UK-based video technology company Synamedia announced that its CEO, Yves Padrines, is stepping down, and that he’ll be replaced by Paul Segre, formerly CEO of Daly City, Calif.-based cloud software company Genyses.

Padrines led Synamedia since 2018, when private equity firm Primera bought back Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions business and reformed its a privately held operation.  Synamedia didn’t offer much insight in regard to Padrines’ departure, only to say that he is leaving to “pursue opportunities.”

Also read: Synamedia CEO Yves Padrines on Password Sharing, Targeted Linear Advertising and the ‘New Bundle’

“I am incredibly proud of everything we have accomplished over the last few years, driving our investment in IP-enabled solutions and establishing a strong foundation for growth,” Padrines said in a statement. “I wish the whole Synamedia team every success as it doubles down on revenue-generating innovations that deliver real value to customers.”

Segre, who will be based in London, spent the last 18 years at Genesys, notably leading the $1.6 billion spinout of the company from Alcatel-Lucent in 2012, a move that was also backed by the Permira Funds. 

Synamedia counts Comcast’s Sky and Vodafone among the clients for its video platform and security products. 

“We thank Yves and wish him continued success as he pursues new opportunities,” added Abe Peled, Synamedia chairman. “Paul is taking over the reins of a business with an impressive customer roster, a strong pipeline and a reputation for award-winning innovation. Paul’s appointment signals our readiness and enthusiasm for the next chapter in our journey. His leadership track record, breadth of business experience, and ability to scale software businesses will be invaluable as we move forward with innovative solutions and services designed for the IP era.”

Sixteen months after private equity purchased the assets under Cisco’s Video Services umbrella for $1 billion, rebranding the collective unit as Synamedia, the U.K.-based video technology vendor has emerged with a multipronged plan to serve the fast-changing video industry.

As its client base expands beyond satellite and cable pay TV providers to media companies and others involved in direct-to-consumer over-the-top distribution, Synamedia has expanded beyond traditional linear set-top provisioning and watermarking into areas including piracy disruption, search and discovery and advertising.

At CES in Las Vegas, Multichannel News talked with CEO Yves Padrines, who shared his perspective on the global video marketplace and how Synamedia — which counts Comcast’s Sky as an investor — fits into it. Here’s an edited transcript.

MCN: Synamedia has evolved from privacy prevention to what you call 'piracy disruption.' What is the market opportunity here?
Yves Padrines: If you look at the challenges we see in the market, there is this multibillion-dollar race on the content side. You have all of these giant media companies and large service providers spending billions of dollars in content production. Netflix spent $15 billion last year; Comcast spent $20 billion; Disney/Fox spent $23 billion. At the end of the day, all of this investment is sitting on the balance sheets of all these media giants, and they have to monetize it.

The problem with all of that is you have streaming piracy, which is becoming an increasingly big problem for the industry. All of this content is available everywhere and a lot of it is hacked. An end user can now buy a device for $100 and be able to watch 3,000 to 5,000 channels for the next 12 to 18 months. And a lot of these illegal services offer very nice solutions. They aggregate all this content in a very nice way. Of course, they can spend money on the technology because they don’t have to pay anything on the content side. The experience is so good, even a lot of users don’t know it’s illegal.

MCN: So how do you slow that down?
YP: We’ve invested a lot over the last year to disrupt the streaming piracy ecosystem. One of the adjacent parts on the piracy side is credential sharing. So we launched at CES last year a product called Credentials Sharing and Fraud Insight. It’s an AI solution where we can identify when people are doing casual sharing in a way they’re not allowed to. It’s a way to keep honest people honest. If you have, for example, a family that’s supposed to be based in one household, and you see that this family has 25 people using your service — or maybe it’s four or five people and they’re never in the same location — maybe they’re not a family at all. So we’re offering this AI solution to media companies, direct-to-consumer operators and pay TV operators as a way to be able to monitor this problem and decide what they want to do. They can stop the service, or they can upsell new services like family packages.

You also have a lot of people hacking credentials. There are over 4.5 billion credentials and passwords you can buy on the dark web for $4 or $5. Disney+, as soon as they launched, there were millions of hacked accounts after just a few weeks. And it’s not just a problem for video, it’s a problem for providers of WiFi and broadband.

MCN: With products like Infinite, Synamedia is also getting involved in search and recommendation, yes?
YP: Because you have this explosion of content, you also have this explosion of choice with all these direct-to-consumer and OTT platforms available. We strongly believe there is a need to help the end user to find this content, to help with unified search. We also believe that the long-term winners in the business of video aggregation will be the ones who own the broadband, or they will have access in a cost-effective way to broadband. They are going to have this new bundle of solutions where they are providing broadband, mobile and TV. And they’re going to have a way to aggregate all of the content to high-end broadband subscribers.

MCN: As others are moving towards developing the OTT advertising market with advanced solutions, Synamedia is investing in linear. Why?
YP: TV advertising is still the most cost-effective way to promote services and products to the mass market. The linear side is still worth $120 billion in revenue per year. And for streaming and VOD, it’s still less than $20 million. The problem with linear advertising is that you don’t have very good measurement, and you don’t have very good targeting solutions available. So we co-developed with Sky a solution called AdSmart, which has been very well-deployed and successful in the U.K. and has launched in Italy as well. This lets you push targeted advertising on pay TV set-top boxes. We’re now working on the next generation of targeted advertising solutions that will bring better measurements and targeted solutions for linear.

Sixteen months after private equity purchased the assets under Cisco’s Video Services umbrella for $1 billion and re-branded the collective unit as Synamedia, the U.K.-based video technology vendor has emerged with a multi-pronged plan to serve the fast-changing video industry.

As its client base expands beyond satellite and cable pay TV providers, to media companies and others involved in  direct-to-consumer OTT distributoin, Synamedia has expanded beyond traditional linear set-top provisioning and watermarking, into areas including piracy disruption, search and discovery, and advertising. 

At CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, Next TV caught up company CEO Yves Padrines, who shared his perspective on the global video marketplace, and how his company—which counts Comcast’s Sky as an investor—fits into it. 

NTV: Synamedia has evolved from privacy prevention to what you call “piracy disruption.” What is the market opportunity here?

Yves Padrines: If you look at the challenges we see in the market, there is this multi-billion dollar race on the content side. You have all of these giants media companies and large service providers spending billions of dollars in content production. Netflix spent $15 billion last year; Comcast spent $20 billion; Disney/Fox spent $23 billion. At the end of the day, all of this investment is sitting on the balance sheets of all these media giants, and they have to monetize it. The problem with all of that is you have streaming piracy, which is becoming an increasingly big problem for the industry. All of this content is available everywhere, and a lot of it is hacked. An end user can now buy a device for $100, and be able to watch 3,000 to 5,000 channels for the next 12 to 18 months. And a lot of these illegal services offer very nice solutions. They aggregate all this content in a very nice way. Of course, they can spend money on the technology, because they don’t have to pay anything on the content side. The experience is so good, even a lot of users don’t know it’s illegal.

NTV: So how do you slow that down?

YP: We’ve invested a lot over the last year to disrupt the streaming piracy ecosystem. One of the adjacent parts on the piracy side is credential sharing. So we launched at CES last year a product called Credentials Sharing and Fraud Insight. It’s an AI solution where we can identify when people are doing casual sharing in way they’re not allowed to. It’s a way to keep honest people honest. If you have, for example, a family that’s supposed to be based in one household, and you see that this family has 25 people using your service. Or maybe it’s four or five people, and they’re never in the same location. Maybe they’re not a family at all. So we’re offering this AI solution to media companies, direct-to-consumer operators and pay TV operators as a way to be able to monitor this problem and decide what they want to do. They can stop the service, or they can up-sell new services like family packages. You also have lot of people hacking credentials. There are over 4.5 billion credentials and passwords you can buy on the dark web for $4 or $5. Disney+, as soon as they launched, there were millions of hacked accounts after just a few weeks. And it’s not just a problem for video, it’s a problem for providers of WiFi and broadband. 

NTV: With products like Infinite, Synamedia is also getting involved in search and recommendation, yes?

YP:  Because you have this explosion of content, you also have this explosion of choice with all these direct to consumer and OTT platforms available. We strongly believe there is a need to help the end user to find this content, to help with unified search. We also believe that the long-term winners in the business of video aggregation will be the ones who own the broadband, or they will have access in a cost-effective way to access broadband. They are going to have this new bundle of solutions where they are providing broadband, mobile and TV. And they’re going to have a way to aggregate all of the content to high-end broadband subscribers.

NTV: And as others are moving towards developing the OTT advertising market with advanced solutions, Synamedia is investing in linear? Why?

YP: TV advertising is still the most cost-effective way to promote services and products to the mass market. The linear side is still worth $120 billion in revenue per year. And for streaming and VOD, it’s still less than $20 million. The problem with linear advertising is that you don’t have very good measurement. And you don’t have very good targeting solutions available. So we co-developed with Sky a solution called AdSmart, which has been very well deployed and successful in the U.K., and has launched in Italy, as well. This lets you push targeted advertising on pay TV set-top boxes. We’re now working on the next generation of targeted advertising solutions that will bring better measurements and targeted solutions for linear.

Private equity firm Permira has identified industry vet Yves Padrines and the designated CEO of a new company that will be formed from Permira’s proposed acquisition of Cisco Systems’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions business.

RELATED: Cisco Strikes Deal to Sell its Video Software Business

To say Padrines will be familiar with the new video software division being formed by Permira is an understatement. He most recently was VP of global service provider for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia at Cisco, and was also a long-time exec at NDS.

Padrines joined Cisco following its 2012 acquisition of NDS, the company where a good portion of the services and technologies Permira is acquiring from Cisco originated.

RELATED: Cisco Announces Deal to Acquire NDS for $5 Billion

The move will likewise reunite Padrines with Dr. Abe Peled, senior adviser to Permira, incoming chairman of the new company to be formed from the Cisco deal, and also the former CEO of NDS.

Cisco and Permira announced the deal in May. Under the plan, Permira will create a new, rebranded company focused on video products for the pay TV industry. The lineup will include Cisco’s Infinite Video Platform, cloud digital recording, video processing, video security, and middleware products and technologies.

“I am delighted and looking forward to working again with Dr. Abe Peled and Permira on this unique opportunity to help the company’s major DTH and Cable service provider customers embrace IP distribution to complement and expand consumer choice and convenience, as well as the company’s Telco customers and new entrants to Pay-TV take advantage of the new IP enabled distribution opportunities,” Padrines said in a statement. “At this pivotal time in the industry, the new company will build on Cisco’s SPVSS business, strong customer relationships and technology innovation to deliver an exciting next chapter for our industry, and I look forward to being part of it.”

“Yves is well known to many of the company’s major customers and is well positioned to ensure a smooth transition for Cisco’s service provider customers who will also become the new company’s video customers,” Peled added. “Furthermore, Yves will bring a wealth of experience, industry relationships and strategic vision to deliver on the significant opportunities we see for the new business.”