STOCKHOLM—Video transport and cloud provider Net Insight has named Chris Myers as senior vice president of sales, Americas.

Myers, most recently chief revenue officer at LTN Global Communications, will lead Net Insight’s sales strategy and execution across its media portfolio in Americas, supporting clients in live production, contribution and distribution at scale, Net Insight said.

“The Americas is a strategic growth area for Net Insight and we are thrilled to welcome someone with Chris’ caliber to lead our Americas business going forward,” Net Insight CEO Andreas Eriksson said. “Chris has a proven track record of scaling businesses in our part of the media industry and a deep understanding of our customers business that will help our customers modernize their media networks with confidence.”

Myers is a more than 20-year veteran of senior leadership posts across broadcast, media and cloud-based video services. As CRO at LTN, he helped scale the company into a global IP video and SaaS (software-as-a-service) provider, Net Insight said. He also served in executive roles at Encompass Digital Media and ABC News, where he was responsible for global live production and newsgathering operations, Net Insight said.

“Media organizations need to scale efficiently without compromising performance,” Myers said. “Net Insight is well-positioned to support that shift, and I’m looking forward to working closely with customers across the Americas.”

Net Insight’s offerings include Emmy Award-winning Nimbra IP media delivery platform. For more on the company, visit its website.

NEVADA CITY, Calif.—Telestream today unveiled Vantage AI, a platform-wide evolution of artificial intelligence capabilities that enable smarter, faster and more adaptive media workflows from ingest to delivery, and will show it at IBC2025, set for Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

Building on Vantage’s ability to automate complex operations, the AI expansion broadens the scope of what can be automated.

“Many AI tools overwhelm teams with raw transcripts and labels that require manual interpretation before they’re useful,” Charlie Dunn, executive vice president of products at Telestream, said.

“Vantage AI takes a fundamentally different approach,” he said. “We deliver context-aware metadata that’s embedded into workflows and ready to trigger real actions, whether automating subtitles, accelerating search or enabling smarter decisions. It is practical AI that enables our customers to improve their operations and businesses.”

Telestream’s unified approach to AI empowers customers to streamline operations, enrich metadata and enhance QC, while maintaining full control over content, infrastructure and cost predictability. Highlights include:

• AI-Caption, which generates accurate, multilingual subtitles from audio with options for human-refined or fully automated delivery, preserving timing, readability and cultural nuance.
• AI-Speech, which creates rich, searchable metadata through transcription, content summarization and sensitive language detection. This accelerates content discovery across news, sports and post workflows.
• AI-Qualify, which detects lip sync issues, subtitle overlap and spoken language mismatches—problems often missed by rule-based QC systems. Automating these checkpoints with AI eliminates manual checks and improves accuracy across formats and platforms.
• AI-Vision, which detects logos, scene changes and ad break opportunities to automate segmentation and streamline content repackaging. This also helps ensure compliance by identifying visual elements that may require masking or replacement.
• AI-Workflow, which uses natural language prompts to create media processing workflows, accelerating production cycles while reducing errors. The intelligent automation makes media operations more streamlined and dynamic.

Vantage AI also enriches content in Telestream DIVA, automatically generating captions, transcripts, summaries and visual metadata that accelerates archive discovery and automation without the need for third-party tools or siloed processing.

“Security is paramount for our customers. Vantage AI operates securely on-prem or in controlled environments, keeping media assets within the customer’s domain. No customer content is used for training the model,” Dunn said. “This ensures compliance, auditability, and cost control, especially important for broadcasters and live event producers operating at scale.”

Vantage AI is available for deployment today across a range of media workflows, including live production, 24/7 broadcast operations, content repackaging, and other high-volume environments.

See Telestream at IBC2025 Stand 7.B21.

More information is available on the company’s website.

LOS ANGELES—Web caching, video streaming and content delivery software developer Varnish Software has unveiled new power efficiency achievements for both live-linear and video-on-demand (VOD) streaming.

The achievements, up to 1.18 Gbps per watt for live streaming and .74 Gbps for VOD, are presented in a new whitepaper from Intel. The paper lays out research into scalability of CDN edge node performance and energy efficiency over four different performance levels and builds on the collaboration of Varnish, Intel and Supermicro, the company said.

“As content delivery becomes more of a strategic function that organizations are bringing in house, benchmarks like these will help them understand what is needed to achieve sustainability goals and objectives,” said Varnish Software CTO Frank Miller.  “The need to deliver more throughput with less energy and at the lowest cost has never been greater.” 

For the latest benchmark testing Varnish Enterprise 6.0 content delivery software was deployed on a Supermicro Superserver powered by Intel Xeon D, as well as CloudDC and Hyper 1RU and 2RU servers powered by Intel 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs. No specialized TSL offload cards were used, it said.

Efficiency gains were demonstrated over an array of performance levels and power budgets. The testing shows what is possible with commercially available software and well-configured Intel-based servers, the company said.

The whitepaper is available online. 

MCLEAN, Va.—Intelsat has announced a new content distribution system that will use the internet to transport quality video content around the globe. 

IntelsatOne IP is designed as a global interconnected network powered by a software platform eliminating the need for hardware which makes for faster deployment, the company said. 

The IntelsatOne IP service also builds on Intelsat’s decades of satellite and terrestrial experience to deliver reliability, customer service, global reach, content backup capabilities and scalability, the company said. 

“IntelsatOne IP increases the reach and flexibility of the Intelsat Global Media Network and complements our existing global satellite and fiber footprint,” said Pascale Fromont, vice president of Media at Intelsat. “IntelsatOne IP offers more connectivity options to broadcasters of all sizes looking for more affordable and reliable ways to transport content as well as for those seeking new ways to increase viewership.”

Using Intelsat’s hybrid terrestrial and satellite infrastructure broadcasters are able to access the full Intelsat Global Media Network, bringing connectivity that traditional IP providers are unable to provide.

The IntelsatOne IP product is available now for customers to begin testing use cases and is scheduled by become commercially available as an operational service at a later date, the company said. 

Before the internet transformed virtually every facet our lives, broadcasting was the only way to disseminate information to the masses in real time.

The invention of radio and television were both revolutionary in their own ways, delivering audio and video into millions of homes worldwide. News, sport and other content was immediately accessible, making the public more informed and entertained.

The story of both technologies is one of iteration. The quality and variety of modern radio broadcasts would be unrecognizable to a listener in the early 20th century, while color, satellite and new standards have created modern television.

But broadcasting is on the cusp of a revolution. 5G will change how events and programs are captured, produced and transmitted to people around the world. Broadcasts will become more interactive, more innovative and more efficient.

In this post we showcase some of the top 5G use cases that you can expect to see within the broadcasting industry in the coming years.

1. Remote production

5G offers faster speeds, greater capacity and lower latency when compared to previous generations of mobile networks. Although it’s possible to carry out remote production using 4G, the superior bandwidth and reliability makes remote production a realistic proposition for broadcasters.

Traditionally, live outside broadcasts have required a team of camera operators, production staff and directors on-site. In addition to intensive labor costs, the deployment of an outside broadcast truck and the use of satellite capacity increases expense considerably.

5G remote production reduces the number of staff required on-site and the need for a truck as camera feeds can be sent instantly to a centralized production hub. This reduces costs and allows production teams to work across multiple events on a single day. This results in greater quality for consumers.

2. Network slicing

Network slicing will be crucial for remote broadcasts in the future. At present, the limited number of users on commercial 5G networks means there is little risk of broadcasters not having sufficient capacity to transmit their programs.

However, as the number of 5G subscribers increases over the coming years, there will be a need to provide a guaranteed level of throughput. Network slicing does this by effectively fencing off part of a 5G network for a particular application. In effect, broadcasters will be able to request network slices in the same way they currently book satellite capacity.

3. Greater creativity

But it’s not just about cost effectiveness. 5G networks will increase the variety of creative options open to producers. 5G-enabled cameras—free from the constraints of wires—will allow operators to roam freely across a studio space or a sports venue, capturing images that would previously have been impossible to record.

Feeds can then be sent back to an outside broadcast truck or to a remote production hub across the 5G network. This is of particular value to sports broadcasters, who can use the same camera for pre- and post-event content and to cover the event itself.

4. Mobile production

In 2004, BBC News gave journalists 3G phones so they could live stream reports and events in the field. The idea was not to replace conventional camera crews, but allow reporters to provide reports before the production team arrived. Naturally, quality was sporadic, but advances made in both mobile technology and networks since has given rise to an entire field of mobile journalism (mojo). Smartphones are now capable of capturing, editing and even streaming live images. Glen Mulcahy, expert trainer at the Thomson Foundation, believes that “By 2020, when 5G goes mainstream, mojo will dominate news.”

5. Better streaming for users

The same characteristics of 5G (speed, capacity and latency) that will aid production will also benefit end users. 5G will support higher quality streams in 4K Ultra-High Definition (UHD), while the densification of networks through micro infrastructure such as small cells will ensure mobile users can actually watch them in the quality for which they were intended. 

Meanwhile, lower latency will also ensure that live events—such as news, election debates or sport—are shown as close as possible to the moment they are captured. This will reduce the risk of a neighbor’s screaming or a rogue notification spoiling an imminent goal, wicket or touchdown.

6. Multicast streaming

The constraints of 4G networks meant that significant efforts were placed into multicast streaming. Whereas the majority of streaming is achieved using unicast transmissions, which send content to an individual user rather than many users, multicast is similar to conventional broadcasting in that it sends the same transmission to multiple devices. Multicast promises to maintain the same level of quality, even as the number of viewers increases, without requiring additional spectrum or capacity. Operators benefit from greater efficiency and cost effectiveness.

Although the greater capacity of 5G (and limited adoption) has made the immediate need for multicast streaming redundant, increasing numbers of 5G subscribers and more data-intensive streams will place more strain on networks in the future. According to Ericsson, there will be 2.6 billion 5G users by 2025, consuming an average of 24GB a month—growth driven by video. 

7. Immersive entertainment

Verizon showcased its 5G tech in real-time rendering of effects from "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." The network partnered with Walt Disney Studios’ StudioLAB for a demo at the premiere afterparty in Hollywood, where guests were able to interact with Sith troopers in real-time.

Two actors played the troopers working in a remote location 15 miles away. Those who took part in the demo could approach a screen and interact with the two Sith troopers. The troopers were able to react in real-time. 

“Both the StudioLAB and Verizon believe 5G will fundamentally change everything about how entertainment media is created, distributed and consumed,” said Nicki Palmer, chief product development officer at Verizon. 

“The speed and low latency of 5G can unlock incredible creative capabilities,” added Ben Havey at Disney Studios StudioLAB. “We want to give storytellers early access to this new technology so they can continue to bring unparalleled experiences to audiences around the world.”

And in November, EE streamed a 360-degree augmented reality (AR) Bastille concert from Birmingham New Street station to Edinburgh and Liverpool. 

8. Remote broadcasting

The greater reliability of 5G means that mobile networks could be a more cost-effective way of providing traditional broadcasts to remote areas. The construction of a 5G network can be more efficient than maintaining expensive bespoke broadcast infrastructure such as radio and television masts—and has the added benefit of delivering ultrafast mobile internet. 

This, in turn, could increase the economic argument for rural 5G. As part of the 5GRuralFirst trial in Orkney, the BBC created a dedicated radio app for residents of Stromsay—an area with poor connectivity and digital radio coverage—to ensure the technology is fit for purpose.

9. Personalized broadcasting

Personalization is viewed by many within the industry to be the future of broadcasting. Viewers will be able to select from a variety of video and audio feeds, as well as on-screen graphics and other elements. 5G will enable these experiences over mobile networks, with standards bodies working on standards that allow for the personalization of broadcasts. And object-based media standards break down broadcasts into different modules, which are displayed according to factors such as user preference and device. For example, it might be that one viewer prefers a sign language presenter while another might have a smaller device or slower connection.

10. Advanced advertising

The transition of broadcast from a one-way transmission to a two-way conversation will provide opportunities for broadcasters to offer more personalized advertising experiences that rival online giants. Sky already does this in the U.K. through its AdSmart platform, but the sheer amount of data possessed by mobile users make this an audience treasure trove for 5G broadcasters.

5G will not only create a massive captive audience for advertisers, but will allow for more advanced creatives that attract attention and make it possible to deploy algorithms that display the most appropriate creatives in real time. For broadcasters struggling with declining commercial revenues—5G represents a significant opportunity.

This story originally appeared on TVT's sister publication 5GRadar.

NEW YORK—New England Sports Network has selected The Switch to provide the station with a new IP infrastructure and content delivery services. This will include having The Switch’s hybrid fiber/internet network replace NESN’s existing satellite distribution platform.

The Switch’s terrestrial distribution platform is designed to offer a fully integrated, state-of-the-art system that features next-gen video compression, encryption, receiver management & control and a redundant transmission network. For NESN, this is expected to deliver superior live sports feeds of Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins and Connecticut Sun games, as well as college sports events.

As part of the deal, NESN can ensure redundancy to its major affiliate distributors without impacting the final viewing experience, it says. Also, The Switch provides live monitoring from its New York City Operation Center for every game, as well as continuous network operations and engineering support.

“We are now in a position to utilize the best capabilities of fiber and internet to ensure the highest possible signal quality for live broadcasts and we have now laid the important groundwork to deliver our broadcasts in 4K HDR,” said Fahad Haider, CTO and vice president of Engineering at NESN.

For more information, visit www.theswitch.tv.  

GLOUSESTERSHIRE, U.K.—The IABM has released its latest Buying Trends Report, which reveals a confidence in the broadcast and media industry despite a drop in revenues.

According to the report, revenue growth has decreased from 9.3% in April 2019 to 3.1% currently, and profit growth remains negative at -3.1%—slightly down from -2.4% reported in April.

One of the other key findings of the report is that multiplatform content delivery is the most important priority for technology users followed by 4K/UHD.

The report also reveals:

• Confidence in the industry remains high with 74% of respondents saying that they are positive about the business environment, down by four percentage points compared to six months ago
• 21% of technology users derive the vast majority of their revenue (more than 80%) from traditional broadcast operations although most expect this to change
• Efficiency remains the most important driver of product purchase, followed by total cost of ownership and agility
• Investment in building internal capabilities for technology development continues to increase
• Cloud, UHD and AI rise while Blockchain is still at an early stage of adoption at 2%
• 92% of end-users say that interoperability is important

“Changing priorities have translated into a shift in technology spending that prioritizes Opex over Capex,” said Lorenzo Zanni, IABM head of insight and analysis. “Our data demonstrates that technology users are focusing on solutions that make them more efficient and agile. In order to do that, they are spending more money on generic IT technology and increasingly investing in in-house development to suit their specific needs. This shift in technology spending is prompting end-users to adopt a variety of emerging technologies to streamline their supply-chains for the multiplatform world. Given that confidence levels remain relatively high, it is clear they are optimistic that they can meet the challenge from the digital giants head on.”

Tedial, the leading independent MAM technology solutions specialist, will be unveiling significant new features to its cutting-edge, award-winning sports and live events solution, SMARTLIVE, on stand 8.B44 at IBC 2019. The company will also unveil upgrades to its Tedial Version Factory 2019 for the first time in Europe.

SMARTLIVE MULTI SPORT Configurations
New for IBC 2019, SMARTLIVE will feature MULTI SPORT configurations, which allow users to generate automatic highlights or auto-clipping for any genre of sport quickly and easily. Visitors will see a dramatic increase in the number of highlights that SMARTLIVE can generate automatically due to the significant expansion of sports genres. This is a key addition to the list of the solution’s fast-growing capabilities. Totally agnostic to all data feeds, Tedial’s metadata engine makes it simple to add new configurations to the system as and when required.

In addition, SMARTLIVE and Tedial’s Evolution MAM now includes a new module that allows all types of content to be published to any social network in just one click. Enabled by the system’s capability to create social publishing campaigns directly inside the MAM, content includes clips, highlights or historical media etc. This will be demonstrated on the stand throughout the show.

Tedial will also highlight its technology partnership with Speechmatics. By integrating Speechmatics’ industry-leading Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) technology with SMARTLIVE, operators can search for comments made during a sporting match or live event, automatically create file locators and import a file or drop it into a watch folder and manually generate the speech-to-text from the commentary track.

Providing operators with faster access to content, Tedial will showcase its new SMARTLIVE bundled solution that can easily be deployed on top of the customer’s existing production environment. This is key as it provides sports broadcasters with a highly efficient solution that can be up and running very quickly. As well as these new features, Tedial will highlight the financial and operational benefits of operating SMARTLIVE both on premises and in the cloud.

Esther Mesas, CSO/CMO, Tedial explains, “These latest additions enable production teams to significantly increase their efficiency and output without needing to scale up, leaving them more time for creativity, such as personalized stories that enhance the overall viewer experience. SMARTLIVE maximizes efficiency, output and profitability for broadcasters of sports and live events. It also enables overheads to be reduced by cutting costs without having to compromise on the quality of their solution. We look forward to demonstrating these new features and benefits at IBC 2019.”

Tedial Version Factory 2019
The company will also show Tedial Version Factory 2019 upgrades for the first time in Europe. Tedial Version Factory is a single efficient and cost-effective workflow that supports millions of file inputs, transforming them to delivery configurations, ready to be distributed to multiple platforms from a single operator screen. Updates include, managing ‘on-the-fly’ assembly of unique versions, including pre, post and mid-roll insertions; matching contractual distribution requirements for timely deliveries; enabling IMF-compliant low-resolution proxy edits on media and templates, so seasons of episodes can be managed with a single configuration.

Using the company’s Version Factory and HYPER IMF, its end-to-end IMF workflow now supporting 2018 SMPTE IMF standards, Tedial can easily support existing and new platforms, delivering content in the correct format with audio tracks and subtitles in the correct language, as well as any additional components required (artwork/trailers etc.).

As part of Tedial’s Evolution MAM demonstration the company will also show new features to its Evolution aSTORM content management solution, which transparently manages various tiers across departments and locations or in the cloud, for the first time in Europe. aSTORM now includes numerous cost-saving features including, optimizing transfers between sites for reduced transfer costs; and improved tape migration workflows between technologies for increased resource efficiency resulting in lower migration costs. aSTORM also now supports Oracle cloud storage.

“The industry is undergoing a major transformation,” adds Mesas. “We deliver systems that provide a combination of features to optimize operations and content management at all levels on premises or in the cloud to ensure systems work efficiently according to each customer’s changing requirements. Come and see us on stand 8.B44 and find out more.”

Movies have and always will be a staple of the holiday season. As families come together and reunite with their loved ones, both new flicks and classic favorites alike are central to drumming up the holiday spirit and spending quality time together for many in the U.S. and beyond.

With more than 136 original Christmas movies, it’s no wonder the Hallmark Channel, owned by Crown Media, has become synonymous with the holiday season. In fact, the Hallmark Channel is regularly ranked as one of the top three most-watched cable channels during the Christmas season.

SEEKING CHEER BEYOND THE HOLIDAYS

Despite Hallmark’s success capitalizing on the holiday movie market, Crown Media recognized that delivering content through a variety of platforms is critical for television networks today to meet evolving consumer preferences. In order to remain competitive year-round, the company recently expanded program content both beyond the holiday season and traditional cable television.

With the streaming market growing and consumers shifting toward multiplatform video experiences, Crown Media seized the opportunity to launch two additional linear networks—Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama—along with both video on demand (VOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD) platforms for all three of its networks.

MORE PLATFORMS, MORE PROBLEMS

Crown Media’s programming success is undeniable. The network has produced so much content over the years that it easily airs movies 24/7 during the holiday season. Despite this success, the launch of the new networks and services presented Crown Media with a new task of managing multiple platforms. This encompassed reaching new viewers and needing to understand them to best serve advertisers—a tough-but-necessary task for any network.

From video tagging and encoding to delivery, Crown Media initially worked with multiple vendors to individually address various aspects of its multiplatform strategy, resulting in sometimes complicated workflows. The media company was also forced to manage multiple video players native to each platform, as its original solution could not adequately support live linear channels or Neilsen viewer measurement. This required that the same functionality be repeatedly built out for each player.

Crown Media recognized it needed more sophisticated and streamlined workflows, media players and reporting to help track and understand its new platform network.

Crown Media enlisted the help of Akamai, which it was already using for content delivery network (CDN) services. In implementing Akamai’s Adaptive Media Player (AMP) and adaptive bitrate playback capabilities, Crown Media was able to reduce the vendor complexity and minimize integrations, ultimately, simplifying a monster task within its streaming workflows.

By using Adaptive Media Player, Crown Media deployed both on-demand and linear content playback for its expanding catalog. The company could also tap the FreeWheel AdManager for ad regulating, certify Nielsen measurement, deploy Comscore and Adobe measurement and gain visibility into its streaming video performance through Akamai Media Analytics.

KEY RESULTS

Akamai’s AMP helped Crown Media launch a single player for top devices and platforms: web (desktop and mobile), mobile (iOS and Android) and connected TV (tvOS and Fire TV).

The Media Player also helped maximize the impact of Crown Media’s evolving media workflow. For example, despite having a more sophisticated workflow to power its growing requirements, the media company actually now faces fewer touch points throughout the workflow. Crown Media platforms can support both on-demand and linear on major platforms, with Nielsen tracking across all of them.

With easy access to Nielsen viewer measurement, Crown Media can also better understand its traditional and digital viewership and monetize audiences for both traditional TV and its streaming properties. The company has also gained greater visibility into its video performance through Akamai Media Analytics with the ability to quickly identify and mitigate issues potentially impacting the viewer experience.

Perhaps most impressively, Akamai’s AMP helped Crown Media to nearly double its audience reach over the Christmas 2018 season. It has been a win-win: Crown Media has been able to fully monetize its content, and users have enjoyed an improved catalog and user experience as evidenced by increases in app store ratings.

UNWRAPPING SUCCESS ALL YEAR LONG

Looking ahead, Crown Media is positioned to take advantage of Akamai’s experience and Adaptive Media Player to advance its capabilities well beyond the holiday season. With support for header bidding and server-side ad integration, AMP can help make it possible to continue to monetize Crown Media content. In the meantime, Crown Media is enjoying an expanded reach and greater insight into audiences across web, mobile and connected TVs, ultimately providing better viewer experiences and helping the business reach new heights.

Frank Paolino is the senior director of Global Services for Akamai.

Content originators and owners increasingly find their content distribution workflows being siloed as they prepare content for a diverse array of delivery platforms. The eBook “Managing Content Distribution in a Time of Flux” confronts the problem of prepping content for different distributors and looks at a strategy that relieves the headaches for in-house staff.

Discover:

-Why different distributors –whether they’re direct-to-consumer cable syndication, digital or international—have different content specifications

-How content prep silos are a workable solution that impedes content prep efficiency 

-Content prep and supply chain management that allows content owners and originators to reclaim workflow efficiency

-How context-aware workflows are a great way to relieve the burden of versioning content

Click here to download.

The media landscape is evolving rapidly before our eyes. A sea change has taken hold in many areas, perhaps none more so than in cable television. As a result of frustration over cable and satellite customer service and costs, many TV viewers have "cut the cord," meaning they choose to watch TV programs via other options.

Over the past eight years, cord-cutting has increased by 48%, with 14% of all households now fully removed from cable contracts. And the amount of cord-cutters only seems to be increasing; in Q3 of last year alone, nearly 1.2 million people defected. Traditional television is on a fast track to the media morgue. In a progressively virtual world, video content providers will need to adapt in order to stay alive in an increasingly competitive market.

THE OPPORTUNITY OF DYING MEDIA MODELS

One of the main reasons that cable viewership is dying is because of the low popularity of cable companies. High cost, poor customer service and a lack of value for money have been cited as factors resulting in customers losing faith in traditional cable companies.

Over-the-top (OTT) video media providers have seized the opportunity. With a la carte video options, consumers are able to choose the exact content they desire without having to sign lengthy contracts. Even established television networks are beginning to offer their services online. HBO, the longtime stalwart of premium cable, successfully launched its standalone service HBO Now in 2015, giving cord-cutters easy access to cutting-edge television programs.

With traditional television-viewing declining, cable companies have begun to adapt to the new media climate by developing their own streaming services. With enormous amounts of capital to spend, telecommunications networks are beginning to fill their arsenal with the most prestigious content providers. Already, NBCUniversal, Disney and Apple have announced plans to create their own streaming services with original content. AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner shows a clear commitment to providing top-of-the-line programming to compete with the growing quality of original content on Netflix and Hulu. With the luxury of already owning premium commodities such as Marvel and Star Wars, Disney’s long awaited streaming service should immediately become competitive.

Another opportunity lies in enhancing its set-top box production (STB). STBs may seem like a dated tech, and yet the market is expected to be worth over $46 billion in 2027. Demand for HD STBs is abundant in order to access the full potential of 4K televisions, but as traditional cable STBs decline in popularity, investing in OTT-device STBs could prove a fruitful opportunity.

Telecommunications companies need to also look at OTT services for the ways in which they view advertising. By shifting from broadcast television to OTT devices, companies can spend advertising money more efficiently. With intelligent audience platforms such as TruOptik, advertisements are able to have shorter, better-targeted ads that customers don’t mind watching and companies don’t mind paying more for. In short, it’s a win-win for both sides, the mythical “Holy Grail” of advertising. However, there is yet to be any evidence that this lofty goal is achievable.

LESSONS FROM THE MUSIC REVOLUTION

Apple officially marked its intent to join the streaming arms race with Apple TV Plus set to be released this fall. In fact, the battle between Netflix and Apple has already begun. With a preemptive strike, Netflix recently dropped Airplay support from its app, while Netflix remains conspicuously absent from the Apple TV service. But in this current hypercompetitive video media climate, Apple may have a secret weapon: a roadmap of past success with iTunes.

In 2003, Apple faced a similar crossroads. iTunes began in 2001 as a media player to pair with the nascent iPod. With the release of the iTunes Store in 2003, it quickly became the premier music marketplace in the world. At its height, over two-thirds of all music purchases were made through the iTunes Store. Considering the sheer ubiquitousness of iTunes in the music industry today, it’s strange to think of its launch as an ambitious move.

The rise of peer-to-peer (P2P) music sharing sites such as Napster and Limewire had decimated CD sales by making pirated music accessible to anyone with a simple download. The music industry was in a crisis—or as Apple CEO Steve Jobs put it, a revolution. The stage was set for a kind of “cord-cutting” of the music industry that mirrors what’s happening with TV today.

Apple noticed this disconnect between consumers and record labels, and sought to develop a means to bridge the gap between the two. The iTunes Store aimed to address the concerns of consumers who wanted easier access, flexibility and lower costs without sacrificing quality in their music selection.

To address these issues, Apple made sure that they had top-of-the-line premium content for users to purchase. They secured contracts with some of the biggest record labels—Universal Music Group, Warner and Sony to name a few—and launched with 200,000 songs available to download. They set the price per song at a strict 99 cents, allowing customers to pick and choose whichever tracks they desired. And those who had previously pirated their music were able to experience the same ease of access with a simple click of a button. Demand picked up immediately, with a monumental one million songs sold within the first week. Later that year, iTunes Store was released for Windows, and Apple would continue its ascendency to a global juggernaut in music.

The climate for Apple TV Plus isn’t identical to what it was for iTunes: Rather than being bold new explorers in an emerging industry, they will enter a video media world with hordes of competition eager to see them fail. But by using the same strategies employed in the creation of iTunes, Apple TV has a blueprint for success.

Without the partnerships with major record labels, there is little chance that the iTunes store would have gotten off the ground as smoothly as they did. In a video media world where Netflix is winning Oscars, quality content is perhaps the most critical element. With confirmed original content from established stars such as Oprah, Steven Spielberg and M. Night Shyamalan, Apple is once again aiming to provide quality programming from the jump.

Apple can also imitate the ease of access for its customers that it executed with iTunes. iTunes optimized the process by allowing for consumers to choose songs or albums at the click of a button. Apple doesn’t seem to be giving this the full care it deserves in its video streaming, however. With Apple Plus TV, customers are able to access it in 100 plus countries, but crucially, its not compatible with Android or Microsoft devices. In order to fully reach its potential, access to this market is critical.

Another reason for the success of iTunes is its low price. When attempting to compete with pirated music, having a low price for music was essential. This is also the case in the hypercompetitive environment of video media. Apple has been tight-lipped about the cost of their service, while it did announce that there wouldn’t be any ads playing before the content. If Apple chooses to have a lower price than its competitors, it could prove to be game-changing.

Most companies probably will not survive the evolving media landscape if they take an insular approach to addressing changing consumer needs. They’ll have to look beyond themselves: whether that means embracing new revenue models, new technologies or perhaps new partners they didn’t know they would have. The challenge is a steep one, but it can be solved with always having the customer at the top of the mind.

Javier Brugues, is the director of Business Development atintive.com.

LiveU and CBS Newspath have reached an agreement on a multi-year deal for LiveU Matrix to handle contribution and delivery of live content to its 200+ affiliates and seven global news bureaus. LiveU Matrix is a highly efficient content curation service that empowers newsroom managers to quickly and easily give hundreds of affiliates unparalleled access to live feeds from LiveU units in the field and other sources without any interruption, additional resources, or expensive fees.

“The change to LiveU Matrix is instrumental to our strategy of reducing our reliance on satellite and fiber technology, while affording us increased flexibility in our newsgathering and content sharing,” said Tim Gaughan, CBS News Vice President of News Services.

“LiveU Matrix also complements CBS Newspath’s current use of LiveU HEVC acquisition technology, giving them a complete, end-to-end HEVC solution that delivers exceptional quality, reduces bandwidth requirements and is managed through one simple interface,” said Avi Cohen, LiveU COO & Co-founder.

“HEVC was a prerequisite for this deployment. LiveU offered a one-stop-shop for hardware-based HEVC field encoding and IP video cloud management to distribute high-quality live feeds to our teams,” added Tom Fearing, CBS Newspath Director of Technical Operations. 

Matrix, a dynamic cloud platform, makes it simple to curate content through one interface. Users can easily search, filter, preview, and distribute live feeds. See a live demonstration of the powerful newsroom tool including tagging and metadata insertion and the AI feature that allows broadcasters to search, identify, classify, and route objects and people at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 8-11, 2019, South Hall Upper, Booth #SU4810. Visit https://get.liveu.tv/nab-2019/ for more information.

TVU Networks, the global technology and innovation leader in live IP solutions, today announced the company showcased several breakthrough technologies for news production during NAB New York. Highlights in the booth included: TVU Producer for cloud-based multi-camera video production; newly established integration between TVU Networks and major media asset management (MAM) providers; and the TVU MediaMind set of solutions for AI-based automated video content management.

With TVU Producer, video content can be cost-effectively produced for different platforms or even audience groups completely in the cloud. Non-professionals can easily manipulate graphics, scoring and text overlays during production, thanks to its WYSIWYG interface. TVU Producer can handle multi-camera production from virtually any location. It supports simultaneously output directly to major social media platforms and virtually any CDN platform. SDI delivery is supported through a TVU transceiver. It also offers a multi-channel IP video switcher and slow-motion replay. 

The TVU Contribution Automation Solution (CAS), TVU AI Engine, TVU Real Time Search Engine, and TVU Workflow Engine comprise the TVU MediaMind platform. MediaMind simplifies and improves the process of transporting video to the studio, through the TVU Contribution Automation solution automating the planning, resource management, acquisition, transmission and routing as well featuring integrated metadata and contribution management.  

TVU CAS simplifies and helps efficiently manage the flow of media content from story creation to production. Featuring integration with leading MAM systems, TVU CAS allows broadcasters to easily search through metadata indexed content to allow for the creation of stories faster. CAS bypasses the need for inefficient and time-consuming search term logging done manually. 

At the heart of MediaMind is an AI real-time search engine, which from the start of the video production process, indexes all video. Using an entirely cloud-based model, complete with voice and object recognition, live and pre-produced video clips are located and indexed down to the exact frame and are instantly sharable. MediaMind automates the ability for different production groups to find the right content.  

“Since our first announcement of TVU MediaMind during April’s NAB show in Las Vegas, we’ve seen tremendous interest in MediaMind’s game-changing ability to automate and use AI to effectively create a story-centric workflow,” said Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “It turns the emphasis from the labor-intensive mechanics of production where one video is distributed to many into a customized story creation process where individualized versions of video are distributed automatically. 

“We’re thrilled to get another opportunity to showcase our MediaMind platform and other new solutions during NAB New York, which we always look forward to exhibiting,” Shen continued. “It gives us a chance to connect with our existing and prospective customers in the Northeast who were not able to attend NAB in Las Vegas or the IBC in Amsterdam. We can’t wait to demonstrate the synergy and power of our combined technologies for the NAB New York audience.”   

Aside from TVU MediaMind and TVU Producer, other innovations on display at NAB New York will be: 

- TVU RPS (Remote Production Solution) transmitter 

- TVU One mobile IP transmitter

- TVU Nano with Router ultra-compact, lightweight IP transmitter for high-speed network access

- TVU Grid IP-based video switching, routing and distribution solution

STOCKHOLM—Ericsson is partnering with Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service once again, as it has signed an exclusive media delivery services contract with the public service broadcaster.

This new contract will have Ericsson aggregate, prepare and deliver content from multiple international content owners and distributors from its broadcast and media services hub in London. The media assets will then be delivered directly to SBS’ headquarters in Sydney in a transmission-ready format. Ericsson will also provide Quality Control and deliver full technical metadata that adheres to SBS’ technical and editorial specifications.

 Ericsson previously signed a contract with SBS to provide its captioning services.

NEW YORK— It is unlikely that anyone reading this post needs to be told that the TV consumption habits of Millennials are dramatically different. A recent study by VideoPulse underscored the fact that their approach is so different that traditional measurement tools don’t even begin to quantify what they are up to. According to that study , “25 percent of viewing among Millennials is on DVRs and over-the-top services and happens outside the Live+7 window, not measured by Nielsen.”

Whatever the numbers may be, this should come as some relief because it belies the idea that the Millennial generation does not watch TV. It exposes a new wrinkle to the topic we wrote about last month when we talked about what programmers need to do to extend their audience. This data suggests that in order to appeal to Millennials, programmers need to get more creative not only in terms of the content they provide, but also in how they deliver it. If we think Millennials will ever come around to accept large monthly cable bills while sitting in front of a massive screen in the living room, we are not paying attention to the evidence.

That said, this is not a riddle with a one-sized fits all answer like “set up a streaming service.” Such services are not easy to deploy and require a different sort of knowledge from what is typically available within TV-facing shops. IT networks were not inherently designed to stream video reliably and deliver the experience TV programmers and consumers expect. To make matters worse, IT teams generally do not understand television production culture, or what it means to deliver every frame of video to every viewer every second of every day.

In order to make good decisions about content and distribution issues, what companies in the TV business need to come to grips with is really a human resources problem. We need to consider how to organize and prepare our technology teams to advise us about building and supporting the new and innovative services our distribution will inevitably become. For example, the next generation of television production facilities supporting UHDTV are likely to use IP technology in their core. How we organize and prepare our technology teams to support what is coming is perhaps the key question for our industry’s leaders in managing our future.

We have already seen a number of attempts to address the changing landscape with structural revisions that did not work. In many companies the IT teams report to the CFO. This makes sense for things like email and Internet surfing when considered in the light of Sarbanes Oxley and other regulations that put substantial burdens on companies to protect corporate data. The approach tends to put the technology first and the company's product second. As a result, it fails to consider shifts taking place amongst the business’ consumers. If the technology delivers the product, where does responsibility for its oversight belong? Said another way, would you want the guys who administer your business systems to also run your factory?

Many companies manage this by forming two departments: IT—for finance and office systems—and Broadcast IT—for production and distribution—and even go so far as to have two network teams. This is simple, but wasteful and can create an unhealthy competitive environment.

Another response is to have the broadcast technology domain report to an IT-centric CTO who in turn reports to the CFO. The results are often disastrous when measured from the perspective of the production teams in the trenches.

Still others will choose to outsource their critical functions. Examples are the recent decisions from HBO and NHL to have MLB Advanced Media develop their new on-line platforms. Most of the team which created the well-received HBO GO is now gone, but MLB brought HBO Now to market much more quickly than it could have been done internally.

A healthy approach that has worked is a scenario in which broadcast and IT teams merge under the direction of a COO or Broadcast-centric CTO. Placing people with the IT-centric knowledge inside teams who get broadcast culture can work well. It is a product-first approach that centralizes the management of company networks and allows for creative, forward-thinking new organizational solutions such as the formation of Digital Media Delivery teams. In other words, it is an approach that aligns the technology teams with the creation and distribution of products.

It’s tempting to think of IT technology as all the same. I suggest thinking of IT as a tool, the way you might think of an electric motor. A motor could drill a piece of wood, make a toy car move or blend a soufflé. How you organize all the bits around the mechanism dictates whether you get the desired result. The best businesses are the ones that organize around delivering their product. The skills of IT and the skills of broadcast must be organized around the one goal.

There are many great experiments under way and it will be very educational to see how they play out. Just a few weeks ago, CBS announced that it will live stream select regular season, playoff and, biggest of all, the Superbowl via its NFL on CBS service. Interestingly these streams will not require authentication, meaning they are available to folks, notably Millennials, who don’t pay for traditional TV services.

It will be fascinating to see if such an experiment provides a much needed bridge connecting Millennials to traditional, high value commercial programming. The Millennial generation is often defined by its quest for authenticity. Meeting that standard starts with genuine change from within. Broadcasters are going to need to bring people, infrastructure and products into alignment with this next-generation audience that has rejected the old models.

Larry Thaler is the President of Positive Flux, a consulting firm that specializes in helping media companies take advantage of the rapid changes occurring in the industry. Through applied technology, streamlining operations and business strategy, the firm helps clients enter new markets, improve their operations and reduce cost. During more than 30 years in the industry, Larry has led key innovative efforts in both traditional broadcasting and new media. He has been honored with three Emmy awards for technical innovation for the 2006 and 2008 Olympic games and a National Technical Emmy for NBC’s implementation of AFD technology.