SVOD Archives – The Broadcast Knowledge

Video: Meeting the Multi-Platform, Multi-Device Challenge

Posted on 8th July 2021 by Russell Trafford-Jones

OTT’s changed over the last decade going from a technical marvel to a massive market in its own right with significant reach and technical complexity. There are now many ways to ‘goto market’ and get your content in front of your viewers. Managing the strategy, the preparation & delivery of content, as well as the player ecosystem, is a big challenge under discussion by this Streaming Media panel of experts: Ian Nock from Fairmile West, Remi Beaudouin from Ateme, Pluto TV’s Tom Schultz and Jeff Allen from ShortsTV.

Introduced by moderator Ben Schwarz Jeff launches straight into a much-needed list of definitions. Video on demand, VOD, is well-understood subgenres are simultaneously similar and important to differentiate. AVOD means advertising-funded, SVOD is subscription-funded and TVOD, not mentioned in the video, is transactional VOD which is otherwise called Pay TV. As Jeff shows next, if you have an SVOD channel on someone else’s platform such as Amazon Prime your strategy may be different, so calling this out separately is useful. A new model has appeared called FAST which stands for ‘Free Ad-Supported TV’ which is a linear service that is streamed with dynamic ad insertion. To be clear, this is not the same as AVOD since AVOD implies choosing each and every show you want to watch. FAST simulates the feel of a traditional linear TV channel. Lastly, Jeff calls out the usefulness and uniqueness of the social platforms which are rarely a major source of income for larger companies but can form an important part in curating a following and leading viewers to your your services.

Jeff finishes up by explaining some of the differences in strategy for launching in these different ways. For instance, for a traditional linear channel, you would want to make sure you have a large amount of new material but for an ad-supported channel on another platform, you may be much more likely to hold back content. For FAST channels, typically these are more experimentally and niche-branded. Jeff looks at real examples from the History Channel, MTV and AMC before walking through the thinking for his own fictional service.

Next up is Ian Nock who is Chair of the Ultra HD Forum’s interoperability working group looking at how to launch a service with next-generation features such as HDR, UHD or high frame rates. He outlines the importance of identifying your customers because by doing that, you can understand the likely device population in your market, their average network performance and the prevalence of software versions. These are all big factors in understanding how you might be able to deliver your content and the technologies you can choose from to do so. For UHD, codec choice is an important part of delivery as well as the display format such as HDR10, HDR10+ etc. Ian also talks about needing a ‘content factory’ to seamlessly transcode assets into and out of next-generation formats remembering that for each UHD/HDR viewer, you’re still likely to have 10 who need SDR. Ian finishes off by discussing the delivery of higher frame rates and the importance of next generation audio.

Wrapping up the video is Ateme’s Remi raising discussion points on the continuing need for balance between active and passive TV, the lack of customisation of TV services, increasing sensitivities on the part of both the customer and streaming providers around sharing analytics and the need to find a way to make streaming more environmentally friendly. Lastly, Tom talks about how PlutoTV is a a service which is very much based on data and though privacy is upheld as very important, decisions are very quantitative. He’s seen that, over the past year, usage patterns have changed for instance the move from mobiles to second screens (i.e. tablets). Delivering DRM to many different platforms is a challenge but he’s focused on ensuring there is zero friction for customers since it’s an AVOD service, it’s vitally important to use the analytics to identify problems, to ensure channel changes are fast and to have end-to-end playback traceability.

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Speakers

	Tom Schultz Director of Engineering – Native Apps Pluto TV
	Ian Nock Founder & Principal Consultant, Fairmile West
	Jeff Allen President, ShortsTV
	Remi Beaudouin Chief strategy Officer ATEME
	Moderator:Ben Schwarz CTO, innovation Consulting

Video: Ad-Supported Streaming Takes Over?

Posted on 16th June 2021 by Russell Trafford-Jones

FAST, SVOD and AVOD are all different ways to bring programming to viewers with different costs to the viewer. All delivered over the internet, FAST is a service that unites live, linear TV with a VOD service whereas AVOD only has video on demand. Both FAST and AVOD are free to watch thanks to adverts whereas SVOD is usually advert-free as this is subscriber VOD where you pay monthly. This video from Streaming Media discusses the rise of FAST and its importance in the market.

‘Is niche content key?’ askes moderator Chris Pfaff to Damian Pelliccione from Revry. Damian distances his service from niche as it serves the over 5% of the US population who identify as LGBTQ+ or similar, Despite not being niche, in common with niche channels, Revry’s content is not typically provided by the mainstream and has a very deep meaning to those watching. because they are working with an underserved demographic, they feel FAST is much more appropriate than SVOD as equal access is important. However, Damian is at pains to point out that, in reality, the service is a ‘tribrid’ of FAST, AVOD and SVOD. Revry’s marketing has moved to buying hero units to position itself on smart TVs and STBs in pole position and also aligning its brand outside of the streaming market such as associating with pride festivals. One advantage of FAST is the cost of user is far lower than SVOD which can be in the realms of $9 per user.

One of the motivators for Sony to start its BRAVIA brand of smart TVs was, Nick Colsey explains, to enable people to access niche streaming services to supplement the mainstream linear channels. This was done through a menu of apps, much like mobile computing, each one a window into a different walled garden. Now, Sony integrates streaming services into the same EPG as linear which shows that convergence continues unabated, in common with ATSC 3.0’s indifference to delivery method. Nick views Sony as a ‘Switzerland’ of content aggregation as it has no conflict of interest given it doesn’t run a rival service.

Chris Yates from Redbox says that FAST channels work well for them as they site well alongside customers’ other SVOD bundles remaining highly accessible. Finding customers, Chris states is harder than it used to be and now the gatekeepers are increasingly equipment manufacturers. Getting yourself on Sony TVs or Samsung equipment is a major vector for exposure but is not always practical. Chris says that rather than competing with youtube, it’s more general than that, he sees Redbox competing for leisure time. Asked later in the session, Chris says he sees consolidation on the horizon for both studios and streaming services.

Amagi’s Srinivasan KA is pleased to claim that they deliver up to 45% of all content on FAST platforms. He sees FAST as growing because it’s more demographic than cable without the need to get 100 services when only 2 would do. And those 2 channels can go much deeper into a topic than mainstream channels would. Not only can you go into a topic deeper, but with more choice of topics, you can go deeper into discovering, understanding and following up your own interests.

Philippe Guelton from Crackle explains their efforts to create programmes differently whether live drama or close-to live. He feels innovation is important and is one way to deal with companies who are spending ‘too much money on streaming, implying they are loss-leaders and therefore ripe for acquisition.

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Speakers

	Srinivasan KA Co-founder, Amagi
	Chris Yates General Manager – On-Demand Redbox
	Damian Pelliccione Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Revry
	Nick Colsey Vice President, Business Development Sony Electronics Inc.
	Philippe Guelton EVP, Online Networks, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment President, Crackle Plus
	Moderator: Chris Pfaff CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media

Video: Understanding the World of Ad Tech

Posted on 27th May 2021 by Russell Trafford-Jones

Advertising has been the mainstay of TV for many years. Like it or loathe it, ad-support VoD (AVoD) delivers free to watch services that open up content to a much wider range of people than otherwise possible just like ad-supported broadcast TV. Even people who can afford subscriptions have a limit to the number of services they will subscribe to. Having an AVoD offering means you can draw people in and if you also have SVoD, there’s a path to convince them to sign up.

To look at where ad tech is today and what problems still exist, Streaming Media contributing editor Nadine Krefetz has brought together Byron Saltysiak from WarnerMedia, Verizon Media’s Roy Firestone, CBS Interactive’s Jarred Wilichinksy and Newsy’s Tony Brown to share their daily experience of working with OTT ad tech.

Nadine is quick to ask the panel what they feel the weakest link is in ad tech. ‘Scaling up’ answered Jarred who’s seen from massive events how quickly parts of the ad ecosystem fail when millions of people need an ad break at the same time. Bryon adds that with the demise of flash came the loss of an abstraction layer. Now, each platform has to be targetted directly leading to a lot of complexity. Previously, as long as you got flash right, it would work on all platforms. Lastly, redundancy came up as a weakness. Linked to Jarred’s point about the inability to scale easily, the panel’s consensus is they are far off broadcast’s five-nines uptime targets. In some ways, this is to be expected as IT is a more fragmented, faster-moving market than consumer TVs making it all the harder to keep up and match the changing patterns.

A number of parts of the conversation centred around ad tech as an ecosystem. This is a benefit and a drawback. Working in an ecosystem means that as much as the streaming provider wants to invest in bolstering their own service to make it able to cope with millions upon millions of requests, they simply can’t control what the rest of the ecosystem does and if 2 million people all go for a break at once, it doesn’t take much for an ad provider’s servers to collapse under the weight. On the other hand, points out Byron, what is a drawback is also a strength whereby streaming has the advantage of scale which broadcasters don’t. Roy’s service delivered one hundred thousand matches last year. Byron asks how many linear channels you’d need to cover that many.

Speed is a problem given that the ad auction needs to happen in the twenty seconds or so leading up to the ad being shown to the viewer. With so many players, things can go wrong starting off simply with slow responses to requests. But also with ad lengths. Ad breaks are built around 15 seconds segments so it’s difficult when companies want 6 or 11 seconds and it’s particularly bad when five 6-second ads are scheduled for a break: “no-one wants to see that.”

Jarred laments that despite the standards and guidelines available that “it’s still the wild west” when it comes to ad quality and loudness where viewers are the ones bearing the brunt of these mismatched practices.

Nadine asks about privacy regulations that are increasingly reducing the access advertisers have to viewer data. Byron points out that they do in some way need a way to identify a user such that they avoid showing them the same ad all the time. It turns out that registered/subscribed users can be tracked under some regulations so there’s a big push to have people sign up.

Other questions covered by the panel include QA processes, the need for more automation in QA, how to go about starting your own service, dealing with Roku boxes and how to deal with AVoD downloaded files which, when brought online, need to update the ad servers about which ads were watched.

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Speakers

	Tony Brown Chief of Staff, Newsy
	Jarred Wilichinsky SVP Global Video Monetization and Operations, CBS Interactive
	Byron Saltysiak VP of Video and Connected Devices, WarnerMedia
	Roy Firestone Principal Product Manger, Verizon Media
	Nadine Krefetz Contributing Editor, Streaming Media

Video: Connecting the dots – AVOD, Disney vs. Netflix, M&A predictions, Streaming wars

Posted on 25th May 2021 by Russell Trafford-Jones

If there’s anything we can say following the Discovery Warner announcement, it’s that the streaming market isn’t quietening down. Understanding what’s at play behind the headlines is key to making sense of this increasingly complicated marketplace. To help do exactly that, Allan McLennan from PADEM Media Group speaks to Andreas Waltenspeil about super aggregators, Disney Vs Netflix tricks for success in the market. Strategies that don’t work are single-threaded, explains Allan. Today’s companies don’t do just broadcast or just IP, they’re bringing satellite, broadcast, streaming and other avenues into one to maximise reach. They’re also looking to their partners to help them understand their audience with analytics, improved workflows and creating a best-of-breed service.

PADEM Media Group, which focuses on market execution and acceleration, see the trends in Europe lagging slightly the US and suggests that the growth in AVoD seen in the US will continue to manifest in Europe. Advertising-based VoD (AVOD) is very compelling for many viewers because it’s easy, accessible and free to watch. Subscription-based VoD (SVOD), on the other hand, is prized by certain viewers who don’t want to see adverts. While this balance is strongly in favour of SVOD services at the moment, Allan sees that AVoD will continue to grow its market share allowing providers to reach people who don’t have the means for another subscription.

Andreas asks about market fragmentation which is ‘part of the game’ according to Allan. This is why there is a continued role for super aggregators whose role is to bring into one place as much content as possible. There are different aggregators in the market. Disney, Allan argues, is one example as they feature Hulu, ESPN and Disney+ under one umbrella delivering content for the whole family. This is naturally a self-limiting form of aggregation which only includes Disney-owned properties. Another more expansive offering are device manufacturers like Roku whos device can access many different services. Though no-one as told Google, this is a win for consumers and streaming providers. Allan sees Roku in a strong position with 35, going on 40, million users so considers the chances of them being acquired in the next couple of years quite high.

The video finishes talking about streaming wars. There will always be a fight for dominance so they will never end, but the question is how they will pan out. Certainly, there’s a fight for size, the Discovery Warner merger is partly about this. But there’s always to the ‘road to niche’. Major services like Crunchyroll started with a niche offering, though we see that the larger niches such as Anime are big enough to scale well worldwide. More specific niches may have much smaller bases but can provide a great, profitable business. Allan’s interested to see how the Broadcasters continue to engage against the ‘Streamers’ such as Netflix and Amazon. Netflix has moved into original programming, in essence like the broadcasters and Amazon has started making its name by winning major sports rights, not unlike how BT Sports first entered the UK market against Sky. We’ve seen recently that European public broadcasters are capitalising on their local content to continue to forge a relationship with their user base. This represents a response to the global, English-language American-dominated, market which fights without using total size as the weapon.

Watch now!
Speakers

	Allan McLennan Chief Executive, PADEM Media Group
	Andreas Waltenspiel General Manager, Waltenspiel Management Consulting

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