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Online Video Industry

The online video industry is an ever-growing ecosystem of technology, service, and platform vendors that run the gamut from traditional broadcast incumbents to disruptive startups.

Here you'll find Streaming Media's coverage of the solutions providers that are enabling the online video revolution.

We're back August 11-13, for the next installment of Streaming Media Connect.
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Features

The Streaming Industry Is Building for Personalization Before It Solves Discovery

While the industry races towards increasingly sophisticated personalized sports streaming experiences, the fundamental viewing journey for many fans remains fragmented, confusing, and unnecessarily complicated.

The Perks and the Perils of Pop-Up FAST Channels

The flexibility of FAST channels has led to the emergence of FAST channel pop-ups, which can be created to cover niche content, test formats, and even react to specific events, such as an iconic celebrity's passing, to showcase their work. This vitality has generated a growing demand for pop-up FAST channels, and while the technology to launch them continues to improve, there are still technical, marketing, discoverability, and other logistical issues to overcome. In this article, several industry experts weigh in on both the various benefits and challenges of FAST channel pop-ups and what their continued development means for the industry.

Q&A: Tennis Channel SVP Direct-to-Consumer Matthew Graham Talks Launching, Programming, and Scaling the Tennis Channel App

In late 2023, Tennis Channel brought in AMC Networks and PBS Digital veteran Matthew Graham to spearhead the development of the network's DTC app. In this Q&A, Graham delves into the app's content, monetization, partnership, and growth strategy, as well as how Tennis Channel positions the app in relation to its other platforms and leverages data and audience insights to measure customer lifetime value, personalize content, and inform future strategic decisions.

AI's Streaming Stack: Engagement Agents

The three companies covered in this issue's column are all involved in bringing more monetization or engagement to today's streaming content. The key differentiator is using AI to delve deep into content meaning and adjacent data to create new opportunities for content formats that previously did not exist. While we sometimes cover tools that are suitable for smaller publishers, these AI tools require a certain scale of content to … well, work at scale. Two of these companies have been around for 10-plus years. The other one is much newer but already has an impressive connection with a media company.

Spotlights

Volunteers to Professionals: The Mobile Fleet Revolution

The Mobile Fleet Revolution is about embracing a new standard of efficiency and accessibility in sports production. By combining the sophisticated hardware of modern smartphones with centralized orchestration, robust contribution protocols, and a genuinely flexible cost model, organizations of all sizes can now deliver broadcast experiences that meet the expectations of a digitally native audience. The fans are already watching on mobile. The question is whether the organizations serving them will produce on mobile too. For the business of sports, the playbook is increasingly clear: the future is software-defined, mobile-centered, and ready to play.

What a Resilient Content Chain Looks Like in IP Video Monitoring

A resilient content chain needs two things: the ability to detect problems fast, and enough operational context to act on them.

The World Cup Is Live. Is Your Infrastructure?

The World Cup is live. The infrastructure is either holding or it isn't. The difference was decided long before the opening whistle.

A View From the Top: BuyDRM

Today we live in a DRM-driven streaming video landscape. DRM is the sole studio-mandated streaming security technology in use across every major streaming video and audio platform in existence. While part of a broad-spectrum approach to security, DRM is the one technology standing between your content and your enemies. Thankfully, our industry has evolved DRM into a thin, scalable, nearly silent component of the streaming ecosystem with broad support on the industry's leading encoders, servers, and playback platforms.

Columns

The Agent's Station

One way agentic AI is making inroads into streaming monetization, as I learned at Streaming Media Connect, offers the potential to complement and free up time for human creativity rather than replace it.

The Fine Print

Opening our blog to a never-ending stream of guest contributors yields some of the coolest stuff we publish, with topics that would never occur to me. Though I rarely know when these pieces will arrive or where they'll come from, it is often heady, provocative stuff that I'm proud to publish.

CTV Is Defining the Future of Streaming Ads

While advertising has long been a unidirectional experience, there have been forays into making it bidirectional for a long time. The value proposition is pretty clear. If people are watching a show and an advertisement comes on showcasing a product that interests them, wouldn't it be great if they could grab the remote, push a couple of buttons, and have it delivered to their doorstep?

Content Creation Consolidation: Bending Spoons Strikes Again

There are a few tools that many streaming pros have used through the years, from WeTransfer to Brightcove to Vimeo. Some are essential to content creation, OTT delivery, and live streaming. All of these tools have one important thing in common now: their recent acquisition by the Italian company Bending Spoons.