News

Connections: Localisation Leaders Launch Audio Business Continuity Alliance

By Chris Tribbey Connections | June 02, 2020

Audio Waves

The Media and Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) has formally announced the Audio Business Continuity Alliance (ABCA), a new nonprofit industry association to establish a collaborative community of artists and companies who offer professional audio services to content creators worldwide. Leading localisation service providers Iyuno Media Group and SDI Media are supporting the effort.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for the ABCA’s formation, with vendors offering different technologies, hardware and workflow solutions, and content producers
setting their own requirements for remote recording, to meet the challenge.

Bringing the localization industry together on the same page with infrastructure, planning and training will help everyone involved to plan ahead for future industrywide disruptions.

“As a global language services provider to the media and entertainment industry, COVID-19 has presented new challenges from the physical separation restrictions and closure of our traditional studio facilities. Meeting the demand for dubbed programs in times of crisis of any type has been a specific concern of our clients who have seen surges in viewership,” said David Lee, Executive Chairman of Iyuno Media Group, one of the opening backers of ABCA. “We have all acknowledged the need to properly enable remote recording workflows and recognize the strength in uniting as an industry to address this.


“Iyuno endorses the ABCA, who is initiating an alliance that will support the audio industry and all of its constituent groups from the content producers, to the service providers, to the creative and technical communities — all essential parts of our business.”

“When the COVID-19 crisis forced the rapid closure of our dubbing studios, SDI found ourselves in 20-plus different conversations with content owners about keeping the dubbing process going,” said Mark Howorth, CEO of SDI Media, an ABCA backer. “Each customer had their own perspectives. All of the other dubbing studios were likely having the same number of discussions with the exact same customers, resulting in hundreds of separate but similar conversations going on, which is neither efficient, nor likely to result in a ‘best of breed’ set of solutions for our industry.

“It is imperative for us to come together to understand the parameters of what ‘business continuity’ means and how we can achieve that with an available, high quality, trained talent
pool supported by the necessary technology solutions. The ABCA gives us the mechanism to get the right people around the table so that we are prepared for the next disruption, whether it be a second wave of this pandemic, or something else.”

The Audio Business Continuity Alliance (ABCA) is built around three priorities:

• Administering both a registry and certification program for voice talent professionals.
• Ensuring voice talent professionals are equipped, informed and able to continue working during disruptions of normal business operations.
• Creating standards and certification programs that will be made available globally to all companies and individuals working across and with all types of media and
entertainment organizations.

Both Iyuno Media Group and SDI Media are important voices on MESA’s Content Localisation Council, which will help the ABCA explore increasingly collaborative ways for companies to maintain an agile and engaged audio workforce during times of local, regional, national or international crisis. Both companies are involved in the facilitation and formation of the ABCA.

The ABCA’s primary objective is to ensure a certain level of Acceptable Recording Quality (ARQ) can be delivered as fast as possible once a disruption occurs. By gathering this community, the ABCA will champion discourse and thought leadership for providing a suite of acceptable solutions combined with a certified, and equipped, international Trained Talent Pool (TTP).

“Business continuity is critical in every industry and establishing a path for our infrastructure to remain working to a set of guidelines and standards, through any challenge, is important for media & entertainment,” said Guy Finley, President of MESA. “We look forward to working with this segment to provide a forum to discuss practical solutions to ensure the continuity of our audio supply chain through any crisis.”

Participating ABCA companies will have more details to share on the initiative and compatible products in the coming weeks. To learn more about the ABCA and opportunities to get
engaged, visit www.MESAlliance.org/AudioBCA, or email ABCA@MESAlliance.org.