NOMINATE HERE for Streaming Media's European Innovation Awards!
Champion the streaming products, services & technologies redefining the streaming industry right now.
Top Story

FIFA World Cup 2026: The '104 Super Bowls' broadcast machine

On the eve of kickoff, the scale of FIFA World Cup 2026 still staggers. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has compared the undertaking to "104 Super Bowls," with a global audience of six billion predicted to watch some of the 104 matches packed into 39 days from 16 venues across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For 2026, FIFA is deploying 16 dedicated venue crews — one per stadium — rather than rotating a smaller pool. They will be supported by seven centralised replay teams based in Dallas.

Streaming Media Companies and Suppliers
Find out all you need to know about the strategies and solutions to all your online video and streaming needs. The number one resource for streaming media professionals.
Streaming Covers
Free
for qualified subscribers
Subscribe Now Current Issue Past Issues
Video Short Cuts

Football’s path to FAST profitability

Football has established a significant presence on FAST in recent years, making its first major splash with the launch of FIFA+ on Samsung TV in 2023, according to TeleGraff Media president William "Bill" Graff. But the sport's growth on FAST and streaming in general, where it is growing significantly faster than it is on broadcast, has come as the result of improvements in ad-stitching technology and sponsors' growing recognition that streaming is where the audience is and the data value of streaming viewers. Graff provides a capsule history of the sport's ascendancy on ad-supported and subscription-based streaming and a snapshot of where it stands now (including Apple's recently extended MLS broadcast deal) in this discussion with Chris Pfaff Tech Media's Chris Pfaff at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

The state of live sport streaming piracy in 2026

Premium live sports, from football and cricket to basketball and American football, remain the primary target of streaming pirates in 2026, with the majority of aggressive gatecrashers looking to recast and simulcast high-profile streams while the match is live and its value is highest, according to BuyDRM CEO Christopher Levy in this conversation with Help Me Stream's Timothy Fore-Siglin at Streaming Media Connect 2026. Levy goes on to describe the forms these recasts typically take, the sophisticated strategies pirates use, and the challenges of stopping them, while Sargeway's Sarge Sargent chimes in to discuss the material and opportunity costs of live sport streaming piracy and what that means for streaming operators.

How to maximise observability in remote streaming pipelines

Cloud and remote production workflows have changed the game for live streaming, enabling significant CapEx and OpEx reductions, making it possible to achieve the same results with smaller and more efficiently deployed and largely off-site crews and reducing hardware footprints. But do all of the gains in operational efficiency that remote and distributed production provide come at the expense of real-time observability? It definitely brought new challenges on that end, according to Telestream director of product management Ken Haren, who explores these challenges and changes in best practices for software-defined observability and live-stream diagnostics that have come with the shift to remote production in this discussion with Zixi SVP of business development Emeka Okoli and Eyevinn Technology media solution specialist and VP of sales and business development Magnus Svensson at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Streaming cloud migration is more about ops and orchestration than tech

While cloud migration in streaming is often characterised as a primary technological, hardware-to-software shift, SVT (Swedish Television) Group Manager, Production Development Madelen Ottoson argues in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026 that the biggest transformation occurs on the operations end. What's more, she tells Eyevinn Technology Media Solution Specialist Magnus Svensson, some aspects of the workflow will always remain on-prem even as operations shift, and Live Sports LLC Executive Director Jef Kethley chimes in that the biggest challenges in transitioning to cloud stem from the orchestrational demands of building out new infrastructure regardless of the hardware/software, cloud/on-prem mix.

Streaming Media Columns

CTV Is Defining the Future of Streaming Ads

While advertising has long been a unidirectional experience, there have been forays into making it bidirectional for a long time. The value proposition is pretty clear. If people are watching a show and an advertisement comes on showcasing a product that interests them, wouldn't it be great if they could grab the remote, push a couple of buttons, and have it delivered to their doorstep?

If Netflix Gets the Library, Can It Take the Stadium?

What the potential Netflix-Warner Bros. deal means for sport. And why it is not simple.

YouTube self-policing isn't working

As deceptive ads, scams, and deepfakes flood YouTube's airwaves, Britain's Liberal Democratic Party argue that YouTube adverts should meet the same rigorous standards applied elsewhere in the ecosystem in which YouTube now operates. Industry bodies Clearcast and Radio Central vet the majority of ads broadcast on TV and radio before the air, while YouTube remains free to regulate itself.

The Long and Short of It: Measuring YouTube on TV

YouTube makes short-form viewing in­creasingly commonplace, measurable, and monetised on CTV, and other channels inevita­bly rush to adopt and repeat the formula, time will tell when "YouTube is the new television" gives way to "Television is the new YouTube."

Streaming Media Industry Whitepapers

Checklist Report: Ultimate Guide to Maximizing the Value of your Content Library

CacheFly