Dianne Bissoon has been away from T&T for 21 years, but the Caribbean has always been close to her heart.
Her first job out of college–the Palm Beach Atlantic University, Florida–was at the local cable TV company Adelphia, which she helped the get out of bankruptcy during her time there.
Of her many years of experience in the cable and TV industry, she spent several at Comcast as senior marketing manager, followed by a director of marketing position at WestStar TV in the Cayman Islands.
Bissoon was then head-hunted by Cable and Wireless to work as VP of television and entertainment and was directly responsible for setting up Lime TV in Barbados, Cayman Islands and St Lucia.
Enter 2015 and the soft launch of MAS2TV.
The acronym MAS2TV, reflects the genres to be offered by the platform–Multiculturalism, Arts, Sports and Society–brought to television with the whimsical flare of the Caribbean identity. The services include video on demand, live streaming and user uploaded channels.
At the soft launch of the distribution platform on January 15 at Aria nightclub in Woodbrook, Bissoon addressed the audience along with chief marketing officer Cathy Dunn. Another member of the MAS2TV team confirmed but not in attendance was chief technical officer Cleverston Miller of Barbados.
Bissoon has been amassing Caribbean content over the last four years. With over 60 hours of original programming already in hand, she and her team are looking to T&T for new content opportunities including hosting original programming and providing online streaming of live events such as Carnival.
"I was the one who brought the team of experts down and we were really trying to assess how to export the assets of Carnival to the HBOs and these other big industry giants, but we thought, we might as well do it ourselves."
MAS2TV's CMO Cathy Dunn has over 20 years of experience in marketing and ad sales for US-based television companies, including work at FOX Networks, Viacom's MTV and Comedy Central.
Dunn insisted on the importance of quality of the technical offering of MAS2TV and cited several bad experiences that some viewers in the US have had with past paid online streaming services from the Caribbean.
"We're going to start online and then branch off into other platforms like cable and so on. The most important thing was for us to launch before Carnival and get going."
MAS2TV's plan for market reach includes a first and second quarter projection for capturing several audience territories including the English, Spanish, French and Dutch-speaking Caribbean, along with the USA, Canada, UK, Africa, China, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil markets.
When asked about other Caribbean content distributors such as StudioAnansi.TV, CaribbeanTales TV, streaming sites like CarnivalTV.net and other dedicated content platforms already in operation within the Caribbean, Bissoon was confident that MAS2TV would offer something different. She touted MAS2TV's audience tracking, targeted commercial advertising and other customisable features.
"The good thing about the platform is that each content provider will see who watched their content, when, in which country and how long they watched it for. They will be able to see everything."
According to Dunn, "That's what's so great about the digital age now. With all the technology, interactive advertising, being able to track your audience and have a flexible content model are the future."
Filmmakers, TV producers and content providers can look forward to a hassle-free content submission process via an upload dock on the MAS2TV site, along with a screening committee process which will be the mechanism through which content is selected for the platform.
Bissoon also hinted that revenue splits and per subscription revenue share will be available. Further details on the business backend such as content rights, licensing and distribution mechanics will be revealed in the future.
Bissoon confirmed that the MAS2TV service is ready. However, it may take a few weeks before the average Caribbean TV and Film lover can access the direct feed from their multiple electronic devices. The service model will be paid online subscriptions primarily, through Paypal, credit card or secure authorised Internet payment.
Dunn concluded by describing the wider vision of the MAS2TV brand. "Not only are we going to be offering the Caribbean to the Caribbean, but the Caribbean to the rest of the world."
Until the formal release on the availability of subscriptions for purchase, persons interested in exclusive Caribbean content on MAS2TV can visit mas2tv.com.