Sourcing – In or Out? It is a long cyclic debate within any business – whether it’s better to build or buy. Such discussions revolve around business investments, where any spending must be weighted alongside the value of IPR ownership.
Net Insight – Boosting monetization with media-centric video delivery networks
With the global economic headwinds pressuring all industries, media companies are strategizing about expanding their content’s reach, tapping new audiences, and driving more revenue streams.
Delivering super high-quality live video content swiftly, reliably, and on a large scale is non-negotiable. As media companies pivot to reach audiences across markets, they need the right network backbone to remain agile. However, many media organizations still rely on generic transport workflows for their premium content, missing out on the advantages of new, software-defined transport networks explicitly tailored for media.
Innovation in software-defined transport networks that are media-centric in nature renders these networks ready to meet the stringent quality, synchronization, and reliability requirements of the media industry. When it comes to valuable live content, media companies can’t compromise for anything less.
MediaKind – Is the cloud a no-brainer for broadcasters today? It’s not as simple as that…
Broadcasters and telecommunications companies are facing a seismic shift. The traditional powerhouses of Pay-TV services and over-the-air broadcast television are witnessing a change in viewing as consumers increasingly gravitate towards subscription and ad-supported streaming video. This progressively changes the balance of the importance between traditional and streaming services, even from the same provider. The shift demands a re-evaluation of media supply chains and infrastructures, leading many broadcasters to contemplate a move to the cloud.
MainConcept – Can ad-funded services reinstate the golden age of streaming?
In the early days of streaming, subscription costs were low, and viewers were spoilt for choice by series after endless series of top-quality content – think House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things to name just a few. It was this promise of low costs and a seemingly never-ending stream of top-quality content that helped to entice consumers away from cable TV. The steady growth in subscriber numbers allowed for an unprecedented number of new shows to be ordered, which in turn helped to bolster growth. Many dubbed this the era of Peak TV. Streaming services reached record breaking subscriber numbers in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Netflix reportedly added an extraordinary 36 million subscribers in that period which led it to pass the 200 million mark for the first time.
Chyron – The streaming shake-up: what’s next for media companies and tech vendors
The rise of the mega streamer has brought the broadcast media industry into a period of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The acronym VUCA first described the complex and challenging geopolitical situation in 1987 following the Cold War, and now aptly defines the current media landscape. It’s an environment characterized by volatility in that challenges are unexpected and sometimes incomprehensible; by uncertainty in that change may happen, or not; by complexity in that it is influenced by numerous variables; and by ambiguity in that causal relationships can be difficult or impossible to define.
Ateliere – Using custom scripts for media workflows? you need to think again
The media industry has undergone a tectonic shift in its operations, driven by the rapid evolution of digital technology and an increasing slew of viewing platforms. To address the evolving need to serve more audiences across more devices, media companies have increasingly relied on custom scripts to shoehorn highly complex packaging and distribution requirements into platforms that weren’t originally designed for such purposes.
There is a smarter, more efficient approach to ensuring your media operations pivot quickly with your audiences’ demands: no-code/low code media supply chain platforms. These offer a compelling alternative to traditional custom scripting, delivering improved productivity, agility, and scalability in content management and distribution.
Josh Arensberg elected new Chair of the IABM Members’ Board
Josh Arensberg was elected Chair of the IABM Members’ Board in July this year. We asked him to share his vision for where he sees IABM – and our industry – heading.
Veritone – So, Your Content Is Finished…Now What?
Media has come a long way from its traditional production journey. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the previously linear path of content production, transforming the process by creating new efficiencies and allowing content to have a second life beyond its initial creation and broadcast.
With AI’s robust capabilities in tagging, managing, and preparing content, production teams can now maximize content usage while optimizing resources, creating a more reliable flow of content even in times of high demand or disruption. In this article, I’ll delve into the evolving media ecosystem, highlighting the role of AI in content management, monetization, and the industry’s future.
Simplestream – Needle in a haystack: the challenge of normalizing metadata
The world of video content moves quickly. It’s in ceaseless motion, and this goes hand in hand with technological advancement. In this scenario, it becomes paramount for operators and distributors in the streaming space to create seamlessly functioning architectures. It’s all about tech stacks that must normalize workflows and bring together data from multiple existing services. Of course, this is far easier said than done as content owners wish to enhance their offering with a feed of growing requirements which platform operators have for their own streaming services. Progress is perpetual, think of ratings for movies and series, specific categories for niche programming, or even broadcast identifiers.
Marquis – 2nd generation digital migration: if it were easy, everyone would do it!
Many years ago, digitization offered a panacea; a mechanism to rid the world of analogue and proprietary digital video tape formats and make content more easily accessible and exploitable. Using supposedly non-proprietary encoding schemes, the content became independent of the physical media, so future migrations would be easy. Robotic data libraries and control software automated many processes, removing the need for many staff. Carefully annotated and indexed content using new DAM systems would make assets inherently exploitable, watermarking would offer protection, and early speech-to-text processing would make for the richest set of metadata.