WBD Admits That Scale Did Not Create Value as it Separates Cable Assets

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media titan to consign linear to the bench. In a move reminiscent of Comcast's divisional spinoff last month, WBD will split its lucrative but declining cable networks business from its lucrative and growing streaming and studios businesses.

Why the DAZN and NFL Game Pass Partnership is Thriving - a Q&A With Zander Berlinski

The NFL has shared its pleasure with the existing ten-year DAZN Partnership for NFL Game Pass. DAZN's global footprint gives the NFL a much wider reach, which is hugely important as it continues to expand worldwide. In this Q&A with Zander Berlinski, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at DAZN, he highlights the factors that make this partnership a success, such as improved live streaming quality, expanding device distribution, investing in proprietary tech stacks, enhancing user experience with features like the "Home of NFL" section, and much more.

Global Streaming Subs Set to Reach 2bn by 2029, Ampere Reports

The global video streaming market is poised to generate $190bn annually from 2bn paid subscriptions by 2029, according to new analysis from Ampere. Key strategic developments, like Netflix's account-sharing crackdown and cheaper ad tier offer, and rivals Disney+ and Max's aggressive approach to bundling, are driving revenue growth in saturated streaming markets. Maria Dunleavey, Research Manager, provides some additional insight into these findings.

Free Streaming and Sports

The second half of 2023 saw the launch of numerous premium brands and the rise of exclusive deals. What has happened in the FAST sports landscape since then? Let's find out.

Roku's 2025 Predictions - A Q&A With Tedd Cittadine

Roku has released its 2025 predictions report. Tedd Cittadine, SVP of Streaming Services Partnerships at Roku, discusses the key findings, including the impact of price increases on audience retention, the effectiveness of advertising-supported tiers, the importance of bundling strategies to meet consumer demand for flexibility, and the growing significance of sports programming in driving subscriptions.

Could Multicast ABR Really Have Saved the Paul/Tyson Fight?

When Netflix streamed the Paul/Tyson fight to a record-breaking 65 million simultaneous viewers, it wasn't all smooth sailing. Many viewers were left frustrated by buffering, freezes, and audio-sync issues. Like many other vendors, Broadpeak, a major player in streaming technology, claimed its multicast ABR (mABR) technology would have "knocked out video freezes" during the broadcast. It's a tantalizing promise, but could mABR realistically have delivered it? To understand, let's look at what mABR is, what's required to make it work, and why its widespread adoption is more complicated than Broadpeak might have you believe.

Chick-fil-A’s Play App: A Family-Focused Strategy with a Strategic Edge

Why the heck would Chick-fil-A start a streaming channel? Is this a completely new strategy or a copycat move? I endeavored to find out, and this is what I learned.

How Can AI Identify Emotions That Make Up the "Holiday Spirit" in CTV Content? A Q&A With Wurl's Ron Gutman

A Q&A with Ron Gutman, CEO of Wurl, about their Gen AI-powered technology that matches CTV ads to the emotion and context of what viewers are watching using Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. This technology has identified the emotions that make up the "Holiday Spirit" and found that the key emotions are "trust and joy."

Live Sports in the Streaming Era: What’s Changing and Why It Matters

Samba TV's recently released report, Live Sports on Streaming Platforms, provides five key sets of data points to help advertisers and sports leagues better target their audiences both during and after live sporting events. The report begins with insights into web-only sporting events, revealing audience numbers for the most-watched and least-watched games on platforms like Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

CTV Advertising Strategies for the Holiday Season - A Q&A With Angelina Marmorato of Lemma

With the holiday season upon us, consumers are ramping up spending and turning to CTV more than ever. Angelina Marmorato, AVP of Sales and Partnerships at Lemma, has put together a set of actionable strategies for brands to maximize their holiday advertising impact on CTV. In this Q&A, she gets into the specifics of each of her strategy points and how advertisers can best optimize them.

Gracenote Resources Provide New Insights into State of Streaming Content

Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has launched a new Data Hub providing insight into the current state of SVOD programming to identify global content trends and changes over time. Tapping Gracenote Global Video Data, the industry's most comprehensive database of TV show and movie information, the data visualization graphically illustrates the current makeup of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Paramount+ content catalogs to provide visibility into the programming that's keeping viewers engaged today. In this article, Trent Wheeler, Chief Product Officer of Gracenote, provides further insights about the benefits of the new Data Hub.

Comcast Cuts Cord as Deckchairs Shift Again

Comcast has cut the cord from its own cable networks, the first major studio to sign away its linear TV assets for a future almost entirely based on streaming. The move has been widely viewed as bold and inevitable but positive by analysts who believe that Comcast will be better placed for growth after the split from the cable networks, which have seen audiences decline.

Great New Gear: Cameras, Capture, and Connectivity - MVD Demo From Streaming Media Connect

Producing exceptionally engaging live streams requires robust, high-quality products throughout your workflow. The visual quality of your stream starts with the camera and must be maintained throughout the production process. At Streaming Media Connect, Ryan Brenneman, CTO, Mobile Video Devices, featured live demos of three of the latest and greatest solutions from Telycam, Magewell, and Miri Technologies.

Tyson-Paul: A Black Eye for Netflix and Live Sports Streaming?

If the majority of Tyson-Paul viewers tuned in to see the notoriously erratic Mike Tyson in another train wreck, they got exactly what they came to see. Except it was a different sort of train wreck: VOD champ Netflix failing spectacularly to pull off a massive live event, with widespread and widely reported buffering and outages denying tens of thousands of subscribers their guaranteed ringside seat.

ICYMI: Streaming Media Connect November 2024

Streaming Media presented its 15th Connect virtual conference November 12-14, 2024, with Media Industry Cartographer & CEO ESHAP Evan Shapiro and Streaming Media Editor-in-Chief Steve Nathans-Kelly as hosts and MCs, and featuring speakers from Microsoft, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Vevo, Philo, and more, and session topics ranging from streaming monetization to FAST strategy to OTT bundling to cloud streaming OpEx and live streaming at scale.

Fireside Chat: Evan Shapiro Discusses DirecTV's New FAST Product With Matthew Van Houten

At Streaming Media Connect, Media Cartographer Evan Shapiro interviewed Matt Van Houten, SVP of Advertising at DirecTV, about the company's new fast product, MyFree DirecTV, which integrates free ad-supported streaming channels into the DirecTV ecosystem.

Fireside Chat: Evan Shapiro Talks Advertising Data With Justin Evans of Samsung Ads

At Streaming Media Connect, Media Cartographer Evan Shapiro sat down for virtual a fireside chat with Justin Evans, Head of Innovations & Insights, Samsung Ads to discuss the importance of data in advertising, the role of Samsung Ads in the streaming revolution, and the introduction of a new product called Optimal Reach.

Cloud Streaming Experts Talk Live Broadcast Workflow Challenges at Streaming Media Connect 2024

On Tuesday, November 12, at Streaming Media Connect, streaming industry consultant Nadine Krefetz moderated the panel "Cloudsplitting: Tackling Common Cloud Live Broadcast Workflow Challenges." The group of experts from AWS, TV 2 Danmark, Alibaba Cloud, and Console Connect discussed actionable insights on refining and streamlining your scalable cloud live-streaming workflows and jumping and dodging the hurdles that threaten to break your stride.

UK Frames Policy to Continue Universal TV Access

Public service access to TV is to remain at the heart of UK government policy as a new report warns that over a million viewers are at risk of being excluded in the longterm transition to streaming.

New Research from Hub: “Peak TV” Still Delivering an Abundance of Favorite TV to Watch

New findings from Hub Research show that expanded content licensing is offsetting the decline in studio output.