The State of AI in On-Demand Streaming in 2026

This is a tale of a few different AI use cases that involve research, localization, advertising, and UX. The first is a public broadcaster in Austria. The second is a TV OS. The third is a well-known vendor. The last is a major media company. What all of these have in common is that their AI applications have moved from the proof-of-concept stage to full commercial implementation.

The State of Streaming Codecs 2026

Streaming codec adoption used to be an engineering abstraction governed by RD curves, BD-rate tables, and roadmap slides that no one outside of R&D ever considered. Over the last 15 months, codec adoption decisions have morphed into a much broader discussion, involving C-level execs from finance and legal. While the precursors to this transition occurred pre-2025, the situation coalesced in 2025. During the same period, we saw one codec step to the front (AV1) and another shrink before our eyes (VVC).

The State of Live Sports Streaming 2026

One streaming platform's increasing appetite for live events combined with titanic global reach means that it will dominate discussion in 2026—and it's not necessarily Netflix.

Streaming Year in Review 2026

Two stories dominated streaming media in 2025: Netflix versus the rest and YouTube takes TV. YouTube may be the bigger story.

The State of Streaming Monetization 2026

How are streaming content companies doing? Publishers, creators, and aggregators have traditionally made the majority of their revenue on subscriptions, so why does everyone want to talk about advertising? Ad-supported content is more affordable. Because most streaming consumers have maxed out their subscriptions, leaving the SVOD market saturated, advertising is more likely to be the dominant incremental revenue driver for streaming over the next several years, based on how media companies are talking about themselves and guiding investors.

The State of Streaming Sustainability 2026

Is it still fashionable to be sustainable, even with AI?

Streamticker: The Biggest Streaming Mergers and Acquisitions of 2025

Here is a month-by-month roundup of the streaming industry's most momentous mergers and acquisitions of 2025 (excluding the competing Paramount Skydance and Netflix bids for Warner Bros. Discovery—a drama that just turned definitively in Paramount's favor at press time).

Streaming the Universe: A Q&A with GM & Head of NASA+ Rebecca Sirmons

After launching on Nov 8, 2023, and the sunsetting of NASA TV (NASA's linear channel) in August 2024, NASA+ has become the official destination for all NASA content, whether you are watching on Amazon Prime, Netflix or NASA's website, and app. Currently, NASA is planning to stream the first crewed launch to the Moon in over 50 years, Artemis II (estimated viewership 25M) and will become the world's largest live streaming event, the next moon landing on Artemis III (estimated viewership 250M). In this Q&A, I spoke with General Manager and Head of NASA+ Rebecca Sirmons about how her team built NASA+ and the infrastructure, gear, ops, and workflows that launch live streams at this massive scope and scale.

Review: Media Excel HERO 6000

This review will highlight Media Excel's HERO 6000 and walk readers through the process of configuring streaming using the HERO platform. You'll learn how to deliver live streams, create encoding presets, add audio presets, create channels, and add outputs for playback. The article will also cover how to add roles and play streams.

Presenting… The 2025 Streaming Media Top 100

Here we reveal the 2025 Streaming Media Top 100, our list (appropriately enough) of the top 100 companies in the streaming universe outside of Europe. This list complements the 2025 Streaming Media Europe 51, which acclaims Europe's key streaming innovators and high achievers.

Mining for Riches in the Niches: Dynamic Approaches for Targeted Growth

What does niche streaming mean in 2025? With the vast abundance of content available to TV audiences, how can niche programming be targeted adequately toward specific audiences, and what are some of the best ways these audiences can discover that content?

AI's Streaming Stack: Meet the Media Workflows

How has AI entered the media workflow? For this new column, we'll look at different applications used in the media industry. For this issue, we'll start with asset management, asset storefronts, and localization. While some of this functionality—speech-to-text transcription, translation, voice synthesis, natural language processing, logo detection, facial recognition, and object detection—has been around for a while, the biggest improvement is that much of it is now available on workflows with live content.

Litigating and Monetizing Content Licensing to LLMs

Licensing data to LLMs is a potential revenue stream for streamers much like advertising on CTV platforms: it is an opportunity that didn't exist until recently that has the potential to deliver dividends for years to come. But as with CTV advertising, its viability and profitability won't happen overnight.

5G Without the Hype: Taking Control of Live Sports Production

For years, 5G has been sold as the technology that would transform live broadcasting. Network slicing, guaranteed quality of service, zero latency—all promised, few delivered. What's really changing the game now isn't another operator trial. It's private 5G, giving broadcasters the ability to design, deploy, and control the network themselves.

Losing the Feed, but Owning the Story

For decades, broadcasters were the heartbeat of live sports. They owned the feed, shaped the story, and set the standard. But today, that control is slipping, not because audiences have abandoned them, but because the definition of "live" has changed.

AWS GM of M&E Samira Panah Bakhtiar Talks Gen AI and Interactive Sports Streaming

In this Q&A, Samira Panah Bakhtiar, Amazon Web Services (AWS) general manager of me­­dia, entertainment, games, and sports, talks about how AWS and agentic AI are changing the ways streaming workflows are executed. In her interview, she spoke both to the business side of the house and the underlying tech.

Leveraging AI in OTT and CTV Content Discovery

In this article, experts from key streaming vendors weigh in on both the benefits and drawbacks of leveraging AI in OTT and CTV content discovery while speculating on how it will impact the future of personalization. Various methods of filtering make AI recommendations fully transparent to users, ensuring that personalization does not become too rigid for them, and advancements in IP distribution are among the many issues under consideration in this evolving field.

Industry Champions Revealed: The 2025 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The readers have spoken! Here we present 19 top tech solutions of 2025, as chosen by the readers of Streaming Media .

AI and Adtech in Operation

With an eye to providing more insight into real-world deployments and the operational side, online adtech firm Magnite volunteered to give me insight into how AI fits into their current operational processes.

The Multiview Imperative: How Technical Architecture Determines Streaming Success

The largely unsung hero in YouTube's growth may be a feature that cost the company 99% less to implement than Sunday Ticket: multiview streaming capability. As this article shows, if you're broadcasting sports, multiview--particularly Build Your Own Multiview (BYOMV)--is quickly becoming an expected feature among sophisticated viewers. It's also one of the most affordable and effective ways to amplify the value of your programming, particularly when your content isn't exclusive and faces direct competition in the same market.