The popularity of videos in internal and external communication has grown tremendously in recent years both on private businesses as well as on public administrations. Indeed, the efficiency of video communication is up to six times that of text and image communication. On social media, on the other hand, people nowadays watch an average of just six seconds of a single video, viewers quickly switch to new content, and only entertainment content in particular does well. Similarly, studies have shown that the number and duration of views are significantly higher if the videos are on the organization’s own website. Through the Helsinki channel, the communication of the City of Helsinki is a highly effective way of reaching out and informing local citizens and city’s own employees about current and relevant issues.
The Helsinki Channel offers online broadcasts and publishes recordings of e.g. Helsinki City Council meetings, concerts by the Helsinki City Orchestra and the mayor’s “residents evenings”. The channel also publishes the citizens’ own “Urban Videos” content. Most of the content is viewable by everyone. In addition to public content, the City of Helsinki publishes videos whose visibility is limited to the city’s staff.
In 2019, the videos were watched on the Helsinki Channel a total of more than 400,000 times. There were 75 live broadcasts. The most watched video was “Living in an apartment building”. It was viewed more than 36,000 times. The most watched live broadcast was the Mayor’s Independence Day for Fourth-graders, which was watched a total of more than 24,000 times.
At the beginning of 2020, Icareus delivered a renewed Helsinki Channel video platform and responsive website. With the Covid pandemic, the viewing of videos on the Helsinki channel has increased and individual live broadcasts, such as the Mayor’s Info videos and the concerts of the Helsinki City Orchestra, have received thousands of viewers. The May Day’s concert, organized by the City of Helsinki, reached c. 130,000 live and recorded viewers through the Helsinki Channel.
Icareus won the tender for the delivery of the Helsinki channel, offering the most versatile and comprehensive solution for the city. Requirements included support for live streaming on multiple simultaneous channels to thousands of viewers, automatic recordings of live broadcasts, easy video archive management, support for subtitles, integrations with social media services such as YouTube, series and podcasts, watching videos and listening to podcasts from all major browsers , adaptive video content distribution and its geographical restriction, integration into the Helsinki City Council’s Data Pump system, and easy tools and interfaces for adding and sharing videos to different websites. Naturally, the public user interface had to be customizable to match the visual look of the city of Helsinki.
Icareus implemented the Helsinki channel service using the SAAS-based Icareus Suite video cloud service, which met these diverse requirements. Icareus Suite is used by dozens of domestic and international companies and organizations in several European countries.
Icareus’ CEO Mr Toni Leiponen commented on the delivery: “We are proud and happy that Icareus was chosen to implement and deliver the City of Helsinki’s video service, which serves as a leader in the quality and scope of video communications for all Finnish municipalities. Our Icareus Suite service perfectly adapted to the needs of the City of Helsinki and proved its versatility as a leading video cloud solution”.
Icareus Suite is an online video service (Online Video and TV platform, OVTP) that allows both companies and other content owners to manage and distribute their video content on all end devices. Icareus Suite is Europe’s most versatile online video cloud, used by TV channels, operators, companies, public organizations and SME enterprises. Icareus Suite offers a number of optional features such as live streaming, video-on-demand streaming services, customizable video portals, webinar events, social media utilization via YouTube or Facebook simulcasts, centralized social media video sharing, subscriber management, own ads management, payment wall to download videos from your mobile phone to the service.
Utilizing the Icareus Suite video cloud, Icareus also offers companies and public organizations a ready-made, but branded, secure and easy-to-use Icareus Enterprise Video service.
Helsinki is the capital of Finland and the center of an economic area of the Helsinki region with approximately 1.49 million inhabitants and 779,000 jobs. Helsinki is Finland’s cultural, administrative, political and business center, the hometown of many large companies and the country’s largest employer with almost 39,000 employees. More information: http://www.hel.fi and https://www.helsinkikanava.fi/en/
Icareus Ltd is an online video cloud and broadcast TV specialist founded in 2001 and having offices in Finland and Spain. Icareus provides video cloud solutions and trusted broadcast TV platforms and our solutions are enjoyed by millions of consumers via our broadcaster, operator, OTT and OVP customers in over 60 countries. Combining online and broadcast has been the core of our activities over almost two decades. We’ve been making the change from linear TV to today’s multi-screen experience.
