Games On! Programmatic Ads Compete for Eyeballs at the Olympics

FreeWheel is ready to support a streaming marathon for this summer's Paris Olympics, enabling programmatic buying for the first time for targeted ad-serving. Here's what this means for FreeWheel, NBCUniversal, advertisers, and premium sports streaming.

Q&A: Wurl’s Ria Madrid Discusses BrandDiscovery's Groundbreaking Generative AI for CTV Ads

A Q&A with Ria Madrid of Wurl - she discusses BrandDiscovery, their new tech that makes it possible for marketers to precisely match CTV ads with the emotion and context of what viewers are watching to create positive attention, using Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. Partners like Media.Monks are already driving impressive results for their clients through Wurl's solution, which uses scene-level contextual targeting to help advertisers align the emotional sentiment of their campaign creatives with content closest to the ad break.

All the News That’s Fit for FAST

News broadcasting is one of the most exciting and quickly growing areas for FAST development, highlighted by the recent announcement of the BBC/AMC 24-hour live FAST news channel. Other legacy media news broadcasters, such as Scripps, Sinclair, Hearst, and USA Today, have also entered the FAST news space, many of them with a focus on local content. What are some of the current trends and challenges for FAST news delivery? In this article, several leading industry commentators provide insight.

The Most Demanded FAST Genre in 2024: News

2024 is the ultimate election year. A total of 91 countries—including the U.S., the U.K., India, and 27 European Union nations—will hold elections. In this context, it's no surprise to witness platforms and news outlets finessing their FAST channel strategy. The BBC News FAST channel launch was perfectly timed in that regard. BBC News is now available as a FAST channel on platforms like Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, Xumo Play, VIZIO, and more.

Welcome to FAST Times

2023 got everyone on the same page: FAST should be part of the me­dia mix whether you are a content provider, a broadcaster, or a distribution platform.

The State of Media & Entertainment 2024

Jake Ward, Business Development Director at Groovy Gecko, breaks down the current state of the media & entertainment industry in 2024, including Netflix's 'What We Watched' report, Amazon's ascendancy, Apple TV+'s value as a value-add, the BBC iPlayer's dominance, and more.

The State of Video Monetisation 2024

So, what does the future of streaming monetisation look like? This post-Peak TV media ecosystem is a brave new world, and being able to find the content you want, with the price you want to pay, will likely keep consumers on their toes for years to come.

Michael Cerda, CPO for Streaming at TelevisaUnivision, Talks Building and Growing the World’s Largest Spanish-Language Streaming Service

Nadine Krefetz interviews Michael Cerda, CPO for streaming at TelevisaUnivision. He discusses the from-the-ground-up rebuild he implemented when he arrived at the company. He describes how—in just 9 months—his team assembled and scaled the tech stack dri­ving ViX, the world's largest Spanish-language streaming service, which haslive-streaming, AVOD, SVOD, and FAST offerings.

Leveraging Metadata and User Data for OTT and FAST Monetisation

Nothing makes recommendation engines—and every other means of profit-making leverage—go, go, go like data in its many varieties. Metadata in particular is the key to personalising viewer experiences and optimising content portfolios. AI plays an ever-greater role in enhancing the metadata quality and improving recommendations. As analysts focused on the M&E industry and insiders at major media companies playing critical strategic roles agree, data is also essential to understanding customer journeys and making informed decisions on how to reach and retain subscribers and, on the ad-supported side, deliver the right ads to audiences and the right audiences to brands.

The State of CTV Advertising

Ad buying is changing. For example, now you can buy from an agency that has deep knowledge of data around local viewing, or you can go to a TV manufacturer that has deep knowledge of all of the viewing on its hardware.

Instant Replay: Streaming Media Connect November 2023

Streaming Media presented its 12th Connect virtual conference November 13 - 16, with media industry cartographer Evan Shapiro as host and MC. Shapiro kicked off the event with a dynamic keynote, digging deep into the Q3 earnings call data to hold the spin doctors accountable and giving an unvarnished view of the industry. Other highlights included The Future of Streaming with Shobana Radhakrishnan, Senior Director of Engineering at Google TV, and several panels covering topics such as Cloud Workflows for Streaming and CTV, Optimizing Live Streams at Scale, How Codec Patent Pools Will Impact Streaming in 2024, Making Live Streaming and VOD More Accessible, Live Streaming Technology Trends, and more.

UX Evolution in Live Sports Streams

On a panel at the recent NAB NY show, Rick Allen from ViewLift, Scott Morris from Agilis Quantum, and Lawrence Chan of LiveLike discussed the state of UI and UX for live sports and engagement, with a focus on the importance of low latency and reliability in streaming services, the need for high-quality streams, dynamic content, and personalised experiences for fans.

The Future of CDN Technology: Unlocking the Next Frontier in Video Streaming

The video streaming market is booming, and as video streaming consumption continues to soar, content delivery network (CDN) technology needs to evolve rapidly to keep up. Damien Sterkers of Broadpeak discusses the current challenges with streaming and what measures to take to face them.

How Premium and Freemium OTT Content Strategies Differ

When it comes to leveraging and building an audience for premium OTT content, how do strategies differ for premium ad-supported content and subscription-based content? Roku VP Jenn Vaux and ESHAP's Evan Shapiro discuss how and why these strategic approaches differ in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.

How OTT and FAST Market Consolidation Will Spark a New Wave of Alternative Monetization Strategies

Vijay Sajja of Evergent explains how OTT and FAST market consolidation will spark a new wave of alternative monetization strategies.

How to Get Up-to-Speed in the European FAST Market

Free ad-supported television (FAST) has been a rapidly rising element of the streaming industry since the beginning of the pandemic. But while the FAST sector has soared in the US, it faces distinct challenges in Europe and international markets that have prevented it from reaching equal viewership heights enjoyed in the US. This article outlines ways to get up-to-speed in the European FAST market.

The 2023 Streaming Media Innovation Award Winners

The 15th annual Streaming Media Europe Innovation Awards competition—formerly known as the Readers' Choice Awards—returns with 13 categories. With nearly 10,000 votes, who are the finalists? And who are this year's winners?

Practical Approaches to Sustainable Streaming

In this article I'll expand on prior sustainability approaches, detail reasons to consider additional areas of power-consumption optimisation, and invite diverse stakeholders across streaming workflows to engage with Streaming Media magazine, GoS, and like-minded stakeholders in a mid- to late-2023 initiative around the LESS Accord, with an overall goal of readers recommending measurable best practices for consideration by September 2023.

Is Your Streaming Service Fit for Whatever Comes Your Way?

How certain are you of what's next for the streaming industry? Kjeld Beijer, Head of Marketing at 24i, discusses the recent and largely unpredicted significant industry changes and outlines ways to get ahead of the curve by improving UX, business models, content discovery, and integrations.

Why Ad Monitoring on Real Devices Is Essential for OTT Performance

Yoann Hinard, COO at Witbe, outlines why ad monitoring on real devices is essential for OTT performance