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Supply Chains

When Acun Medya introduced its video-on-demand service, Exxen, in 2021, it came with high expectations in Turkey. As one of the nation’s leading content creators, producing over 5,000 hours of primetime television each year, and owning two national TV channels alongside a diverse portfolio that includes production companies and football clubs, Acun Medya is a formidable player in the industry. Its founder, Acun Ilıcalı, is a well-known figure, celebrated not only as a TV personality and producer but also as a significant media entrepreneur.

With this strong foundation and access to a rich library of Turkish original content, global acquisitions, and live sports, Exxen quickly exceeded the million-subscriber milestone. This momentum surged further when Acun Medya secured exclusive streaming rights for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League for three consecutive seasons. However, the introduction of sports also revealed Exxen’s infrastructural and performance limitations.

While Exxen achieved national success, Acun Medya, with its global vision, had grander plans for the platform. The company produces both daytime and primetime content across Europe and the Americas, and it has developed its own sports-reality format, EXATLON, in various countries including Mexico, the US, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, and Colombia. The overarching goal for Exxen was always to ensure its global relevance, which necessitated enhanced technical capabilities.

To address these needs, Acun Medya partnered with Accedo, which took on the full responsibility of operating, managing, and enhancing the Exxen service. This collaboration aimed to improve reliability and performance while optimizing the user experience for a global audience. “Accedo manages the service entirely to guarantee a smooth and consistent quality of service and user experience, even during peak times around live sports events,” explains Iris Nedio, Head of Account Strategy at Accedo.

Burak Ayan, Business Development Director at Acun Medya, emphasizes the project’s significance: “Our vision for Exxen has always been global. To realize this ambition, we had to fundamentally rethink how we build, operate, and scale the platform. Through close collaboration with top-tier technology partners, we undertook a comprehensive rebuild of Exxen’s applications across Android, iOS, tvOS, Android TV, Samsung, LG, and web, establishing a modern, resilient infrastructure capable of supporting international expansion.”

“This transformation involved deep integration with core systems, including payment, billing, online video playback, AI-driven analytics, incident monitoring, customer lifecycle management, and regulatory compliance, all while ensuring uninterrupted service across evolving subscription tiers.”

“I’m proud of the collective effort from our teams and partners that made this possible,” he adds, asserting that this deployment has positioned Exxen as a competitive OTT platform that is “ready to grow globally with a robust, user-centric, and future-proof foundation.”

Key partners that played a vital role in this transition alongside Accedo include ZotloPay, Oracle, Brightcove, Jump AI, PayTR, and Evergent.

Migrating to Accedo Managed Service

One of the primary challenges in delivering a diverse array of content is ensuring a consistent viewer experience, even during peak times. With Exxen, Acun Medya faced challenges stemming from the platform’s own success, as performance dipped during high viewership periods. This was particularly evident during live sports events, but also occurred at other times. While the content remained appealing, frequent buffering and latency issues posed a risk of subscriber churn and threatened Exxen’s ambitious growth objectives.

 

“Our vision for Exxen has always been global. To achieve this ambition, we had to fundamentally rethink how we build, operate, and scale the platform.” – Burak Ayan, Business Development Director at Acun Medya

 

Global expansion also necessitated a premium and engaging user experience capable of competing in a crowded marketplace. These factors, along with the desire for a broader global footprint, prompted Exxen to seek assistance in rebuilding its apps, managing integrations, and delivering a seamless, scalable user experience.

Accedo provided and managed the solution from start to finish. Initially, the focus was on understanding the streamer’s pain points, assessing viewer experiences, and defining objectives. Following this, Accedo redeveloped the apps for various platforms, including connected TV devices (Android TV, tvOS), mobile platforms (Android, iOS), and web. The goal was to deliver a premium user experience by leveraging its suite of solutions and extensive expertise in building video services. This approach ensured that each app was optimized for its platform while maintaining a robust backend capable of supporting service growth.

The next phase involved migrating existing data and integrations to the new system, ensuring no subscriber data was lost and that the entire content catalog and associated metadata remained intact.

“This is a meticulous process,” explains Nedio, “as it is crucial for everything to be cross-referenced to avoid mistakes or omissions during migration. While some technology was suggested and added by Accedo, Exxen had existing integrations that needed to be migrated. This included payment technologies from PayTR, ZotloPay, and Oracle ERP for billing, as well as MySoft IYS for governmental invoicing compliance. Advertising placements are managed through Google Ad Manager.”

“In addition to migrating these third-party tools and services, the current and historical user data managed by them also had to be transferred, ensuring billing remained consistent. It was also essential to migrate data related to each subscriber’s subscription level. Exxen offers several subscription tiers, including a basic package, an ad-free option, and a sports package, allowing subscribers to customize their combinations based on preferences, budget, and location. This process was further complicated as the packages were updated during the migration.”

Selecting the Tech Stack

Beyond the technology already in use, Accedo needed to choose the right technology partners and integrations for the service, continues Nedio: “The most critical factors for Exxen were ensuring smooth video playback across all devices consistently. It was vital that stability was maintained as the service expanded, especially during peak periods. Additionally, gauging subscriber satisfaction, identifying churn risks, and adapting the service accordingly were essential.”

Integration with third-party solutions, including native players and the Brightcove Player, created a consistent and seamless streaming experience across multiple devices. Coupled with Accedo’s middleware, the service can now effectively manage traffic surges and scale without sacrificing quality.

Accedo also collaborated with Jump AI Technologies to gather insights and enable AI-optimized content discovery and a personalized video experience. This integration allows the expanded service to continuously collect data on user behavior, enhancing the tailored experience and reducing churn.

Furthermore, Accedo Insights, the company’s proprietary observability service, provides video services with performance and operational insights through real-time monitoring and advanced analytics, explains Nedio. “This means we can quickly and easily identify and resolve any issues.”

With both Brightcove and Jump already part of Accedo’s tech stack, their solutions were pre-integrated, streamlining the process. After integration, Accedo conducted extensive testing to ensure everything functioned as expected.

Setting Up for Global Success

With the new system in place, Exxen is now equipped to deliver a premium experience to viewers in Turkey and beyond while being able to scale as needed without compromising quality or viewability.

“What was also crucial was the work carried out post-launch,” explains Nedio. “The Accedo team conducted a comprehensive audit across multiple teams and areas, including infrastructure, software engineering, architecture, and security best practices. The team reviewed the work completed during the engineering phase, identified areas for further optimization, and implemented modifications to enhance scalability and reliability.”

 

“The most important factors for Exxen were being able to ensure smooth video playback across all devices consistently.” – Iris Nedio, Head of Account Strategy at Accedo

 

One area where this will have a particularly significant impact is in managing the lifecycle of live sports events, concludes Nedio.

“While the action itself is live, the stream can be scheduled to transition automatically between different states: upcoming, with a countdown to the main event; ongoing, featuring the live stream; and finished, where the live stream is replaced by clips from the event. Live sports were not initially part of the project scope, but after acquiring additional rights, Exxen was eager to ensure the lifecycle of these events could be managed seamlessly. Accedo will also be able to gather the necessary insights to grow and evolve the service to meet ever-changing consumer demands.”