Connecting drone flyers with aerial content buyers

Press

Olive Keogh

Award-winning film-makers, Susan Talbot and Steven Flynn, are the brains behindSkytango, a new aerial content service aimed at those producing broadcast or online video content.

Skytango was born out of necessity when the couple, who set up Aerial Filming Ireland in 2012 to capture images using remotely piloted aerial systems [better known as drone] camera platforms, came up against unlicensed operators on their patch.

Their aim was to build a library of aerial material that both broadcasters and corporate clients alike could access. However, having jumped through the hoops to get (and pay) for their drone licence, the couple discovered they were being undercut by unlicensed flyers.

“We began to have real struggles with how the market worked,” Talbot says. “Sometimes the client didn’t have enough money to do a shot legally with us, so we turned the work down. But we know that many of them still went ahead and did the shot with an unlicensed operator.

This constant presence of unlicensed operators was keeping prices low and making it very difficult for licensed companies like us to make our business work. This prompted us to look for ways in which we could help our clients get more for their budget while still using licensed providers.”

Skytango will be sold on a SaaS basis but the cost of the service has not yet been finalised. There is also a limit to how much the founders can say about how the product works as elements of the IP have yet to be nailed down. In a nutshell, however, it will connect drone flyers with aerial content buyers who can be confident that what they’ve bought has been legitimately and legally sourced.

Flynn says the biggest risk to both the flyer and the content buyer is the unlicensed drone operator.