In recent years, the choice of video services has multiplied, as large media organisations add a plus symbol to their established brands and roll out new platforms. In addition, many incumbents in the VOD space are now supplementing their main subscription models with AVOD options. In some cases, these ad-funded tiers will be differentiated with new content, but at the very least they will require new versions of the original media files with markers for ad insertion. Linear TV has not been left behind, evolving its offering with more content choice, and diversifying with themed FAST channels.
Rohde & Schwarz: BaM Shortlist – Publish
TH1 from Rohde & Schwarz takes a radical approach to high-power transmitters, reducing energy consumption, increasing resilience and unlocking new revenues.
Ateme – The world is under threat, but what is our industry doing to protect our fragile ecosystems?
The recent extreme weather has shown us that climate change appears to have arrived in force. The human cost is already extremely worrying – last year, for example, over 180 people perished in floods in Germany and Belgium, while over 500 people died in a heat wave in British Columbia, Canada alone. And this year, Europe has seen its worst drought in 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent “under distress”.
Amino – The sustainability vs. profitability debate
Today’s business leaders are coming to the conclusion that profitability and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. In fact, creating strategies on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) programs has been gaining significant momentum for companies that are looking beyond the traditional bottom line to measure their impact. Yet, balancing thin profit margins with long-term sustainability goals and regulatory compliance requires sound principles, a well thought-out plan, and strong leadership to achieve optimal shareholder and stakeholder value.
Content Protection – more things to consider
The recent IABM report on content security trends in conjunction with our good friends at Axinom made for some interesting reading. As Roger Thornton mentions in his summary article, perhaps the most surprising takeaway is the discrepancy between a stated intention to invest in content, and a far lower priority in investment in content security technology to safeguard against the theft of that content, especially given the financial, operational and potentially creative resources that will be required to produce or acquire it. As Roger summarises, this seems counterintuitive, but budgets are finite and it could be argued that prioritizing content over business processes is where dutiful media providers should concentrate their majority resource.
The Argosy family
Argosy was founded in 1984, originally to supply broadcasters and systems integrators with cables and connectors. Today we are known as infrastructure solutions specialist and have rapidly expanded our portfolio in recent years, with an extensive range of products and services, including racks, power management, conversion devices and KVM technology – and we serve a number of industries alongside broadcast – such as Pro-AV and IT.
BT Sport United – a co-ordinated, company-wide commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Sustainability
BT Sport won the IABM Award for the Most Inclusive Company in December 2021. The sports broadcaster collected the award in recognition of a wide range of action across its operation to promote Diversity and Inclusion. We followed up with BT Sport COO*, Jamie Hindhaugh, to uncover he story behind his inspiring BT Sport United initiative, dive deeper into the programme, discover what’s coming next – and also talk about BT Sport’s sustainability push, which is delivering astonishing results.
Delivering Wider Reach for Women’s Sport
Women’s sport has enjoyed a great start to 2022, with the Women’s Super League (WSL), Six Nations, and Women’s Cricket World Cup, proving key to record UK television audiences. The Women’s Sport Trust found that “UK women’s sport viewership increased 140% from 1st January to 15th May” and Sports Pro Media recently highlighted that WSL broadcast consumption was up 285% in the first year of the Sky-BBC rights deal, based on data from the same study.
Recruitment evolution and the skills gap
Dermot Casey, Managing Director at EMS Broadcast, specialist recruitment agency for the technical, operational and creative areas of the media and broadcast industry, shares his thoughts on how 2022 is shaping up and his vision for the future.
Streaming as a force for diversity and inclusion
Not unexpectedly, if you lock everyone up in their houses for a while you get some noticeably accelerated expansion of the streaming market, and, if we let everyone out again, a drop.
In fact, it’s been far from a corresponding drop but more recent discussion, triggered by Netflix results amongst other factors, has brought a focus as to whether the streaming market might be slowing or saturating.