Lag no more: how this Indonesian media giant tackled its streaming challenge

When was the last time you rushed home to catch the latest episode of your favorite drama right when it aired?

It’s probably been years. And for the younger generations, this may be a foreign concept, having grown up in an age where streaming services mean you can watch whatever you want, when you want it, wherever you are in the world.

Photo credit: Narong Khueankaew / Shutterstock

In the face of these changing consumer behaviors, Media Nusantara Citra (MNC), knew that it had to evolve.

As part of one of the country’s biggest media companies, operating four free-to-air television channels and over 150 channels in Indonesia, the decline of television viewership meant that it had a lot at stake – and so it launched a streaming platform called Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia Plus (RCTI+) in 2019 to meet its customers where they were.

“With RCTI+, our aim was to develop a media and entertainment ‘super app,’” says Rio Anugrah, CTO at RCTI+. “It’s a one-stop entertainment platform for users.”

One-stop entertainment

RCTI+ offers all of MNC’s media properties under one umbrella, from dramas and documentaries to news and sports, both on-demand and live. The app also allows users to tune in to MNC’s various radio stations, as well as access short-form content, user-generated content, and even games.

Operating as a free ad-supported platform, RCTI+ aims to optimize the content experience for both users and advertisers.

“Users nowadays are more likely to watch media on their gadgets. They want to watch when and where it is convenient for them,” says Rio Anugrah. “Advertisers also expect more targeted and specific audiences for their ads.”

Rio Anugrah, CTO at RCTI+ / Photo credit: RCTI+

RCTI+ combines the best of both worlds, giving users flexibility and convenience while allowing advertisers to make sure they’re getting the most out of their budget. Instead of buying ad space on a free-to-air TV channel, where the audience profile could be quite broad, advertisers can be assured that their ads will run in programs watched by their target audience – for example, a trendy sneaker brand airing ads in a show popular with Gen Z.

Keeping up with the demand

As of December 2022, RCTI+ had over 66.9 million monthly active users, with content spanning across five categories. However, in the early days, it had faced significant challenges keeping up with its audience’s demands.

“When we first launched, we started with a small database option, with no scaling or any other features like that,” Rio Anugrah shares. “We kept things simple at the beginning, but soon we realized that we couldn’t keep up with the traffic.”

Being the streaming platform of one of Indonesia’s largest media companies, RCTI+ quickly amassed a large number of users. While its initial platform got the job done, it struggled with high-traffic situations.

“Whenever we had a big event, like the South East Asian (SEA) Games, the user volume was very huge, and we experienced traffic that we couldn’t handle smoothly,” says Rio Anugrah.

This naturally led to a lot of user unhappiness and customer complaints. Imagine missing the winning goal of your favorite team because your streaming platform lagged, or struggling to watch the finale of your favorite drama because the platform keeps needing to buffer – you’d probably have a thing or two to say about it.

Lag no more

With customer frustrations mounting, Rio Anugrah and his team were tasked with identifying a solution to this problem.

RCTI+ was designed to be cloud-native, so they needed a solution on the cloud. As an Indonesian company focused on the local market, it was also crucial that they worked with a partner that had data centers in the country so that information transmission would be more efficient. The team also had to consider a myriad of other factors, such as security and compatibility with the rest of the MNC’s ecosystem.

The RCTI+ platform / Photo credit: MNC

Enter: Huawei Cloud. With availability in multiple zones in Indonesia and offering a comprehensive suite of products, the cloud service provider could address the challenge RCTI+ was facing.

“Huawei offered us its content delivery network (CDN) platform,” says Rio Anugrah. “The team came to us and said, hey, can we do a proof of concept on your platform? Let’s see how your CDN works and how we can help.”

The team worked alongside Huawei to integrate the latter’s solution into RCTI+’s tech stack, and it was put to the test during the 2022 AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup, when Indonesia faced Vietnam in the semifinal for men’s football.

This was a highly anticipated game for Indonesians, as winning it would put the team through to the final against Thailand, and RCTI+ was expecting over 1 million concurrent streams.

Photo credit: RCTI+

With Huawei’s help, RCTI+ was able to address its issues with latency, as viewers enjoyed the game with minimal disruption. The two firms also worked together to address security issues and limit content piracy, using technologies such as token-based URL authentications.

Huawei is now RCTI+’s core CDN partner, helping the platform support up to 3 million concurrent streams.

“The users now have a better streaming experience, and they are happy,” says Rio Anugrah. “Huawei’s technical team has been very helpful and responsive whenever we have a big event or any complaints, both in terms of onsite and remote support.”

On the road ahead

For Rio Anugrah, it’s still early days in terms of RCTI+’s partnership with Huawei Cloud. CDNs aside, he hopes to leverage Huawei’s expertise in other aspects of managing RCTI+’s tech stack.

“We have user-generated content, so we’re working with Huawei on an AI-based content moderation solution to ensure users upload proper content in line with our guidelines,” he shares.

“We’re also constantly expanding our content database, so we also need to find a way to ensure we deliver a certain quality with a lower bitrate.”

As RCTI+ continues to develop as a “one-stop” entertainment platform, Rio Anugrah feels that there’s a lot Huawei can offer, both to RCTI+ and to the larger MNC ecosystem.

“There are a lot of opportunities for us to grow and improve,” he concludes.

Huawei Cloud is a leading provider of information and communications technology infrastructure. With integrated solutions across four key domains – telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services – it is committed to bringing digital to every person, home, and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

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