At the Luncheon you spoke about having been on both the client and the operator side of the business. This presumably gives you insight into the markets Encompass serves. How much of a factor was this experience as you were putting together the acquisitions and strategic plan for today’s Encompass?
Tillson: The experience of having served 18 years representing the major media companies was invaluable. At Encompass we work very hard to instill in our employees the perspective that ultimately we work for our customers. Ultimately our customer’s success is critical to Encompass’ success. That is not lip-service, because it is easy to say. It is something that I have built my professional belief system around.
Lou: At the Awards Luncheon I prefaced my remarks with a quote from a book called Everything is Illuminated. “The great advances are made not by individuals so much as by environments. It is not a coincidence that innovations tend to come in bundles.” Is there an environment at Encompass that will drive innovations?
Tillson: I think so. We try to foster two perspectives, or stages, which allow a platform for innovation. First, we must provide the infrastructure, technology and services to support any innovations our customers require, and then we must deploy new technologies as services for our customers so that they can remain competitive.
Lou: I note the key phrase “technologies as services,” rather than simply technology for its own sake. Let’s talk about the business platform for the delivery of services. Through acquisition, you are able to offer geographically diverse disaster recovery options for network origination and content archival storage. Aside from the obvious advantage of protection for clients, are there any innovations you foresee in these two areas of service that would keep a competitor from entertaining the idea of doing the same thing in your markets over time?
Tillson: The innovations come, as I say, through the two-phase process. To be able to offer services at a viable cost you need multi-channel facilities in geographically diverse locations. That’s a strategic decision. Each of these facilities must have a large fixed customer and channel base that covers the enormous overhead associated with the technical infrastructure, such as redundant HVAC, UPS, generators, security and all the rest of that stuff; which you know from your years in the teleport industry. Add to that a requirement for an engineering and operations staff that goes around the clock which is needed to run the facilities in order to provide these services and you have the basic scenario. Not so easy, right?
Lou: If it was more would be doing it. So the capital costs and requirements create a barrier to entry?
Tillson: Yes.
Lou: The investments that were made in a global, high-end facility infrastructure allow you to keep existing clients and develop new ones. It is a truism that tier one customers, for the most part, carefully evaluate vendors and partners and, once committed, will stay committed so long as the pricing, relationship and investment in technology remain adequate.
Tillson: We are fortunate to have world-class facilities around the world with a customer base made up primarily of tier one broadcasters. Now, the falling cost of digital storage and the emergence of IP playout have materially driven our disaster recovery services as well, allowing us to provide real time network backup that includes the playout of long form and interstitial media, as well as commercials.
Lou: I suspect that was part of the plan and that you did your homework. You are said to be a very insightful guy with regard to the trends in the market. To that point, Euroconsult recently issued a report which said that the satellite industry is set for a decade-long growth spurt. First, do you agree? Second, what can teleport operators do to ensure that they ride along with this projected growth?
Tillson: We agree with Euroconsult that the satellite industry will have strong growth for at least the next decade. We believe this will be driven by, among other factors, new channel launches, SD to HD conversion, high growth markets in Latin America, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and emerging markets in Africa and the Middle East. In addition, the HD backhaul of premium sports events to multiple territories and the demand for breaking HD news coverage will drive more growth.
Lou: How about 3D in this mix?
Tillson: At some point 3D distribution will add to this growth. It will be focused, we believe, on special event telecasts in the initial period.
Lou: There is always angst, despite the positive performance of the total industry, that teleports are not quite sure where to point themselves. How can teleports, generally, participate in this overall industry growth?
Tillson: To participate in this growth, teleports will have to emerge as multi-media processing facilities offering large bandwidth connectivity to fiber and the Internet in addition to the traditional satellite option. The teleport of the future will have to provide transcoding, storage and streaming in multiple formats as well as value added origination services, in addition to traditional compression, uplink and downlink services.
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Lou Zacharilla is the Director of Development of the Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI). He can be reached at: LZacharilla@sspi.org
