When Imagine Communications announced last fall that it was acquiring Pixel Power from Rohde & Schwarz, the company said its main goal was to “broaden Imagine’s live production ecosystem and playout offerings via integration of Pixel Power’s software-defined, deploy-anywhere platforms.” This week, Imagine President Steve Reynolds updated TV Tech on how the integration is progressing.

Of particular importance to Imagine is Pixel’s playout and multiviewer solutions, two parts of the production workflow chain Reynolds thinks are key to expanding the company’s presence in these markets.

“Imagine has been in the playout business pretty much since the playout and automation business started all the way back to when we were Harris, and it's always been a really important segment for us,” he said. “We like to be in those mission-critical operational systems, the things that our customers depend on day in and day out in order to run their business.

“Those are the kind of products that Imagine has really focused on as we made the transition from a hardware centric company—which is what Harris really was—towards the software centric company that we are today,” Reynolds added.

The Power of a Combined Solution
The acquisition of Pixel Power, Reynolds says, will not only help strengthen its current playout solutions portfolio—which include ADC, Versio and in more recent years, the Aviator orchestration platform—but also expand its geographic footprint, Reynolds said.

“Pixel Power—which is a company that we have competed with for years—has built a really great solution for the European public broadcaster space, where they had a lot of success,” Reynolds said. “With customers like TV2 in Norway, SVT in Sweden, the work that they've done with the German public broadcasters, the work that they've done with TV5MONDE in France, they had a really great customer base around those public broadcasters.”

The two main products Pixel had built its success on in this market, according to Reynolds, were the company’s Gallium automated multiplatform content management solution and StreamMaster platform for realtime graphics and control. Combining automation plus a media server “really formed a nice bundle for anybody that's in that kind of public broadcast space,” Reynolds said.

“Pixel had done a good job of winning market share with those [national broadcast] customers, so the reason we wanted to acquire Gallium and StreamMaster was really aimed at that market segment,” he added. “We saw the success that they had in that segment, and as we continue to move forward with investments in Gallium and StreamMaster, it's going to be focused, at least initially, in Europe, to continue to build on that customer base.”

Reynolds said the combination of the two created a powerful and sophisticated graphics solution for Pixel Power, which was beating Imagine when it came to bidding for business with European broadcasters.

“Imagine was bidding on a lot of those same projects, and Pixel Power was winning,” Reynolds said, “And one of the things that we consistently heard is that the graphics package that is in StreamMaster is a top-tier integrated graphics package that a lot of those national broadcasters were leveraging because it had the capabilities that they needed not only to be able to do the 2D graphics—which Imagine already had—but they had some more advanced capabilities to be able to handle some 3D and to be able to handle a lot of the kind of the more advanced and more sophisticated on-air look that that those broadcasters were looking for.

“They had a sophisticated graphics package that was integrated into a playout system that met all of the criteria—it supports all the formats, it supports all of the different resolutions, it supports all the ingest workloads that those guys need,” he added. “So it had it checked all the boxes on kind of the basic set of competitive features. But it also added in that higher power graphics.”

Scaling Up
The second product Imagine was keenly interested in was multiviewers, specifically Pixel’s Prismon platform, which is designed to scale up to support hundreds of channels. This large-scale type of monitoring platform was high on Imagine’s shopping list, according to Reynolds.

"Imagine has always been in the multiviewer business, but we had a different focus—we were more on the production multiviewer side of things,” Reynolds said. “[Imagine’s] SNP was intended to be a production multiviewer, very low latency, very high quality, but not large scale.”

Integrating Prismon into Imagine’s multiviewer product line gives Imagine the ability to build facility-scale, multiviewers, especially in production facilities, turnaround facilities including satellite and cable operators, or in large scale, playout operations where there's dozens or even hundreds of channels being played out of the same facility, Reynolds said.

“So we now have multiviewer offerings for large scale and for smaller scale, low latency, and that would be in OB vans, production galleries, or control rooms at a sporting venue, where the number of feeds that you're dealing with is 10, 20 or maybe 30.”

Reynolds said Prismon helps Imagine respond to more market demands for integrated solutions. “What we realized was we really need to have a product in our portfolio that lets us create that fully bundled solution, because increasingly, that's what the market wants to buy,” he said. “It's the same thing as with the playout solution, right? The market wants an integrated solution, they don't want to have to build, or have to be their own systems integrator. They want to buy something that is integrated. And so Prismon filled that gap for us.”

The timescales for building new media production facilities has been declining for years, according to Reynolds, another reason for increased interest in integrated solutions.

“The idea of having these multi-year facility builds… that's in the past,” Reynolds said. “And in many cases now, we're looking at time frames that are measured in months between the time somebody acquires rights and they want to be on air. And that's what's really driving the demand for these fully integrated solutions. Customers want to know that it's already been tested, it's already been integrated, and you can deploy it quickly, easily and within a set of budget constraints to get on air.”

The acquisition of Pixel Power was completed at the end of 2025 and Reynolds said not a lot will change in terms of what existing customers should expect, including keeping the product names.

“That's why we bought them, we like the products, we like the differentiation of those products, they fit well within our portfolio, and they give us something new to offer to the customers that want to buy that kind of solution,” Reynolds said.

NAB Show Plans
Imagine’s booth (N1328 in the North Hall of the LVCC) at the NAB Show, April 19-22 in Las Vegas, will reflect this expanded market focus, according to Reynolds. Among the highlights will be the company’s cloud-based XVR playout engine, which was introduced at the 2025 IBC Show.

Gallium StreamMaster will be demonstrated running on COTS and its expanded multiviewer portfolio will be highlighted, including advanced automation features such as intelligent monitoring, automated audio/video issue detection, and “penalty boxing,” which elevates problem signals for immediate operator attention.

"The other thing you're going to see is this kind of fully integrated solution of gateways—the ability to use the SNP as the gateway between the SDI and IP world, and to do format conversion with JPEG access and things like that, directly into ingest,” Reynolds said. “And we'll be using the new XVR engine, which is the Linux-based ingest engine with multiple playout systems. So you'll see StreamMaster, XVR, and Nexio all sitting side by side in a kind of a multiserver environment.”

As the media and entertainment (M&E) industry continues to sound the death knell for traditional TV, I’ll make a bold prediction for 2025: Linear will experience a resurgence—of sorts.

I’m not suggesting that the pendulum swing toward streaming viewership will suddenly reverse course, but over the past year, a surprising trend surfaced as media companies—even digital natives—rediscovered linear as a way to drive return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO).

One high-profile U.S. example was Amazon Prime Video’s live streaming of NFL “Thursday Night Football,” which it paired with linear ad sales. While Amazon certainly has the capability to sell the streaming inventory as DAI or addressable impressions, it opted to sell the entire audience. Why? Simple economics. Amazon gets a higher ad price for the massive “TNF” audience than is possible by selling this inventory on an impression basis. This strategy demonstrates the enduring value of linear TV in reaching broad audiences and driving monetization.

With emerging ad tech innovations, it’s possible for big brands to purchase ads that guarantee category exclusivity during a commercial break in the digital environment—something that was previously limited to linear TV. Enabling digital to be sold like linear, with broadcast-quality rules and brand protection, strengthens media companies’ ability to sell inventory in a direct but automated way, which is the key to maximizing streaming revenue. The future of advertising lies in integrating the best of each platform, optimizing the user experience while maximizing returns for advertisers.

In 2025, the market’s focus on the revenue-driving advantages of linear will continue to develop, especially when the goal is to reach large audiences simultaneously. Integrating digital streaming with linear ads is a win-win for broadcasters who can tap into a hybrid model that enables them to engage diverse viewers while leveraging well-established revenue streams. Successful media companies have realised that “linear vs. digital” is the wrong answer. “Linear plus digital” is the path to profitability.

Is the Smart Money Still On-Prem?
For over a decade, cloud solutions have been heralded as the future of broadcasting. On the surface, the choice between on-prem and cloud seems a simple one: on-prem systems require significant investments in physical infrastructure and time, while cloud solutions offer rapid deployment without the maintenance headaches. But the choice isn’t so clear-cut.

With no Olympics or elections driving advertising revenue in 2025, reducing costs will be a top priority across the media industry. One of the ways broadcasters will navigate the challenge is to do the maths to determine whether it’s more cost-effective to run their operations on-prem or in the cloud.

For example, if you’re deploying a disaster recovery solution or operating FAST channels that are never going to touch an antenna, it’s probably cheaper to do it in the cloud. But if you’re running 24/7/365 workflows or have significant investments in studios, IT teams, HVAC systems, and backup generators, on-prem solutions may make better economic sense.

A hybrid strategy may turn out to be the optimal approach, with high-value channels and time-consuming resources run on-prem and the cloud used wherever it makes economic sense, including as a testbed for new ideas and to quickly launch new services. The balance between on-prem and the cloud will change based on percentage of usage, the kind of workflows and solutions needed over time, and the fluctuating cost of the cloud.

A one-and-done calculation won’t cut it in a rapidly changing industry. So as we head into 2025 and beyond, broadcasters may need to regularly revisit the TCO maths to determine whether on-prem, cloud or a hybrid of both will best meet their unique needs and budgets.

Where Cloud Makes Sense (and an On-Ramp to Get There)
While keeping things on-prem makes operational and economic sense for many broadcast workflows, one area where the balance has skewed in favor of the cloud is remote production. The Paris Summer Olympics stood out in what was a banner year for sports, which helped accelerate the move toward remote and cloud-based production thanks to SMPTE ST 2110 and the native IP protocols used for contribution to cloud.

One example is the synthesis between 2110 and JPEG XS—basically native IP speaking to native IP via VSF TR-07 and TR-08 technical recommendations—which was proven on the world stage at the Paris Olympics. We’ve also seen extensive use of H.264 via SRT in cases where the cost vs. bandwidth trade-off favors higher compression. These advancements not only exceeded expectations, but also established valuable proof points and case studies, which will help drive broader industry adoption.

In 2025, sports broadcasting will continue to be a battleground between established broadcasters and digital newcomers. It’s no secret that rights holders and broadcasters are actively seeking ways to move more live sports content into CTV and live streaming environments—after all, it’s the most valuable content in both traditional TV and modern streaming. For production environments already leveraging ST 2110, the fastest, easiest, most affordable way to make that move is to use JPEG XS as the on-ramp.

This article initially appeared on TV Tech sister brand TVB Europe.

Imagine Communications has announced that its current CEO, Tom Cotney, will retire effective March 31, 2025, and current company president Steve Reynolds has been promoted to CEO effective immediately. The two executives will work closely to continue the company’s strong momentum and growth while also ensuring a seamless leadership transition, Imagine said.

Although stepping down from his position as CEO, Cotney will remain a key part of Imagine’s future trajectory as non-executive chairman of the board. In this role, he will support critical customer commitments, advise the leadership team and serve as a performance coach across all levels of the organization.

“I am excited to take on this new role as it allows me to end my career the way I started—basically as a salesman—doing work that is important to me and Imagine, rather than the grind of daily operations,” Cotney said. “Leading a company with such a storied legacy in the industry has been a privilege.”

Eddie Johnson, executive vice president of Imagine Communications and senior managing director of Gores Group, said: “Tom’s leadership has been transformative for Imagine. Under his visionary leadership, Imagine has successfully evolved from a hardware-focused organization into a premier software company, achieving steady performance and laying the foundation for continued growth.

“Moving forward, the company will be in excellent hands as Steve takes the reins. He brings extensive industry and company experience to this role and is highly respected both internally and across the global market. Under Steve’s leadership, we will remain focused on putting our customers first, delivering quality products on time and on budget, and continuing the successful path that Tom has put us on.”

Reynolds’ career spans 25 years of technology leadership in media technology, including previous executive positions at Comcast, OpenTV, ACTV and Intellocity USA. Reynolds holds more than 40 digital video-related patents and has been a business and technology leader across many facets of the video and advertising landscape, Imagine said. He has participated in numerous standards-making bodies in the cable and digital video industries and is a member of SMPTE and SCTE, and also serves as chairman of Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS).

“The formula that Tom guided us toward over the past six years has been working, and we intend to continue moving toward those same objectives,” Reynolds said. “What we’ve accomplished together has put Imagine in a strong position—debt-free, cash-flow positive and operating at an exceptional level of productivity and effectiveness. Our message to the industry is that this leadership change is not going to change the way we work, the level of service we provide, or our commitment to upholding the high standards that define Imagine.

The broadcast industry’s accelerating transition to cloud-based production of sports, news and other live programming is proving far more disruptive to the evolution of video services than seemed likely not so long ago.

The impact came into dramatic focus at the NAB Show, where the paradigm shift was revealed as the inevitable result of industry-wide adoption of SMPTE 2110 in support of the SDI-IP transition. “The whole explosion around cloud production wouldn’t have happened without 2110,” noted Steve Reynolds, president of Imagine Communications.

Widespread adoption has driven costs down to where “2110 has become cheaper than SDI on a per port basis,” leading to experiences with on-premises IP-based news, sports and other live productions that have made workflows “a lot better,” he said. As a result, producers are now comfortable with exploiting the cost savings and collaborative flexibility that comes with moving production to the cloud.

Remote Production
NAB Show exhibit halls teamed with cloud production-related solutions aimed at enabling a streamlined, cost-saving approach to launching linear TV channels combining any mix of live and file-based content for any distribution model, whether it be free-to-air broadcast, pay TV, SVOD, AVOD, or FAST. Now, as Reynolds put it, “FAST is just TV.”

An unavoidable testament to the significance of the cloud-to-live broadcast production was the expanded show floor presence of AWS. The superscalar has been benefiting from broadcast industry demand for cloud support for many years, including in the live production arena, but the pace and scale of developments now are unprecedented, said Chris Blandy, director of strategic business development for M&E, games, and sports at AWS.

“There are now more than 4,000 linear channels originated over AWS around the world,” Blandy noted. Much of this activity revolves around collaborations in linear channel development involving combinations of live and file-based content. These AWS customers’ workflows “are bringing in editors, graphic artists, colorists wherever they happen to be while relying on us to maintain tight security in their operating environments,” he said.

AWS demonstrated live news production from the show floor as a way to call attention to what’s happening in the rapidly evolving broadcast news arena. “We’ve seen a lot of innovation in this space, and now we’re seeing it mature into stable production workflows,” Blandy said.

Indeed, as Imagine’s Reynolds noted, cloud production is a big boon to TV stations looking to leverage their unique opportunities to build audiences by streaming local news and other live content. “Station owners can take advantage of remote production using their subchannels to deliver local live content,” Reynolds said. “It gives them new capabilities to differentiate their programming.”

Hybrid Transition for Sports
In the sports world, the shift to cloud production has been slower than in other M&E segments, but now producers are increasingly implementing hybrid transitions that are pushing ever more processes to the cloud while retaining a significant on-prem production presence, noted Deon LeCointe, director of networked solutions at Sony Electronics. With a focus on SE’s Networked Live product portfolio, LeConte has a bird’s eye view of how the company’s preparations for this phase in live sports production is paying off.

SE’s Networked Live solutions come into play with transitions to cloud production anchored by the Nevion VideoIPath media orchestration platform, which Sony acquired in 2020 and has since enhanced to work with SE’s broadcast control solutions. The result, LeCointe said, is a highly scalable, ultra low-latency platform that uniquely combines broadcast operations, orchestration, and monitoring capabilities in hybrid workflows across SDI and IP LAN, WAN. cloud, and 5G networks.

At the NAB Show, SE demonstrated seamless hybrid production through a control panel managing the firm’s software-based M2L-X switcher for cloud operations and the modular MLS-X1 switching appliance for premises-based operations. “We think this is the best approach for sports operations that are pushing the envelope toward the cloud,” LeCointe said.

The National Hockey League made news at the NAB Show as the first big pro league to take the plunge into full cloud production mode. This is enabling the league to deliver personalized experiences to connected devices in and beyond game arenas along with traditional TV broadcasts while substantially reducing costs, said Grant Nodine, senior vice president of technology for the NHL. “With the ability to spin up and rent resources as needed, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to be putting big production trucks in venue,” Nodine said.

The transformation in user experiences across all locations is enabled by a partnership with Verizon as provider of 5G connectivity to in-venue audiences and between the game arenas and the AWS cloud, where productions for in-venue audiences are returned for viewing in sync with live action and productions for external distribution are sent out over the usual channels. “We’re using the cloud as the router of the future,” Nodine said.

FAST Goes Live
The implications of cloud production as the center of gravity for streamlining the supply of linear content across all business models and distribution outlets were top of mind across the playout ecosystem in Las Vegas. “FAST and broadcast used to be separate,” said Dan Marshall, executive vice president for worldwide sales at Amagi. “Now we’re seeing the integration of live content into FAST channels.”

Amagi, like many suppliers, is reconstituting itself to take advantage of the transformation. Traditionally positioned as a provider of playout services, Amagi for some time has been responding to the FAST phenomenon by helping customers with insertions of ads, graphics, QR codes and other elements in live production, according to Marshall. Now the company has gone all the way into support for live production with acquisition of the Polish cloud production supplier Tellyo.

Amagi, in response to the emergence of high-value live programming in the FAST channel mix, has teamed with digital rights management platform supplier Intertrust to enable implementation of license-mandated security in its playout workflows. 

With the success of FAST, which now accounts for 25% of TV ad views in the U.S., according to Comcast’s Freewheel unit, Marshall and others said it’s just a matter of time before major sports become part of the FAST lineup, and, sure enough, just before press time, Roku announced that, in a new deal with Major League Baseball, it was becoming the first FAST channel producer to be carrying games from a major pro sports league.

Disrupting Norms
The move of live production to the cloud has realigned the interplay between production and playout in new workflow configurations that rely on ultralow latency connectivity for synchronized execution of tasks wherever they occur. The disruption to past norms is pushing some vendors in new directions and playing right into where others have been from the start. 

As a leading player in the latter category, LTN benefitted at the NAB Show from its ability to tout a multi-pronged set of turnkey FAST, addressable advertising, production, and playout solutions, all of which are closely linked to the global B2B LTN Network serving as a multicast playout alternative to satellite distribution. 

“We’ve been hearing about the shift to IP and cloud production for well over a decade, and even two years ago we were saying it’s no longer a matter of if, but when,” said LTN CTO Brad Wall. “Now it’s here with a focus on what tools and workflows are out there ready to use with low latency and high reliability.”

The company offers LTN ARC as a fully managed production/versioning system, which Wall said sports producers are leveraging to “manage and customize premier sports at global scale.” He cited a tier one producer delivering soccer games in multiple versions matched to licensing and language requirements as an example of how sports producers are overcoming the market-specific production limitations of the past. 

Whether they use ARC or the self-managed LTN Lift playout technology, producers can leverage the new IP production paradigm whether on premises or in the cloud to “empower these types of workflows with all kinds of new branding and marketing opportunities,” he said.

Another company capitalizing on a solution set built from the ground up for this moment is Mediagenix, which offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform enabling broadcast networks and streamers to manage monetization and scheduling of live and stored content across broadcast and OTT footprints. “True transformation is finally happening,” said Mediagenix Chief Product and Marketing Officer Ivan Verbesselt. 

“FAST is an example of the business growing up,” he added. “We shouldn’t be building platforms to accommodate business models. We should build business models first using platforms that enable business agility.”

Toward that end Mediagenix has developed tools that allow media companies to manage the complete content life cycle with seamless organization-wide collaboration, Verbesselt said. Platform intelligence, often with AI assistance, enables highly efficient approaches to formulating and budgeting value management strategies, leveraging audience data in the use of metadata, orchestrating dubbing, subtitling, and graphics, scheduling placement in FAST and other channels based on AI predictive ratings, and much else, he explained. 

One of the more arresting innovations supporting cloud production comes from Matrox Video, a company best known as a leading decades-old supplier of line cards, encoders, extenders, switches, and other production hardware to OEMs. But in Las Vegas, its focus was on tools that add efficiencies to SDI-to-IP points of conversion and that support connectivity enabling synchronized collaboration across cloud production workflows.

Matrox describes its ORIGIN ultralow latency framework as a “groundbreaking approach” to linking workstations. According to Francesco Scartozzi, vice president of sales and business development for the Matrox Broadcast and Media Group, ORIGIN tailors high-end IT operations to broadcast TV requirements so that each set of tasks in the production process is executed with frame-accurate synchronization across all relevant points of collaboration on the workflow, whether hardware related to the task at hand is positioned on premises on in the cloud.

“ORIGIN is built on a media-aware content transfer fabric,” Scartozzi explained. It treats production applications as completely independent stateless media services sharing a common storage infrastructure with reliance on a mode of low-latency transport that he described without elaboration as “our secret sauce.”

By all appearances, there’s nothing left standing in the way of the transition to live programming production in the cloud other than the remaining life spans of premises-based equipment. 

And once those who haven’t yet moved to the cloud start feeling the impact of service innovations introduced by those who have, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a good bit of cost/benefit analysis justifying reductions in those life spans. 

TV TECH: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2024 NAB Show?

STEVE REYNOLDS: The 2024 NAB Show is going to feature a number of technologies and solutions that focus on the rapidly evolving CTV segment, which includes streaming, FAST and AVOD. The focus of those trends is going to shift this year from technical enablement toward a more business-savvy view of “how can we do this profitably?” We’ve all seen the broad industry move toward ad-supported models for CTV, so that will be a key topic this year.

NAB Show will also continue to highlight the technologies that empower migration to cloud, such as virtualized production and playout, as well as the inevitable transition to SMPTE ST 2110. We’re starting to see how those technologies are being folded into the mainstream of the TV business, because they enable more cost-effective, more scalable, and more flexible solutions to the challenges of multisite and multimodal operations. 

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

REYNOLDS: In January of 2024, Imagine announced the acquisition of the REV broadcast sales and order management platform from Marketron. This product is a significant addition to our portfolio of cross-platform advertising solutions. Rereleased within the Imagine portfolio as CrossFlight, the cloud-based platform will enable proposals, sales and order execution across all video inventory types, including linear, digital and CTV. CrossFlight is going to allow buyers to create cross-platform campaigns to combine reach and impressions across all these forms of inventory and empower sellers to represent that converged inventory to fulfil those campaigns.

Imagine will also be highlighting the latest advancements in our Aviator platform. Aviator is our comprehensive solution for multisite and multimodal origination, enabling broadcasters and publishers to create unified environments that serve linear, digital and CTV streaming. At NAB Show, we will feature advanced capabilities for multisite orchestration and automation, which are aimed at creating the most flexible, scalable and cost-effective playout systems in the industry.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

REYNOLDS: CrossFlight represents the first OMS (Order Management System) in the industry that will be truly audience-aware across all inventory types. At Imagine, we have long advocated that the OMS must represent the entire audience as a single view of inventory—rather than having siloed audiences across delivery platforms (linear, addressable, on-demand, FAST, etc). CrossFlight will empower exactly that view—giving sellers the ability to aggregate the audience to enable cross-platform revenue and optimization, while giving buyers the ability to optimize reach, frequency and pacing in a set of campaigns that adhere to the well-established set of broadcast-quality rules.

Aviator is the leading orchestration and automation platform for media companies that are moving towards hybrid operations. Rather than taking the approach of building separate and distinct operational platforms for linear, streaming, FAST or other CTV models, Imagine has created a truly unified solution with a converged automation layer, a consistent user interface, and the ability to plug in media supply chain components and playout engines from other vendors. We believe this open approach to integration and orchestration provides our customers with the lowest total cost of ownership, as well as the most flexible path to implementation.

TVT: What is it about NAB Show that brings you back every year?

REYNOLDS: NAB Show is the highlight of the year for Imagine, every year. It’s a unique opportunity to talk to our customers, to learn from other experts at the conference sessions, and to showcase our innovations. The organizers of the conference and the exhibits do an amazing job, given the sheer scope and scale of the show. We’re always delighted with the opportunities they provide for Imagine to share the lessons we have learned, the advancements we have made, and the exciting new products and solutions we are bringing to the market.

Steve Reynolds, president of Imagine Communications, explains how decisions about technical infrastructure and topology must align with operating cost requirements, and why he expects SMPTE ST 2110 to continue to establish itself as the global standard for live production in the coming months.

What industry trends have particularly stood out for you in 2023, and why?
One of the most significant trends of 2023 has been the transformation that has taken place in connected television (CTV). While the success of streaming services was initially centred on subscription video on demand (SVoD), there’s been a notable shift towards an ad-supported model for monetising content. And consumers are onboard — there’s been a huge uptick in the number of viewers engaging with ad-supported content and a shift in consumer preference towards the same.

Part of this can be attributed to the state of the economy in 2023; money is tight these days, so people are understandably drawn to free services. But it also reflects a degree of subscription fatigue, a hot topic among industry analysts. Today’s consumers are seeking a broader array of content, and the emergence of free ad-supported television (FAST) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVoD) platforms has given them access to more extensive libraries, original content, and live broadcasts, such as sporting events. 

As consumers are increasingly embracing these services, content owners are beginning to view CTV as an integral component of their business operations. In the early stages of CTV, a variety of silos were established for streaming, FAST channels, and direct-to-consumer offerings. This fragmentation occurred because media companies had small groups tasked with quickly launching these services with lightweight solutions that weren’t necessarily suited to a more mature business model. Integration with other aspects of their operations was challenging, but this was less of a concern when the primary objective was to get streams live and attract viewers quickly. 

These silos started to dissolve in 2023 as media companies began to consider how to incorporate CTV into their core business. This involves unifying their operations, reducing operational costs across multiple platforms, and reaggregating advertising inventory across the full range of services. Essentially, the CTV industry is maturing, transitioning from its initial gold rush phase to a more sustainable, long-term approach focused on maximizing scale and profitability from CTV services.

What impact are you seeing those trends having on the media and entertainment industry?
The impact of CTV has been quite significant in a lot of ways. Creating and distributing content now requires a versatile approach capable of spanning multiple platforms—from linear, to streaming, to on-demand and direct-to-consumer. There is a growing realization that there is no one-size-fits-all operational model. Instead, a mix of models is needed, as has always been the case in our industry. 

For example, pay-TV and free-to-air broadcast coexisted for decades, with each serving a valuable role and enjoying profitability among diverse consumer groups. This pattern is likely to continue in the future. We will begin to see the emergence of hybrid monetization models, combining the strengths of linear television—such as broad audience reach and sponsorship opportunities—with the precision and addressability offered by newer, more targeted platforms. For media companies, the key to future success lies in this hybrid approach.

How do you see those trends developing further in 2024?
Over the past few months, there has been considerable debate regarding the role of the cloud in optimizing costs, and I expect that conversation to continue throughout 2024. 

Many media companies have come to recognise that running certain operations in the cloud may not always be the most cost-effective solution ― particularly for continuous, round-the-clock activities. In situations where companies already have a facility, studio, or broadcast centre in operation, running origination from these premises can make financial sense, as they’re already investing in personnel, power, cooling, and rack space. In addition, costs related to data ingress and egress, computing resources, and storage all add up. 

However, there are situations when the cloud is unquestionably the better choice, like in occasional-use scenarios or to test a new service offering. Here, it makes more sense to leverage the cloud’s scalability and variable cost model than to invest heavily in on-premises infrastructure that will largely remain idle. Furthermore, it’s essential to consider content distribution across the cloud. If a company’s audience primarily accesses content through connected TVs or devices like iPads, the content needs to reside in the cloud anyway. 

So, decisions about technical infrastructure and topology must align with operating cost requirements, while also factoring in the location of the consumer and their content consumption preferences. The industry is evolving and becoming more adept at assessing and deciding when to adopt each approach. 

Do you expect to see any new trends within the industry in 2024, and what will they be?
The key trend that I believe we’ll see in 2024 is a focus on profitability and efficiency across the media industry. As I’ve touched on already, growth was the key focus for the past several years―growth in subscribers, growth in viewership, growth in library size or hours of live sports. 

A lot of that growth came at a cost that is just not sustainable. So now, we are seeing the pivot back towards more rational and scalable business models. It’s well understood that the TV economy is powered by two sources: sell the content or sell the audience watching that content. The early CTV services focused on subscription; they are now seeing that audience monetization through advertising is just as important to raise average revenue per user (ARPU) to levels required to justify the high content spend.  

That’s going to lead into what I feel will be one of the key questions our industry faces in 2024, which is how we blend the advertising models of TV and digital to create a new, optimized ad model for CTV. In many ways, CTV inventory is better than linear TV because it has the capabilities to be addressable and measurable. 

But if you treat CTV inventory like digital inventory, you erode its value by taking away the premium aspects of TV such as brand safety, mass simultaneous reach, or fixed placements for sponsorship. CTV is clearly over-indexed towards digital at the moment, which is why you see the imbalance between supply and demand driving CPMs down. In 2024, we need to find the formula that moves CTV back towards premium rates and fixing the viewer experience to make CTV advertising more valuable.

In conjunction with this, I also expect to see an increase in regulations in 2024, particularly concerning CTV services. In 2023, Ofcom in the UK announced its intention to apply the same content and advertising regulations to CTV that have long been applied to traditional broadcast TV. This is likely to become a global trend in 2024, with other jurisdictions following suit. 

And the same applies to privacy regulations. The GDPR has established a baseline for European countries, and the CCPA in California is a notable example of similar developments in the US. These consumer privacy regulations will affect how we personalize content and target advertising and present a challenge in leveraging technology within their constraints. Ultimately, we will find solutions to these challenges, but they introduce a new set of obstacles that we must navigate to continue advancing in our industry.

Looking at a purely technical trend, I think we’ll see a more pragmatic view of artificial intelligence (AI). While this technology may have been somewhat overhyped in its early stages, it’s a valuable tool that will continue to weave its way into our industry. Generative AI, for instance, can be brought back into the industry in the same way that earlier technologies like machine learning and pattern recognition have been. 

For example, Imagine’s Care Group is looking at how they can respond more efficiently to customer questions on our software and systems. They are doing this by building a knowledge base leveraging our extensive ticket system data and then training AI on it. So, the advancements in AI are tangible, but it’s crucial to approach them realistically and practically, understanding that they are tools to solve problems rather than magic wands.

In 2024, we’ll also see SMPTE ST 2110 continue to establish itself as the global standard for live production ― a progression that underscores the growing significance of IP technology within our industry. Organizations like the VSF, through their ground-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground initiatives, have played a pivotal role in this shift. 

And while ST 2110 has previously been reserved for major events, we’re seeing that change as the technology matures and becomes more suitable for more everyday use and routine events. The standard’s growing popularity stems from its cost-effectiveness and flexibility, particularly when coupled with software control and network orchestration. In addition, the ratification of JPEG XS has been a pivotal moment in enabling live, low-latency, high-quality contribution to the cloud, further accelerating the adoption of IP technology.

Finally, in 2024 I expect to see an increased focus on green initiatives in terms of power consumption and e-waste. This was a hot topic at IBC2023 and one that needs to continue being discussed.  While ST 2110 and IP-based production is inherently more environmentally friendly compared to older SDI solutions, regulatory changes in the EU and other regions may mandate that carbon footprints become a standard consideration when making technology decisions. 

And when it comes to reducing e-waste, COTS equipment offers a longer lifespan and greater versatility than older modular equipment. As infrastructure transitions to ST 2110, COTS equipment can be repurposed — rather than rendered obsolete — an approach that not only reduces e-waste, but also represents a proactive decision to invest in sustainable technology solutions.

This article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand TVBEurope.

BOTHELL, Wash.—The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) has re-elected all members of the AIMS Board of Directors to serve again in 2023.

Steve Reynolds of Imagine Communications will serve again as chair; and Terry Holton of Yamaha will continue as AIMS’ vice chair.

Serving with Reynolds and Holton, the AIMS Board of Directors for 2023 includes Andreas Hilmer of Lawo as CFO; Andrew Starks of Macnica; and Chuck Meyer of Grass Valley. The board members, along with AIMS partner associations, will continue in their ongoing work fostering a standards-based approach to IP in professional media.

In a press statement, Reynolds said, “Year after year, AIMS succeeds in bringing its diverse and growing membership together to extend the boundaries of IP adoption across broadcast and pro AV. The connections I have made with everyone on this board have proved just as steadfast as our mission. I am eager to work with my colleagues in the coming year and to continue our momentum in enabling better and broader access to more flexible IP-based media workflows.”

Further information about AIMS is available at www.aimsalliance.org.

TV TECH: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the NAB Show?

STEVE REYNOLDS: I can tell you what many of the visitors to the exhibition will want to talk about, and that is remote production and playout operations, as well as how to enable cross-platform delivery. They will want to know how to create great content with a minimum of staff on set or on location and how they can run those operations with remote staff and virtualized systems. They will also want to know how to package and deliver it to the widest possible audience across very many platforms.

That puts front and center the things we have been talking about for a long while: IP connectivity, in and through the cloud; high levels of automation, backed up by increasing use of machine learning; software-centric systems, allowing access for management and control over the internet;  distributed operations of virtualized systems that seamlessly combine on-premise and cloud with streamlined workflows and user interfaces.

Of course, broadcasters and production companies have been forced to find solutions for an incredible range of challenges over the last 18 months. I see the NAB Show as being the time to share knowledge and experience, and to refine workflows and architectures to create stable, secure systems that are cost-effective across the lifetime of the technology.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

REYNOLDS: It will be the first chance for many to see Nexio NewsCraft, our new all-in-one news production solution. Remote production and management are core values of the system, but the overwhelming need―our customers tell us―is to be first with an accurate telling of the story. We have designed NewsCraft with mission-critical resilience, but with the performance to capture the story, package it, repackage it for multiple platforms and get it out fast.

Imagine has a wealth of experience in news production, so we built a solution around proven, best-of-breed components, in a highly integrated, virtualized software architecture that can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of any broadcaster or publisher.

The virtualized architecture means it can be implemented on premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment. Remote working is an absolute fundamental, not an add-on, reflecting the need not just for editorial access from anywhere but to recognize that if you are going to be first with the story, you need to put all the content creation tools wherever the journalist is.

We will also highlight the latest advancements across Imagine’s playout and networking portfolio. Our Versio Master Control product will be attractive for broadcasters and stations looking for a cost-effective, software-based alternative to traditional hardware-only master control. This offers better upgradability and maintenance in a solution that more natively adapts to modern infrastructure. Also highlighted are new features in our Versio modular playout and Nexio platforms and our ADC and D-Series automation platforms, to support the latest UHD and OTT technologies. We will also spotlight the latest updates to our Selenio Network Processor (SNP), which continues to outperform any other offering on the market in terms of flexibility and power. We will be extending the SNP’s capabilities for contribution, processing and advanced multiviewer monitoring.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

REYNOLDS: Nexio NewsCraft is a new generation of newsroom production, so it incorporates the latest capabilities in the service of great storytelling. Our open architecture enables the addition of new features like artificial intelligence, where it can add value. Intelligent speech-to-text transcription means that every word of every story will become searchable metadata, and richer metadata means more engaging, more informative, more challenging stories.

AI will also allow video analysis, again to enrich the metadata. Not only will it identify people and places, but it will also suggest moods, using things like facial expressions. Because a news broadcaster’s archive is its greatest asset, batch processing tools—ideal for the cloud—will analyze all the content already stored to add more detailed metadata.

This is not a technological sideshow. Journalists want to focus on the story, and editors want them out there gathering the facts. AI can take the repetitive functions like preparing material for the archive, or even creating keywords for the website, away from the journalist, saving time and effort as well as improving results.

TVT: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your company’s business?

REYNOLDS: The need for social distancing and restraints on travel has affected us on two levels. Our product development teams were organized around a collaborative working environment and agile processes. However, they quickly adapted new disciplines in remote working. Our slate of new products and enhancements has been delivered, and our development priorities have shifted in response to the rapid shift in market demands.

We have also delivered large-scale, paradigm-shifting solutions for our customers worldwide, with a minimum of face-to-face contact from the Imagine team. Imagine’s transition to software-based and virtualized platforms was a key technical enabler for this.  Look at the cloud-based channel launches that we did with Sinclair Broadcast group using our Versio platform. That included high-profile networks like Bally Sports, as well as pop-up channels in the cloud for major events like the Miami Open for The Tennis Channel.

Another example is the migration of Discovery Sweden and Finland to our Landmark Sales platform, hosted by Imagine’s Managed Service. That boosted their financial performance, unified airtime sales across multiple platforms, and gave them the inherent ability to have remote working and processing.  Because Discovery opted for a cloud-based platform hosted by Imagine and AWS, we were able to quickly deploy using our global team of technical resources in an entirely remote posture.

Some say playout is dead. I really have to disagree with that idea.

Yes, of course the traditional broadcast playout infrastructure—hardware switchers, servers and graphics devices, driven by a monolithic automation system—will gradually fade away. But the functionality is still required because the core business driver remains, more pressing than ever.

Media companies succeed by delivering the programming their audiences want, when they want it— and that remains their central business value. Even if audiences no longer want to watch scheduled content, they still need that sense of connection; of dealing with a trusted brand that will lead them to programming they will enjoy.

FRAGMENTED AUDIENCES

What has changed are the forms of delivery and consumption. Consumers want to watch at home and on the road; they want linear and nonlinear engagement; they want to watch on a 55-inch OLED and on their phone. Whenever and wherever they choose to watch, they expect a familiar, high-quality experience—which can only be achieved with playout technology.

And here is the really key point: the size of the audience is pretty much fixed. A forecast from Eurostat suggests that the population of the EU will grow by 3.9% from 2015 to 2040. That is not 3.9% a year—it’s 3.9% over 25 years. Emerging markets will grow, other markets will shrink but even with increasing hours of engagement, the largely static audience number limits how much can be consumed. That audience is now fragmenting across different platforms—over-the-air, OTT and mobile—yet revenues from subscriptions and advertising are relatively fixed because the size of the audience is fixed.

Add to that new entrants into the content delivery market. The giant production companies and some sports federations are now looking to offer their own content directly. Niche channels are springing up to meet particular needs: Indian ex-pats in the United States wanting to keep up with the IPL, for instance. So broadcasters must aggregate their share of audience by providing a better experience—delivering the right content to the right audience across the right distribution channel. And so playout systems remain critical.

As we are all aware, we have moved away from hardware devices in playout and the rest of broadcast, toward specialist software running on COTS hardware or in cloud platforms. We can do that because we have adopted IT technologies to build virtualized environments, in which microservices can deliver highly efficient playout with optimal use of the infrastructure.

In this context, delivering to multiple outlets or formats simply becomes a set of options in a blueprint, which can be turned on and off at will. Optimized delivery across multiple devices, distribution technologies and consumption models defines the future for playout. Doing this in a cost-effective way ensures the business model for broadcasters.

COST ANALYSIS

As the required functionality is available in standardized, open software—complying to standards like SMPTE ST 2110—we are free to implement playout (and other workflows) in the machine room, in the corporate data center or in cloud. Every broadcaster and content provider will have a different balance for their playout, but that decision will be made for business optimization, not constrained by technology. It is simply a cost analysis exercise: delivery will be flexible, scalable and unified.

The real issue lies in the business question of return on investment. How can I make my content most attractive to audiences; how do I monetize that aggregated audience; and how much will it cost to boost the value in my content?

Again, the technology helps. If you want to try something, you can. If you want a pop-up channel, perhaps because you want to see if Ultra HD will win new audiences, you can decide to try it today and be transmitting tomorrow. If it is unpopular, you can turn it off again the day after, and all it has cost you is a few days of operating costs.

The message I have, then, is that we are at a point where the technology of playout can be completely abstracted from the skills of being a commercially successful broadcaster. You can use virtualization or cloud resources to do whatever you want, and you can build secure and flexible infrastructures.

The core business of the broadcaster or content network remains to build content, originate channels and sell advertising. The playout suite of the future allows them to do just that, cost effectively and across every platform that matters to their business—without the capital and operational costs of cumbersome infrastructure or facilities.

Steve Reynolds is president at Imagine Communications.