For most of broadcast history, captioning was treated as a metadata problem. QC systems checked whether caption data was present, whether files were correctly formatted, and whether character encoding was valid. If a CEA-608 or CEA-708 stream was embedded and a sidecar file — SCC, SRT, WebVTT — was properly formed, the asset passed. Whether the captions accurately reflected what was spoken was largely outside the scope of automated review.

FCC requirements in the United States and emerging mandates across Europe have moved from nominal compliance gates to substantive quality standards. Caption files that pass every technical check can still fail on accuracy, synchronization, or readability.

What broadcast and streaming organizations need is content-level validation: verifying that captions are accurate, properly timed, readable, and ready for multiplatform delivery. Captioning is becoming part of the broader media intelligence layer — one that evaluates a caption track against the content it accompanies, treating accuracy, timing, readability, and compliance as properties the system actively measures.

Caption Accuracy Starts With the Audio Track
The practical difference between metadata validation and content validation shows up in what each one misses. A traditional QC pass confirms that a caption file is present and well- formed. It does not detect dialogue that was misheard during transcription, lines that were omitted, or text that lags consistently behind speech — all failure modes that reach viewers and, increasingly, regulators.

Content-intelligent captioning systems work directly with audio. Modern automatic speech recognition (ASR) models transcribe spoken dialogue from the audio track, producing a reference against which existing captions can be checked, or generating a new track directly. Current-generation ASR achieves word error rates below 5% on standard broadcast dialogue — comparable to experienced human transcribers, and substantially lower than error rates produced under the time pressure of manual captioning at scale.

Accurate transcription addresses what is said; alignment addresses when it appears. AI alignment engines analyze audio waveforms to synchronize caption timing against actual speech, accounting for pace variation and pausing that fixed-offset methods miss. Captions that drift from dialogue constitute a real accessibility failure, and automated alignment catches those errors systematically across an entire content library. These systems can also surface compliance risk before delivery, flagging assets where timing drift, word error rate, or reading speed exceeds regulatory thresholds.

How Captions Render on Screen
A caption that is correctly transcribed and timed can still be difficult to follow if segmented poorly. Breaking mid-phrase or mid-clause forces viewers to piece together meaning across display windows. This presents a functional problem for all audiences and a more significant one for viewers with hearing impairments who rely on captions as their primary communication channel.

Rather than breaking text at fixed character counts, machine learning models identify natural language boundaries, such as clause endings, breath pauses, and semantic units, then segment accordingly. The result is captions that read more naturally. Emerging standards reflect this: quality evaluation is increasingly extending from file validity to content readability, including reading speed, display duration, and caption segmentation.

A complete evaluation also requires reference to the video frame. Text that covers a speaker's face, obscures on-screen graphics, or overlaps burnt-in text creates problems that fall outside the scope of transcription-level review. Managing visual placement has traditionally required frame-by-frame manual review or post-production adjustment — both slow and unsystematic at the scale modern workflows demand.

Video analysis integrated into current captioning platforms detects faces, on-screen graphics, and critical visual elements, then adjusts caption positioning automatically. These tools can also prevent captions from spanning scene-change boundaries, a source of visual discontinuity invisible to metadata validation. The caption track is evaluated against the full audio-visual context of the content it serves — a quality assurance step that operates where file-level checks end.

From One Validated Track to Many
Once a base caption track has been validated, the same content intelligence can carry through to multilingual delivery. Machine translation pipelines generate multilingual versions from that source track without a proportional increase in localization effort. Additionally, systems incorporating large language models can preserve timing, segmentation logic, and reading-speed compliance across the target language, so translated tracks inherit the quality properties of the source without a separate QC cycle.

Broadcast, OTT, and streaming platforms each impose distinct caption format requirements, and a caption track that passes QC for one delivery destination may fail for another. Generating and validating multiple output formats — SCC, WebVTT, TTML, and others — within the same pipeline means format-specific compliance is confirmed once, upstream, before distribution splits across platforms.

Accuracy That Compounds With Use
One persistent limitation of traditional captioning pipelines is that errors recur without systematic correction. When a captioning process mishandles a recurring term, such as a character name, an athlete, or a brand, that error propagates across multiple assets with no mechanism to resolve it at the source.

Content-intelligent platforms address this through a continuous learning loop. When operators review and correct AI-generated captions, those corrections are captured and used to fine-tune the underlying model. Over successive production cycles, the system becomes progressively more accurate for that organization's specific content mix, speakers, and terminology. This provides a meaningful advantage over static vendor relationships, where the same errors resurface without correction.

Moving Quality Decisions Upstream
These capabilities move captioning from a production checkpoint into a media quality system. Content-intelligent workflows generate structured, validated caption data that feeds directly into MAM systems, localization platforms, and distribution pipelines. The caption track arrives at each stage as a verified asset, ready for use without additional QC. That changes where quality decisions happen. Compliance risk is surfaced before delivery.

Multilingual tracks inherit the quality properties of the source. Format-specific requirements are confirmed once, before distribution splits across platforms. The underlying shift is from discovering caption failures at the point of delivery, where correction is costly and timelines are unforgiving, to catching them at the point of production.

MELBOURNE—Mediaproxy, a provider of software-based IP compliance monitoring and multiviewing solutions, will showcase the next generation of its industry-leading LogPlayer interface at 2026 NAB Show, April 19 to 22 in Las Vegas, on Booth W1423.

The updates to LogPlayer include powerful new AI-driven capabilities, direct support for web content and expanded support for key broadcast standards including ST 2110, NMOS, NDI and JPEG-XS.

“Innovation through quality engineering has been the company’s mantra for over 25 years now.” said Erik Otto, CEO of Mediaproxy. “We take great pride in leading the way with technology advancements that others in the industry follow.”

A major highlight of the upgrades is the introduction of AI functionality. Designed to augment user interactions, the AI-powered toolsets streamline workflows and accelerate access to critical content and metadata.

Mediaproxy’s latest version now also features native integration to record YouTube TV channels. The new capability enables operators to ingest web-based sources such as dashboards and live streaming services, including YouTube TV, as first‑class content into the LogServer and Monwall ecosystem. By recording these streams natively, LogServer removes the need for hardware converters or third‑party boxes, significantly simplifying hybrid broadcast and OTT monitoring and logging requirements, the company said.

Monwall Web, an extension to Mediaproxy's well-established server and client-based multiviewer, enables low-latency multi-screen monitoring. It offers new flexibility for engineers and operators using remote connections in conjunction with ultra-low-latency mosaics creating fully virtualized production workflows.

Mediaproxy also said it continues to strengthen its support for IP-based and open-standard workflows and will demonstrate extended NMOS functionality as well as support for ST 2110 with JPEG-XS for high-quality, low-latency IP video transport.

More information is available at https://www.mediaproxy.com/

AKRON, Ohio—What began as one Christian station in the Cincinnati area has exploded into a large network of broadcast stations helping to bring the Gospel message to the world, 24x7x365. Using cutting-edge technology to provide the best in faith and family television, TCT has become a powerful voice for the Gospel with a mission to “Evangelize, Educate, Entertain, and Edify.”

Award-winning TCT Network programming is distributed to nearly 40 U.S. television stations, plus many satellite/cable TV providers and via OTT devices such as iOS, Android, Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Android TV, Tizen and Xbox One.

Raising the Bar on QC
At TCT, we strive to deliver high-quality Christian content to our viewers. However, as our network has grown, maintaining consistent quality and regulatory compliance has become increasingly complex. Actus Digital has been a game-changing solution that has revolutionized our approach to quality control and provides us with an unprecedented level of visibility across our entire network.

The Actus Multiviewer offers our NOC engineering team in Akron a real-time panorama of all of our channels nationwide, but the system’s flexibility also allows unlimited simultaneous users to access live and recorded content from anywhere at any time. This feature enables collaborative problem-solving that has proven invaluable for our geographically dispersed team.

Quality control is essential for broadcast success, and our Actus has equipped us with a powerful platform to maintain our high standards. The system’s real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities allow us to identify and address issues such as audio dropouts, video freezing, or signal degradation, almost instantaneously. This allows our team to spot irregularities quickly and efficiently, which reduces downtime and ensures our viewers enjoy uninterrupted, high-quality programming.

Streamlined Compliance
In the world of broadcasting, the FCC imposes rigorous regulations for several items including closed captioning, adherence to the CALM Act, and airing proper EAS tests and alerts.

Actus Digital has transformed our approach to compliance from a potential headache into a streamlined, automated process. The system’s comprehensive compliance logging features allow us to easily track and document our broadcast performance and ensure we’re meeting FCC requirements across all our stations.

The peace of mind this brings cannot be overstated. We know that we’re not just protecting our broadcast license but also reinforcing our credibility with viewers.

While quality control and compliance were our primary motivations for adopting Actus, we’ve discovered an unexpected benefit: improved operational efficiency. The system’s user-friendly interface has increased our team’s overall productivity and helps our team provide quick assistance to our viewers and programming partners.

The centralized monitoring capabilities have streamlined our operations, fostering better communication among team members. With everyone literally on the same page, we’ve seen faster problem resolution and a more cohesive approach to broadcasting across our entire network.

The Actus system has become an indispensable part of our quality assurance strategy, empowering us to maintain the best possible viewing experience across all our local stations. In the ever-evolving landscape of modern broadcasting, challenges are inevitable. But with Actus Digital, we’re confident in our ability to meet these challenges head-on.

At TCT, our mission has always been to spread the good news of salvation, hope, and faith through high-quality Christian programming. Thanks to Actus Digital, we’re now better equipped than ever to fulfill this mission, ensuring that our content not only reaches our viewers but does so with the clarity, consistency, and quality they deserve.

More information is available here.

LONDON—Compliance monitoring and logging has always been a key part of the broadcast production and distribution process, albeit a niche, somewhat “background” one. Today its importance is growing in relation to the proliferation of TV channels and streaming services, with not only more programs to monitor but many more points along the chain to check as well.

The demands of both editorial/regulatory and technical compliance have put the onus on technology developers to produce systems that log and analyze more efficiently and comprehensively than before. Which explains why a relatively small, specialized but competitive market sector looks set to not only grow but also expand its reach along broadcast workflows and transmission paths.

THE VOLICON ‘MIGRATION’

With broadcast streams increasingly carried over uncompressed IP networks, broadcasters and OTT service providers alike are looking at the technologies available to ensure all regulatory requirements are met and technical quality is at its best. Business has also continued to adjust following Verizon Digital Media’s decision last year to discontinue the widely used Volicon Observer monitoring product.

Verizon bought Volicon in 2016 but decided to focus on “future solutions that better align with industry trends and market needs during the ongoing migration to IP and streaming video workflows,” when it made its announcement. To provide support for existing Observer customers, Verizon named SnapStream, a Houston-based provider of compliance monitoring software its official “Volicon transition partner.” After the announcement was made in April 2019, SnapStream reported that more than 100 Volicon users made the move to its support scheme. The second phase of the program came at the 2019 NAB Show New York with the launch of SnapStream Monitoring and Compliance, and there is now a full transition route, including settings, to SnapStream’s new “Moco” platform.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

As would be expected, the other compliance companies have been looking at the situation and developing their own migration paths for Observer users. Among these is Digital Nirvana, which is offering the option to switch to its MonitorIQ broadcast monitoring and compliance logging platform. An added incentive could be that Russell Wise, a cofounder of Volicon in 2004 who moved to Verizon following the acquisition, is now senior vice president of sales and marketing at Digital Nirvana.

Wise comments that the Volicon team—four of whom, including the user interface (UI) designer, moved with him to Digital Nirvana—”did a great job on the feature set” of Observer and that it was “a well-loved product.”

Wise acknowledges that users are now either replacing systems or considering their requirements. “Some networks are taking their time to make the decisions about replacing Volicon and a lot of the bigger broadcasters had the clout to have Verizon support it,” he said.

Wise adds that compliance is now moving from the main purpose of recording output to being able to scrutinize the logs to now using artificial intelligence and machine learning—which Digital Nirvana has been working with for seven years—and offering even more features, including producing transcripts.

A SINGLE SOLUTION

Actus Digital has also produced a migration path for Volicon, making it possible to play existing recordings through the Actus UI. Gary Learner, executive vice president of business development for the company observes that compliance and monitoring “is not a stale market” but is “constantly adapting” to changes in broadcasting.

“New regulations and amendments to existing ones are coming in, the industry is not dormant,” he said. “The customers are looking at the vendors to see who is quickest to respond so you have to be on your toes. There are big changes because of OTT and streaming but also with the move from parallel IT and broadcast infrastructures to just one IT infrastructure. This means broadcasters are now looking for a single solution.”

Erik Otto, chief executive of Mediaproxy, also sees the growing trend for one system that covers all functions, increasingly in file form.

“The overall trend today is for software-based compliance monitoring and logging systems,” he said. “There still may be some applications that call for dedicated hardware but generally the entire broadcast market is moving towards software and virtualization of operations.”

This, Otto adds, is a major advantage as broadcast facilities move from SDI to IP, a shift that usually comes with an increase in channels due to traditional broadcasters adding VOD. “There is always the possibility of problems when switching from one distribution system to another,” he said. “Compliance monitoring and QoE [Quality of Experience] technologies will be crucial for both the smooth running of services and maintaining the quality of the viewing experience.”

QC CONCERNS

The new breed of broadcast infrastructures is bringing production/post-production facilities closer to the playout and distribution chains, which in turn are now more connected to consumer platforms. This means the quality control stage, at one time carried out by a third-party facility or a specialist department within the TV station, is being more influenced by monitoring and logging.

“Compliance is becoming an extremely critical part of the QC process,” said Anupama Anantharaman, vice president of product management at Interra Systems. “Broadcasters and video service providers have quite a bit of responsibility to take care of both editorial compliance and technical quality and that means the monitoring companies have to come up with solutions that work in the cloud and are able to be scaled.”

Anantharaman predicts that in the next two to five years there will be more companies in this market sector, possibly offering “interesting solutions” that will “blur the lines between collecting compliance data and audience experience data.” Such a move could already be in progress, with the recent announcement of LWKS, a new company set up to take over the QScan analytical quality control (AQC) software and Lightworks nonlinear editing system from EditShare.

QScan has previously been used primarily for QC during the post-production process but there are now plans to take it further towards the compliance stage. “The transmission chain is something we can approach,” says Daniel Roqués, worldwide product manager for QScan. “The OTT providers are working with files and they need to make sure their streamed output is QCed.”

Brick Eksten, formerly with Digital Rapids and Imagine Communications, recently joined Qligent as chief executive. He views compliance as something “that has to be done,” Quality of Service (QoS) as “what you want to do” and QoE as “what you need to do.”

To ensure all of these processes work properly, measurements have to be taken at the granular level: “TV is a big data environment, with a large volume of content,” he said. “But there are not many people looking at the big data, other than on the analytics side. If ATSC 3.0 is going to succeed, it will have to behave as an internet service, because we are all consumers.”

Like the other compliance developers, Qligent is working on ML, which, Eksten says, “will take an ever increasing role in how we think about media delivery.” This, he concludes, ties in with big data: “It will give a greater degree of automation and allow the control room operators to concentrate more on what matters. As well as giving more operational freedom, it will also raise the accuracy of the automated systems.”

With ever greater technological potential and an increasingly vibrant marketplace, compliance monitoring certainly looks like the sector to watch.

Traditionally, broadcasters and media operators have relied on automated systems for recording, monitoring and to maintain compliance with mandatory requirements, such as loudness regulations, SCTE standards and closed caption rules. In recent years, compliance solutions have evolved significantly, allowing broadcasters to support a larger variety of video inputs and a growing number of OTT formats. But some compliance solutions go way beyond this.

Today, as broadcasters and TV networks look to further improve the efficiency of their workflow and save costs, artificial intelligence (AI)-based compliance and monitoring is having a major impact on the industry. The role of compliance systems extends beyond technical compliance (i.e., audio and video quality checks and alerts, loudness checks, detection of missing closed captions), which are more considered as technical monitoring, to include content analysis as well as automated content analysis.

ADVANTAGES OF AI COMPLIANCE AND MONITORING

Today’s media companies are dealing with a massive amount of content and data. Being able to quickly analyze data, find relevant content and turn that content into engaging clips is critical for broadcasters to increase viewer engagement, support content that is aired on TV and build their brands.

An intelligent, data-driven platform can dramatically speed up broadcasters’ workflows by allowing media companies to automatically tag, organize and categorize video recordings to enable rapid retrieval of relevant content and clips creation for social media outlets and the web. Processes that used to require hours of manual labor are now completely instantaneous.

AI-based solutions also allow media companies to more intelligently monitor and search for content beyond the channel name, date/time, extracted metadata (i.e., as run/EPG, closed caption) and any extracted or manually entered metadata. Broadcasters can search for spoken words, text that appears in video content, specific faces and ads that have been aired. In addition to searching, they can be automatically alerted any time relevant data appears within the audio or video.

How is this useful? Let’s say a broadcaster wants to automatically generate clips every time the word “football” is said. Assuming the monitoring platform includes a workflow for clips creation, AI enables ultra-fast clips turnaround, saving broadcasters valuable time and money. There’s no need for human resources to monitor or search: the information will pop up and clips can be done automatically. This process is extremely accurate, ensuring that they do not miss any relevant content.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN AI MONITORING SYSTEM

The best AI-based monitoring systems offer broadcasters a single, integrated solution for compliance, clips creation and quality of service monitoring. Not long ago, each of these tasks required a different piece of equipment, from different vendors. Being able to perform a wide range of tasks from one platform not only saves costs, rack space, maintenance and training, it also benefits broadcasters from a pre-integration standpoint. Hence, it’s important to look for a monitoring system that supports a wide range of capabilities, beyond standard compliance requirements.

It’s also essential to choose a media monitoring platform that supports multiple deployment environments, including on-premise, virtualization, cloud and hybrid. This gives broadcasters the most flexibility, allowing them to select the model that fits their business the best. Nowadays, the AI capabilities of monitoring systems are exclusively cloud-based to enable transparent AI engine upgrades and continuous advancements. Hosted in the cloud, the AI engine keeps learning, and no training is needed, which are benefits that on-premises and VM systems simply cannot offer.

CONCLUSION

Having a unified platform for all broadcast requirements—from broadcast recording to monitoring, compliance, clips creation and exporting to OTT, social media, analysis, quality assurance—makes the most financial sense for media companies. By adding AI to the mix, broadcasters can further streamline their operations and drive monetization.

Raphael Renous is CTO and R&D Manager at Actus Digital. He is responsible for the technical specification and implementation of Actus Digital’s Actus system, including designing the video recording engine and specializing in software architecture and application of new technologies.

Previously, Raphael held a number of important positions at Microsoft, including lead program manager of its Distributed Systems Group. While at Microsoft, he successfully led the integration of the transaction functionality across products within Microsoft. Raphael has a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in computer science.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Government regulation isn’t going away. Neither are legal battles over everything from proof of advertising to equal treatment and FCC programming requirements.

Fortunately, one of the great benefits of the computer revolution of the past 25 years is the ability for broadcasters to more easily monitor, log and preserve information regarding their technical signals and programming content. And in the current repack environment where broadcasters are being crammed more tightly together, accurate real-time (or near real-time) data regarding transmission quality is a necessity.

“‘Compliance’ generally means conforming to standards set by governments or regulators to ensure the quality of broadcasts,” said Erik Otto, CEO of Mediaproxy, a provider of compliance and analysis technology. “This applies as much to the content of programs and editorial policy as it does technical standards for distribution and transmission. To ensure consistent technical quality for TV and streaming distribution, regulators and broadcasters work with recommendations and rules drawn up by national or international industry bodies, such as the EBU, ITU and SMPTE.”

Each country and regulator will set its own requirements for compliance based on these standards or guidelines, according to Otto.

“Broadcasters have to care about compliance because it not only ensures their viewers get the best possible audio and video quality on whatever device they are watching—TV, laptop, streaming service or mobile—but that they protect themselves from regulatory action or fines if their output were to drop below standard.”

NO CENTRAL LOCATION

In this new world of compliance requirements, there is no one central location where a broadcaster gets to decide if the signal meets the appropriate standards.

The master control room at a playout center is no longer the final point for quality control, Otto said.

“Video and audio need to be scrutinized as they pass along the delivery path, through content delivery network (CDN) edge points and numerous processes such as targeted ad insertion, multilanguage selection and event-based transmission,” he said. “This means compliance systems need to have the flexibility to be implemented at any point in the distribution chain.”

Depending on the nature of your broadcasting operation, some of what you need to measure, log and analyze may be in physical locations, and some may be in the cloud.

“Compliance logging and monitoring has been changing and evolving for several years,” Otto said. “This is primarily due to the widespread adoption of file-based operations, which has allowed for a more comprehensive use of IP-based software programs to log and analyze the content of TV material in data form. The main change brought about by broadcasters and facilities storing more program files in the cloud relates to where the logging, monitoring and analysis processes take place—because the cloud is usually the closest location to a CDN edge point, packet-level inspection of the streams is most effectively carried out at this stage.”

However, broadcasters are looking around and using the cloud only when it makes sense for their operations and budgets.

“From what we’ve see in the last few years, TV broadcasters are more and more checking the option of using the cloud,” said Sima Levy, CEO of Actus Digital. “However, the change is slow for compliance systems. This is because compliance is recording a TV channel 24/7, which means lots of storage. Also, more and more TV broadcasters would like to save the recorded video in high resolution format for other purposes, such as exporting clips to social media. Higher resolution means more processing power, and these both affect cloud costs. We do see partial cloud solutions only for storage.”

Still, even for a smaller broadcaster, cloud services have some merit.

“There is a huge advantage for station groups as they can deploy localized probes to collect data and media recordings from each market, and then aggregate them to the cloud for centralized monitoring, logging and analysis to improve consistency and efficiency,” said Ted Korte, chief technology officer for Qligent. “Even for a single call-letter station, the cloud provides the scalability to log and archive as long as they wish, and the flexibility to quickly accommodate the evolution of compliance logging.”

COVER A LOT OF GROUND

Depending on the country you’re in and the regulating agency, compliance can cover a lot of ground—some of it occasionally shifting beneath your feet. In the United States, it seems like there is something new every year that makes complying with the regulations a challenge.

“Regulators typically decide on compliance requirements based on the viewing experience of people at large, public safety, changes in technology [e.g., ATSC 3.0], cultural/ religious sensitivity [e.g., broadcasters in Arab countries might have some special compliance requirements] and many other considerations,” said Ashish Basu, vice president of global sales and business development at Interra Systems. “Most broadcasters are expected to know the compliance requirements that are mandated in their markets, and prepare the facility and configure the technology infrastructure accordingly.

“The regulators have a supervisory responsibility, so if a broadcaster is found to be non-compliant, a regulator could take punitive measures such as fines,” Basu added. “For example, the FCC fined some U.S. broadcasters for being noncompliant on supporting Emergency Access Tones.”

On the subject of ATSC 3.0, this is one of the shifting compliance requirements that U.S. broadcasters face.

Compared to ATSC 1.0, ATSC 3.0 provides a lot more flexibility in broadcast systems, including the opportunity for broadcasters to send content to fixed and mobile receivers in a seamless manner, combining OTT and broadband deliveries, according to Basu.

“Another difference is the option of choosing among SD, HD and UHD resolutions. ATSC 3.0 comprises around 20 standards covering different aspects of the system,” he added. “The standards are designed to offer support for newer technologies like HEVC video encoding for video channels of up to 4K resolution at 120 fps, HDR, Dolby AC4 and more robust mobile TV support. All these new technologies embedded in ATSC 3.0 have their compliance requirements; many of those would not have been required for ATSC 1.0.”

MEETING REQUIREMENTS

Keeping track of all this, especially for stations in smaller markets, is difficult. Of course, what is required today may be different in a year, but what are we looking at when it comes to meeting compliance requirements in the U.S.?

“The FCC has requirements that vary from station to station based on their market size and audience,” said Ken Rubin, vice president of sales for Vela Research. “For example, PBS and religious broadcasters with lower-powered transmitters have different regulations they must adhere to versus big stations in larger markets. Most [broadcasters] choose to retain a copy of their content for a minimum of 90 days, but many are maintaining it for years or in perpetuity—to make use of it beyond regulatory compliance.”

The drive to improve compliance has at least as much to do with the internet as it does with traditional over-the-air broadcasting.

“Regulatory compliance has been evolving in OTA broadcast for many decades, but OTT is still in its infancy,” Qligent’s Korte said. “Most OTA broadcasters also support OTT streaming services and, as more services are being outsourced, we are seeing many more service-level agreements coming into play to keep a good audit trail end-to-end.

“Quality and reliability of OTT is improving but not quite there yet, and there are too many moving parts to replace the robustness of a traditional linear broadcast,” Korte added. “Broadcasters have proven to provide the most reliable services and, by the nature of ‘public safety’ alone, should continue to use this as a driving force for viewership.”

Compliance is a complex topic, made more complex by the interplay between broadcasters’ main over-the-air feed and the growing numbers of OTT viewers they get for their valuable news content. OTT is still something of the “Wild West,” where just about anything goes, but broadcasters want to be sure that the quality they’re paying for is delivered to the viewer. After all, if there is a failure in OTT playback, the viewer will most likely blame the broadcaster and not the CDN operator.

At the same time, broadcasters have myriad regulations to follow, and need to maintain logs and records to prove they delivered content in the proper manner. Failure to do so can lead to serious fines and license renewal problems.