Friend MTS to showcase Piracy iQ cutting-edge piracy insight service at NAB 2019

Friend MTS, the Emmy Award-winning content and revenue protection specialist for many of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies, today announced the launch of Piracy iQ, a groundbreaking service for measuring streaming piracy consumption over internet service provider (ISP) networks that allows content owners, programmers and pay TV providers to assess the impact of piracy on their businesses and track the performance of their content protection services. In an effort to bolster the company’s provision of anti-piracy services such as Piracy iQ to content owners and delivery platforms throughout the United States, Canada and Latin America, Friend MTS announced the company’s expansion into North America with the opening of regional headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the formation of an executive leadership team. Friend MTS will showcase its platform, channel and content protection services that include Piracy iQ and ASiD at the NAB Show 2019 at Booth SU8921.

“Until now, the content protection marketplace hasn’t offered the analytical tools needed to truly understand the scale of piracy consumption and the effectiveness of anti-piracy services,” said Simon Williamson, Chief Commercial Officer, Friend MTS. “With Piracy iQ, content theft can be precisely measured and additional security countermeasures can be deployed in a highly targeted manner based on accurate data.”

He added, “We are thrilled to onboard an experienced leadership team as we expand our reach in North America, a major market worldwide for streaming piracy consumption, especially as cord-cutting continues to add to massive piracy and revenue losses.”

Piracy iQ

With unmatched managed services for watermarking and global monitoring using fingerprint-based content recognition, Friend MTS helps Pay-TV operators, rights holders and broadcasters control where their video content flows. An industry first,

Piracy iQ provides illicit content monitoring and IP address capture, and it enhances the reporting of third-party network flow analysis systems to streamline the generation of piracy analytics. The service enables real-time and post-event analytics with rapid and in-depth reporting of piracy consumption patterns. By using this data, the performance of key anti-piracy services, such as subscriber watermarking, can be monitored more effectively on an ongoing basis.

Piracy iQ operates in both fixed and mobile broadband environments, and it delivers unmatched monitoring speed and effectiveness. It has already been tested by major content owners, pay TV platforms and ISPs to quantify streaming piracy consumption, as well as to target highly effective action against illegal redistribution.

Friend MTS Executive Appointments

Friend MTS’s North American regional headquarters will be led by Williamson, who has worldwide responsibilities across sales, marketing and partner development. The Philadelphia office will include sales and professional services teams to enhance the support delivered to the company’s clients.

Brad Parobek has been appointed Senior Vice President, Sales, Americas, and will lead current operations within the U.S. and Canada to drive overall strategy and regional growth for Friend MTS. With more than 30-years working in complex environments across Cable and IT Telco, Broadcasters Network Infrastructures, Cloud and Devices, his experience spans across North America, South America and Europe. Parobek will be based in Denver, Colorado.

Heidi Newman joins the North America-based team as Vice President, Americas, and will drive regional growth for Friend MTS with an emphasis on developing the content owner market for security services. A former NBCUniversal, Starz, Scripps and Discovery executive, Newman has more than 25-years of experience working in contract negotiations, marketing and content distribution with the major MVPDs, vMVPDs and OTT distributors from the content distribution side. Based in Washington, D.C., Newman will report to Parobek.