Innovation vs. Optimization in Streaming Delivery

While innovation is good at the outset of a transformation (such as analog to digital video), it can become counterproductive to building sustainable businesses. Continuous innovation means taking away resources from making existing technologies more scalable, resilient, and reliable—three traits that are critical to the success of something like a streaming platform.

Which Is Better for Sports Production--More Cameras or More Ops?

Typical broadcast-level sports productions are massive, with dozens of cameras and operators all over the place, and dozens more people working in and around the production trucks. So how does one, independent producer make their content more like "the big league" when there isn't a dozen people to help?

Doubling Down on Live Linear Programmatic Advertising

The problem of adjusting a live ad buy in linear has jumped over one more hurdle. Earlier this year, DirectTV Advertising announced that their satellite TV content can now be bought programmatically in real time. This means an advertiser can see when viewing is surging and double down to serve ads during key moments. This feature will be available for programming on ESPN, MLB Network, FS1, and the Tennis Channel.

Live Sports Streaming, TVXRAY, and the Qvest for Personalization

At NAB 2025 I set out in search of one irrefutable, real-world example of true sports streaming personalization, an innovative and unique experience that might present a mass-media live sporting event on my screen as it appears on no one else's. I found a contender at the Qvest Engage booth.

The Long and Short of It: Measuring YouTube on TV

As YouTube makes short-form viewing in­creasingly commonplace, measurable, and monetized on CTV, and other channels inevita­bly rush to adopt and repeat the formula, time will tell when "YouTube is the new television" gives way to "Television is the new YouTube."

In Defense of (Click to) Cancel Culture

For all its promise, and despite officially going into effect in mid-January, the Fededral Trade Commission's Click to Cancel rule for streamlining streaming and other cancellations remains largely in limbo, due in part to its all-deliberate-speed effective compliance date of May 14 and also because of legal and political challenges from the Chamber of Commerce and others.

The Blurring of Shared Experiences Via Streaming

The shared experience of enjoying a program that's happening at (or very near) the same time as reality is gone. YouTube, Facebook, et al. are typically 20 or more seconds behind when the event happened. Streaming services and apps can have their own pathways and delays. Add more viewers or more processing, and it can get longer.

Is This the End of the CDN As We Know It?

Recent news, like the shuttering of Edgio, signals to many the imminent death of traditional content delivery networks (CDNs). But does it really?

Designing Streaming Experiences for Seniors

As I celebrate my one-year anniversary of relocating to my hometown of St. Louis to care for my 84-year-old mother, I'm looking at 2025 as a year of improved UI and UX for seniors, particularly those with memory issues.

Why Ads Are Good for Streaming

The streaming business model must change. Services that rely solely on subscriptions are going to plateau. They will have to continually return to their subscriber base and "milk" them for additional revenue via fee hikes. But by taking the plunge and embracing advertising as the primary part of creating and supporting quality television, streaming services will meet the ultimate need of their viewers: getting to see the content they want.

Why Ad Tech Is Becoming Smarter Than Ad Buying

SGAI is an ad-insertion technique that combines the advantages of CSAI and SSAI. This approach allows for more targeted ads and better technical delivery. It's part of an industrywide effort to standardize the ad-insertion process in which the server and client video player share the responsibility of ad insertion.

How Will AI Change Your Streaming Business?

AI is the buzz term of 2024, and indeed, tech companies have put a lot of resources and commitment into adding or improving AI components in their products and services. The term AI covers a wide swath of technologies, but for this column, I'll focus mainly on generative AI, or services that can generate human-like output based on input that we humans provide.

Third-Party Cookies and EdTech

In edtech, the demise of third-party cookies may be even more dire than in ad-supported streaming, since course web­sites are typically designed with third­-party in­tegrations that deliver crucial elements of the curriculum and traditionally rely on cookies to allow seamless cross­-domain integration.

Orphaned Tech: Struggles With Legacy NDI Gear

Not every new customer has the bank to buy all new gear. It's typical to buy used gear, get it running, and then upgrade only as the need and cash flow dictate. But a challenge comes with using older NDI gear.

Dynamic Paywalls for Streaming Services

What would happen if we started to have dynamic paywalls for streaming ser­vices? Leveraging user data, machine learning, and generative AI could create offers based on con­sumption patterns. Some companies are dab­bling in this, but now we have the technology to really start developing it.

IBC 2024: Better Content Curation Through Conversation with Imaginario AI

One AI-driven solution that stood out at IBC 2024 as particularly smart and creative comes from a London-based company called Imaginario AI. I met with CEO and Co-Founder Jose M. Puga and got an up-close look at a content indexing and curation tool that uses multimodal AI models to "make video content searchable like text." Imaginario AI made a big enough splash at IBC this year to take home 1st prize in the "Manage" category of the IABM's BaM awards.

Cue the Sunset: The Rise and Fall of Reality TV

Though Emily Nussbaum's Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV reads more like a biography than like an obituary, the book lands as reality TV appears to be shrinking along with the scripted side of the business. More than one pundit has proclaimed its demise at the hands of TikTok, the "now everyone grows up on video" platform that reality TV prefigured.

Streaming Is Easy, Until It’s Not

When it comes to electronics, it's easy to look at advertised features and believe that tech will provide everything you need. But no matter how powerful and integrated it is—perhaps even because of how integrated and powerful it is—you need professionals to run it to ensure you look your best. Streaming may seem easy, but as with any business role, only expertise will make it look easy, even when it's not.

The Monetization Story of 2024 and Beyond

For the longest time, people I've interviewed have complained about how much of the video advertising budget went to social. Now the tide is turning.

Casual Streaming Piracy and the Cost of Chasing it

At Streaming Media NYC, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel around stream security. It's probably the fifth or sixth time that I've done so in the last decade, but an interesting dichotomy popped up during the prep meeting with panelists, and again while we were on stage during the live session. The concept was "casual piracy" and how it differed from "professional piracy" in both intent and scale.