“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
What a glorious decade for global media distribution. Content consumption is higher than it’s ever been, borders have been stretched, pushed or removed entirely, “foreign” content is captivating “foreign” audiences and the inaccessible is finally becoming accessible to all.
In an era of unprecedented technological advancement, the media and broadcast industry plays a significant role in shaping how we perceive the world. However, this sector, like many others, faces a pressing challenge: the threat to our planet’s delicate ecological balance. As concerns about environmental sustainability escalate, our industry needs to take bold steps to minimize its own impact on the environment and pave the way for a greener future.
Technology is set to play a crucial role in the fight against climate change by helping us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance energy efficiency, and promote sustainable practices. Is there potential for AI to also play a part in this? Google DeepMind certainly thinks so and is using the latest AI developments to help fight climate change and build a more sustainable, low-carbon world. But although AI has received a lot of attention since the launch of the large language model, ChatGPT, last year, AI and machine learning (ML) are not new concepts. Content creators, technology vendors, and service providers in the video industry have been using ML for some time. The difference now is that generative AI models have become more advanced, and are now being used by a wider audience. If organizations like Google DeepMind aim to use generative AI to fight climate change, can the video industry also use generative AI to optimize systems, create more sustainable consumption habits, and reduce the industry’s carbon impact?
Touchstream’s award-winning solution ISP Insights (Internet Service Provider Insights) is the first ever data optimisation dashboard in OTT monitoring that illustrates the data flow from the CDN through the last-mile of video delivery in an intuitive way, highlighting issues along its path. Using a summarisation engine with data optimisation techniques in combination with ultra-fast efficient dashboards, ISP Insights enables OTT operations teams and streaming engineers to visually pinpoint trouble spots between CDN edge nodes and ISP’s ASNs (Autonomous System Numbers).
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, media companies face the dual challenge of delivering content efficiently while addressing environmental concerns. As the media industry evolves, it is crucial to adopt innovative approaches that transform existing media workflows, security, scalability, and carbon efficiency. To further future-proof media infrastructure and experience these benefits, the industry should focus on developing interoperable Software Media Functions (SMF) as software-based solutions, adopt a dynamic media factory layered model, and implement a common control framework to better anticipate the changing media functions landscape. When changing into a world of software-defined applications, a good foundation is essential. It should be agnostic of clouds (private or public) since interoperability needs to be guaranteed in case a business decision requires a migration to a new environment. Some content providers are already taking advantage of machine learning to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Traditionally this is not the domain of the broadcast or media specialists since this was handled by the vendors using embedded OS and Kubernetes in their hardware.
The content chain for production and distribution in the modern television-streaming world is more streamlined and technology-based than ever before. But, argues Erik Otto, chief executive of Mediaproxy, this overlooks the area of deep archiving, which, as broadcasters look to keep everything they transmit, is now more crucial than ever.
The broadcast industry – and media and entertainment (M&E) overall – look very different than they did five years ago, and it’s near impossible to accurately predict what they will be in five or 10 years. After all, if you had asked M&E executives or any executives for that matter in February 2020 to predict the near-term future, it’s highly unlikely that any would have said that a period of unprecedented growth in consumer consumption and a world focused on remote accessibility would be undertaken just weeks later. Who knew?
The media industry is experiencing a paradigm shift. In the digital-first era, competitive advantage is driven by digital strategies. Media companies increasingly leverage IP technology to define new business models and tap into more audiences across over-the-top (OTT), digital, and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) platforms.
In a competitive and fragmented media landscape, media and tech players are aggressively targeting the streaming market to get a piece of the pie. High-value content still differentiates the winners from losers, but that’s not enough. Media organizations need to ensure that their business is future-proofed and that they can make the most value out of their high-profile content to boost their bottom line today and in the future.
The current economic situation has meant many viewers are looking carefully at how much they’re spending on subscriptions, which has a knock-on effect on the whole industry. At the same time, media companies are facing an increase in the cost of creating content. These challenges are forcing them to re-align their business models to prevent operating spend and maximize average revenue per user (ARPU); the latter leading to experimentation around varied monetization methods, such as subscriptions, ad-funded, free ad-supported TV (FAST) syndication methods and in many cases a hybrid approach. They must also identify any optimizations in their technology stack to find cost savings for the escalating cost of buying or creating high-value content and drive cashflow-positive business models in a rapidly evolving landscape.
What are the biggest challenges in managing live event schedules with content provided by multiple operators? The answer can be rather straightforward, and it comprises several key aspects, mostly related to the pain points platform owners are facing today when distributing content across digital channels.