How to Design Streaming Apps and UX Strategically in 2024

What does it take to be a streaming app designer and director of product in 2024? According to YouTube TV's Esther Ahn, Crunchyroll's Tom Hurlbutt, and Philo's Brandon Yap, embracing the evolution of that role means rolling with ongoing changes in the device ecosystem, viewer behavior and device preferences, and the modernization of the TV viewing experiences, as they discuss in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.

How to Solve Interactive Streaming’s Latency Challenges

What are the biggest challenges to delivering successful large-scale interactive live streams, particularly achieving the requisite low latency, and what technology solutions apply? Nanocosmos CEO Oliver Leitz, Help Me Stream's Tim Siglin, and Motoworlds' Darcy Lorincz identify real-world interactive streaming problems and how to address them and deliver high-quality user experiences from traditional streaming to the metaverse in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.

How Netflix, Meta, and United Cloud Choose New Codecs and Why

Migrating to new codecs is fraught with challenges and complications for companies with massive content libraries like Netflix and Meta, or live linear providers like United Cloud. What drives change-of-codec decisions and what considerations and trade-offs complicate these decisions vis a vis legacy users and more? Netflix's Andrey Norkin, Meta's Hassene Tmar, United Cloud's Boban Kasalovic, and Help Me Stream's Tim Siglin discuss these issues and more in this clip from Streaming Media Connect.

Are Super Bundles the Future of Subscription-Based Streaming?

Churn is an unavoidable fact of life for streaming services, and much of the strategic thinking that goes into trying to make SVOD profitable focuses on how to minimize its impact, whether by offering more content, incorporating ad tiers, or entering into various bundling scenarios. So what's working in 2024 and what isn't? Five leading M & E analysts—ESHAP's Evan Shapiro, Erickson's Paul Erickson, Dataxis' Ophelie Boucaud, TVREV's Alan Wolk, and Hub's Jon Giegengack—discuss current strategies to ward off churn-pocalypse in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2024.

Synchronization vs. Latency - Which Matters More in Enterprise and Sports Streaming?

Chris Packard, Global Live Operations Lead at LinkedIn, discusses the role of interactivity in enterprise streaming, what the essential elements are of a successful user experience, and striking a realistic balance between ultra-low latency and synchronization, in this discussion with nanocosmos' Oliver Lietz and Help Me Stream's Tim Siglin from Streaming Media Connect 2024.

Netflix, Disney, and the State of Paid Subscription Sharing

At the end of 2023 when Netflix reported eye-popping profits from its widely publicized crackdown on subscription-sharing and the surcharge sharers would henceforth have to pay, concerns arose around the industry that other subscription streaming services from premium to niche would soon be following suit and restricting the common practice of subscription sharing with their user base. In this candid debate from February's Streaming Media Connect 2024, TVREV's Alan Wolk, ESHAP's Evan Shapiro, and Hub Entertainment Research's Jon Giegengack discuss who's cracking down and how much they're enforcing new restriction, and what if any benefit smaller-market services are likely to gain from following Netflix's lead.

Emerging Trends in CTV and Streaming Monetization

Google TV Senior Director of Engineering Shobana Radhakrishnan discusses ongoing shifts in M&E content consumption like the growth of CTV and streaming relative to traditional linear broadcast, the continued fragmentation of the streaming content market, and how the transition to more advertising-based monetization models will impact the overall revenue picture in 2024-26 in this clip from her Streaming Media Connect keynote.

How WebRTC Impacts Stream Resiliency for Contribution and Distribution

Strategizing for low-latency streaming at scale and choosing WebRTC or another protocol means juggling multiple priorities and assessing stream resiliency on both the contribution and distribution ends. Dolby.io's Ryan Jespersen and AWS's Evan Statton make the case for WebRTC in this clip from Streaming Media Connect.

How FAST Strategy Is Changing as the Ecosystem Matures

As we move well into the era of FAST 2.0, will the strategies that brought FAST success in its early days still pay off and ensure continued growth? Is it time for FAST pioneers to re-innovate? And what can the success of primetime YouTube channels teach FAST brands about evolving their strategic roadmap in a mature, less Wild West-like FAST ecosystem? Tastemade's Evan Bregman, ESHAP's Evan Shapiro, Gusto TV's Chris Knight, and TMB's Cameron Saless discuss in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.

Google's Take on What CTV Viewers Want

The CTV viewing experience continues to evolve as new UX developments arise. Still, many experts and users agree that the experience is essentially broken, with too much choice and too little personalization as users' #1 complaint, far from where it needs to be. According to Google TV Senior Director of Engineering Shobana Radhakrishnan in her Streaming Media Connect Keynote, the critical challenge is understanding what viewers want and letting that drive other decisions.

How to Monitor Cloud-Based Low-Latency Streams at Scale

What is the essential monitoring checklist for maintaining efficiency, resiliency, and performance for large-scale low-latency streaming using cloud-based workflows? Dolby.io Director of Product Strategy and 2G Digital Post Optimization's Allan McLennan discuss the key components and tools for an effective live stream monitoring strategy in this clip from Streaming Media Connect.

How Streaming Channels Can Attract Programmatic Advertisers

With 55-60% of advertising dollars flowing to Amazon, Meta, and Google, streaming services need to be strategic and deliberate in how they differentiate their offerings not just to audiences but to the brands that support them. In this clip from Streaming Media Connect, ESHAP's Evan Shapiro and Atmosphere TV's Lana LoRusso discuss the challenges to stay ahead of the market in the competition for ad dollars and the creative way Atmosphere TV positions its sound-optional venue-based platform to attract ad agencies.

How OTT and CTV Platforms Monetize First-Party Data

Is zero-party and first-party data emerging as a new revenue generator for OTT platforms and in the CTV landscape in Europe and the U.S., and when it comes to collecting data for monetization purposes-particularly for addressable TV-where do we draw the line vis a vis consumer privacy? ESHAP's Evan Shapiro and Dataxis TNT Market Analyst Ophelie Boucaud discuss in this clip from Streaming Media Connect.

How DAZN and TAG Approach Failover, Sync, and Stream Resiliency

For high-stakes, large-scale streams, redundancy is critical for ensuring smooth and reliable delivery. This means careful monitoring, sound decision-making, and seamless network switching-also known as hitless failover-and making sure streams are precisely synced so the switch is invisible to the end user. In this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023, DAZN's Bob Hannent, TAG Video Systems' Michael Demb, and CDN Alliance chair Mark de Jong discuss the challenges of ensuring stream resiliency and strategies for maintaining it.

Why Niche Programmers Are First in FAST

From the early days of FAST, the agility and strategic innovation that are hallmarks of startups and niche content companies have been critical to success in the FAST world. As the Independent Streaming Alliance (ISA) emerges to heighten the advocacy of niche FAST providers, ESHAP's Evan Shapiro, TMB's Cameron Saless, and Gusto TV's Chris Knight discusses how the FAST market began and has matured around nimble startups in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.

How CTV OEMs Impact FAST Success

70 percent of FAST channel viewing happens on connected TVs, and the vast array of FAST channels that quietly insinuate themselves into viewers' living rooms as soon as they plug in their Samsung and LG CTV sets are the most accessible and easily tracked FAST viewing experiences imaginable, as they require no additional app installations to gain front-and-center visibility. How critical is the preeminence of specific CTV OEM brands in the success of FAST channels? Alan Wolk of TVREV and Chris Pfaff of Chris Pfaff Tech Media discuss the market dynamics of FAST and the CTV ecosystem in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.

The State of FAST Markets: Europe vs. US

It's well-established that the FAST market matured in the US years earlier than in Europe and other parts of the world. But as the European market grows, is it evolving along the same lines as the US market, and are there lessons in where the US market stumbled that inform FAST strategy in Europe? Streaming Made Easy newsletter author Marion Ranchet and ESHAP's Evan Shapiro discuss the state of the FAST ecosystem in Europe in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.

Is Producing Original Content Table Stakes for FAST Brands?

In the absence of subscription revenue that underwrites SVOD services, what's the ideal balance of original and licensed programming for FAST brands, and how does it differ for smaller and larger providers? ESHAP's Evan Shapiro, TasteMade's Evan Bregman, and Chicken Soup for the Soul's Philippe Guelton dissect the intricacies of FAST monetization-particularly for niche outfits-in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.

Avanci vs. Other Streaming Codec Pools

Avanci Video launched in October 2023 as the latest patent pool contender to stake a claim to a piece of the streaming codec pie. Avanci isn't new to licensing; just to streaming. So how does it impact other existing patent pool players? Two leading patent attorneys with expertise in this market, Garrard R. Beeney of Sullivan & Cromwell, and Robert J.L. Moore of Moore IP Solutions explore what it meant when Avanci joined the patent pool party in this clip from November 2023's Streaming Media Connect.

Why the Via LA Streaming Codec Pool Merger Matters

Via Licensing shook the MPEG licensing world in May 2023 when it acquired MPEG LA to form the Via LA juggernaut. And how is that deal shaking out now, six months on, as licensors and patent holders alike survey the landscape? Sisvel Group's Mattia Fogliacco and patent attorney Robert J.L. Moore of Moore IP Solutions discuss the implications in this clip from November 2023's Streaming Media Connect.