The PME Interview - Thoughts and Insights from the World of Inflight Entertainment

Rick Warren – Managing Partner/CFO, Post Modern Group

Posted on 21.01.12

January 2012 was a rather special month at the Post Modern Group featuring not just one but three notable anniversaries. Co-founders Amir Samnani and Rick Warren both turned 50 and ‘The PME Interview’ notched up its’ 50th edition. It seemed therefore a fitting occasion to invite Managing Partner/CFO Rick Warren into the CNBC Studios in London to debate the future for traditional labs as airlines move more and more to a pure digital product.

In a remarkably candid interview, Rick discusses the threat from major hardware manufacturers who want to bypass traditional labs by setting up an iTunes style service for airlines and reveals the true cost to PME of launching a content service provider.

To celebrate the 50th PME Interview, PME is giving away an iPad 2 so keep watching to find out how you can win this gorgeous piece of kit.

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Cindy Phillips – Managing Director, IFE Content & Client Service, Pace Communications

Posted on 07.01.12

The development of inflight entertainment has been the backdrop to the life of our special guest today here on The PME Interview. Cindy Phillips has worked in the industry for more than 20 years, first for a hardware company, then a movie distributor, then various content service providers including Interact, Spafax and Pace. One of Cindy’s more recent projects involved helping to integrate the inflight entertainment offerings of Delta and Northwest Airlines, following their recent merger. Cindy talks to Steve Harvey about life at Sony Transcom back in the early days and brings us right up to date with what’s happening today at Pace Communications.

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Tagged with: Cindy Phillips • content service providers • Delta • entertainment • IFE • in-flight • Interact • Northwest Airlines • Pace Communications • Sony Transcom • Spafax

Michael Reilly – Chief Operating Officer, Stellar

Posted on 08.12.11

It’s taken a while but finally the in-flight iPad is a reality. At least two airlines, Air Baltic and Jetstar are now handing out iPads to business passengers and renting them to economy and coach passengers. Also British Airways recently announced that they would be making iPads available to First Class passengers to supplement the existing in-flight entertainment system. All this must be music to the ears of Content Service Provider, Stellar, who’ve been championing the iPad for some time now and is supplying content for iPads on Jetstar. Michael Reilly, Chief Operating Officer at Stellar, is Steve Harvey’s special guest on today’s PME Interview.

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Tagged with: Air Baltic • airlines • British Airways • Content Service Provider • entertainment • First Class • in-flight • iPad • Jetstar • Michael Reilly • passengers • Stellar

Ken Gile and Dan Kerrison – flydubai

Posted on 25.11.11

The Dubai based low cost carrier, flydubai, definitely raised the competitive bar when it announced the installation of the Lumexis “fibre to the seat” inflight entertainment system on all new 737 aircraft starting November 2010. Once each new plane is handed over by Boeing, the seats and screens are installed by a team of engineers working around the clock at an airfield near Seattle. Twelve months on from the launch, how have passengers responded to the availability of inflight entertainment and, more importantly, are they prepared to pay for content? Two gentlemen from flydubai with all the answers are Captain Ken Gile and Dan Kerrison.

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Tagged with: 737 • aircraft • airlines • Boeing • captain • Dan Kerrison • entertainment • fibre to the seat • Fly Dubai • flydubai • in-flight • Ken Gile • Lumexis • Seattle

Neal Rothman – Vice President Non-Theatrical, Twentieth Century Fox

Posted on 04.11.11

Twentieth Century Fox is on a roll. A strong slate of movies, a host of exciting new TV shows and an innovative if somewhat controversial licensing policy have all helped Fox maintain a healthy slice of the inflight entertainment content market. Twentieth Century Fox originally came into being on May 31st 1935, the result of a merger between the Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures. Executive Vice President Non-Theatrical, Julian Levin and Vice President Non-Theatrical Neal Rothman both work from an office situated on the Fox studio lot. In fact, as Steve Harvey discovered when he met with Neal recently, the Fox Inflight office has a very interesting past.

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Tagged with: entertainment • Fox Film Corporation • Fox Inflight office • Fox studio lot • IFE • in-flight • Julian Levin • licensing • merger • movies • Neal Rothman • non-theatrical • TV shows • Twentieth Century Fox • Twentieth Century Pictures

Peter George – Vice President, Sales and Acquisitions, Jaguar

Posted on 21.10.11

When it comes to spotting a great airline movie and securing the In-flight rights, you’d be hard pressed to beat today’s guest on the PME Interview. Peter George is a senior member of the team at the independent In-flight movie distributor, Jaguar. Peter is one of the most experienced operators in this very competitive field and today he talks to Steve Harvey about how he came to get into the business and what makes a good In-flight movie.

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Tagged with: airlines • Distribution • in-flight • independent • Jaguar • movies • Peter George • rights

Christiane Ducasse – Vice President of Sales, Smartjog

Posted on 08.10.11

Can you think of a smart way to send movies and TV programs around the world without using Fedex or DHL? Perhaps we can jog your memory?

For a number of years now, distributors, labs, hardware companies and content service providers have been using Smartjog to send encrypted TV shows and movies around the world electronically instead of using a courier service. Now airlines are starting to see the benefit of using the service for delivering content files in minutes rather than days.

Time to find out more as Steve Harvey meets with the Vice President of Sales at Smartjog, Christiane Ducasse.

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Tagged with: airlines • Christiane Ducasse • courier service • delivering content files • movies • Smartjog • TV shows

Mohamad El Assaad – Senior Manager, IFE, Gulf Air

Posted on 23.09.11

This week sees the inaugural flight of the first aircraft to feature Panasonic’s new Global Communications Suite, eXConnect.

Gulf Air is the launch customer and, in this exclusive PME Interview, Mohamad El Assaad, Senior Manager, IFE and Communications, reveals the airline’s new Skyhub product.

If you’re an airline thinking about upgrading your in-flight connectivity and communications you won’t want to miss it!

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Tagged with: aircraft • airlines • connectivity • entertainment • eXConnect • Global Communications Suite • Gulf Air • IFE • in-flight • Mohamad El Assaad • Panasonic • Skyhub

Stuart Dunleavy – VP Marketing and Customer Proposition, Thales Corporation

Posted on 08.09.11

One company that’s certain to make a huge impact at next week’s APEX Expo is the Thales Corporation. Their brand new Avant IFE system was the first to be approved by Airbus as offer able on the A350. Exciting times at the Thales HQ in Irvine where Steve Harvey went to meet Stuart Dunleavy, VP Marketing and Customer Proposition, to look ahead to next week’s APEX show in Seattle.

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Joe Renton – CEO, The IMS Company

Posted on 07.09.11

How do you deal with the challenges associated with success? That’s the conundrum facing the IMS Company as, having won both industry plaudits and sizable orders for their new RAVE embedded IFE system, the company now faces the not inconsiderable challenge of delivering and installing the RAVE product to launch customer Lufthansa. In today’s APEX preview interview, CEO Joe Renton reflects on how the company is meeting the challenge.