How to Monetize Vertical Microdrama in the US

Even as the buzz builds around vertical microdrama and more and more content, innovation, and creativity flow into this new storytelling mode, how to make it profitable remains an open question. Celestine Pictures founder and executive producer Grace Gao discusses its origins in China, its transition to America, persisting quality/quantity disparities, the emergence of a few successful brands, the monetization and distribution models that will sustain and grow the industry as a whole, and how the interest of major platforms like Netflix will impact vertical content creators in discussion with Chris Pfaff in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

LG Shop Time and the Creator Economy

Integrated purchasing opportunities and creator content are becoming increasingly prominent elements of the CTV experience. How are they converging on major CTV platforms like LG and webOS? Chester Goodson, LG Electronics' senior manager of business development, discusses the rise of creator programming and monetization opportunities available through LG's Shop Time ecommerce app and where the two intersect in this conversation with moderator Chris Pfaff at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

How to Achieve Seamless Shoppable CTV

What strategic and technological innovations are in the pipeline to facilitate more seamless shoppable CTV experiences? Fuse Media's Karl Meyer, Disney's Lexi Swift, Spaceback's Joe Hall, and LG's Chester Goodson address future prospects for enhanced shoppability in this discussion with moderator Chris Pfaff from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

How Streaming Has Transformed NBA Audience Insights

As the NBA has seen its audience shift from traditional TV to streaming, strategies and techniques for measuring that audience and interpreting viewer behavior have shifted with it, with greater fragmentation and different metrics. NBA VP of Global Media Insights Michelle Auguste discusses the challenges and incongruities of audience measurement across different platforms and partners and why old, linear-based models like Nielsen must continue to adapt and evolve in this clip from her keynote fireside chat with Streaming Media's Steve Nathans-Kelly at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Has Resilience Replaced Scale as Live Sports Streaming’s Chief Concern?

When it comes to withstanding traffic spikes and other factors that stress-test live streams, "your infrastructure is only as strong as the weakest part of the chain," notes DAZN EVP James Pearce in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026. So has the resiliency of streaming architecture become a greater factor in livestream success than insufficient scalability or CDN capacity? MTech Sport's Matt Stagg, TATA Communications' Corey Smith, and BT Group's Ian Parr join the debate over where streams are most likely to break down today and whether CDN capacity problems have indeed been solved in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Middle-Mile Resiliency and Delivering Live Streams at Scale

As the last mile of streaming becomes increasingly predictable, according to CacheFly CTO and Founder Matt Levine, the focus of streaming professionals working to enhance reliability in live event delivery shifts to the middle mile. Levine and YouTube Head of OTT Live Engineering Sean McCarthy explore what workflow and architecture elements constitute the middle mile and what it takes to navigate middle-mile variability most effectively origin-to-edge and designing workflows that scale in this conversation with SVTA Subject Matter Expert Bhavesh Upadhyaya at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Does Viewer Research Reveal What Makes Streaming Shows Hits?

Forecasting the success of streaming content based on the IP behind it—whether it's a legacy property like Family Feud or a video game adaptation like The Last of Us—is harder than it may appear, but do patterns emerge in historical viewership data or viewer surveys that offer usable clues? Hub Entertainment Research Principal Jon Giegengack takes a crack at unraveling the mysteries of streaming show success in this conversation with Integration Therapy Owner and Principal Rebecca Avery at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Key Contextual Data Points for Targeted and Brand-Safe CTV Advertising

Matching ads to programming context and audience interests is theoretically what CTV and OTT can do better than traditional linear television, but it requires gathering data and leveraging it effectively to make sound contextual calls. Philo Head of Advertising Partnerships Aulden Kaye Yi and Roku Head of Supply Side Ad Platform Charlie Goodman discuss what works on their platforms and how their teams approach contextual advertising in this conversation with SVTA Subject Matter Expert Bhavesh Upadhyaya at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

How the NBA Keeps Younger Viewers Engaged

Even as live sports remains arguably the only consistently reliable appointment viewing genre in TV, younger viewers are notoriously appointment viewing-averse. Yet NBA attention from younger fans is growing, according to NBA VP of Global Media Insights Michelle Auguste; it just shows up in different places, and requires following different metrics to make sense of and deploying different strategies and cultural touchpoints to cultivate the 24/7 fandom model that makes younger fans feel like they're part of the league.

Inside the CTV Contextual Advertising Toolset

CTV contextual advertising, like many things in life, is all about making good decisions, and making informed decisions based on a wealth of data means leveraging the right tools—often AI-driven—to gather and distill and interpret that data. Sometimes developing sound contextual media plans involves working with in-house tech and other times it means working with third-party tools, as Team Whistle (a DAZN company) president Joe Caporoso and Intersection CEO Chris Grosso explain in this discussion with SVTA subject matter expert Bhavesh Upadhyaya in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Provisioning for Live Streaming Scale in Real Time at Al Jazeera and YouTube

How do large-volume streamers anticipate, provision for, and capacity-plan for real-time traffic bursts during tentpole and breaking news events? Al Jazeera Senior Streaming Media Architect Dilip Bharadwaj and YouTube Head of Live OTT Engineering Sean McCarthy discuss real-world challenges and preparation and remediation strategies in this discussion with SVTA Subject Matter Expert Bhavesh Upadhyaya at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Shoppable Content Meets Cloud Gaming on CTV

As cloud gaming and the living room converge and shoppable opportunities on CTV continue to multiply, how real and how near are opportunities to merge the two and incorporate interactive shopping into the intensely lean-forward gaming world? Fuse Media CRO Karl Meyer and Spaceback co-founder and CPO Joe Hall discuss opportunities and implementations of shoppable CTV with the hyper-engaged gamer audience in this discussion with Chris Pfaff, CEO of Chris Pfaff Tech Media, at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Programming vs. Promotion Decisions in CTV Content Monetization Strategy

When it comes to curating and monetizing CTV content, do programming and promotion decisions go hand in hand or does one necessarily drive the other? Head of Fubo Studios Pamela Duckworth offers a look inside Fubo Sports Network's approach to testing and promotion, from pop-up FAST channels to tentpole events and evergreen content and breakthrough sports like bare-knuckle boxing in this discussion with Integration Therapy's Rebecca Avery at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

How Audience Insights Drive NBA Media Decision-Making

How do "actionable insights" translate into concrete actions when it comes to media deals, partnerships, and brand growth in major sports leagues? In this clip, NBA VP, Global Media Insights Michelle Auguste explains how audience insights have informed the NBA's new 11-year media deal as well as the league's impending Euro League international expansion recently announced by NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

Applying a Second Encryption Layer to Enhance Stream Security

As long as publishers deliver premium streams, pirates will devise ever more ingenious methods to steal and restream that content. When DRM keys get hacked, what steps can content owners take to protect their streams? One method EZDRM COO/Co-Founder Olga Kornienko says her company has been looking at is adding a second encryption layer to make their clients' live content as bulletproof as possible, as she describes and explains how in this discussion with Integration Therapy's Rebecca Avery at Streaming Media Connect.

How to Deliver Low-Latency Multiview Sports Streams to Global Audiences

With all of the inherent difficulties of delivering low-latency live streams at scale, and the growing interest in providing sports viewers with state-of-the-art multiview experiences, what additional technical challenges does multiview delivery create in streaming's fraught middle mile, and how do top-tier global broadcasters like Globo meet those challenges? Globo Head of Streaming and CDN Platform Marcos Petry discusses how Globo maintains and tunes streaming latency for multiview sports streams in this conversation with streaming consultant Bhavesh Upadhyaya at Streaming Media Connect in December.

Dubbing Optimization for Streaming Dialogue and Singing in the AI Era

Generative AI has transformed the technology, the workflow, and arguably the ethics of dubbing dialogue for TV and movies in recent years, with the costly and time-consuming traditional approach of a voice actor, director, and technical crew gathering in a studio for live audio replacement very much a thing of the past. The perception now is that generative AI can easily (and some would say dangerously) produce or replicate virtually any voice, but Dubformer's Anton Dvorkovich and Google's Nick Manoochehri insist that generating the desired voice and refining it toward emotional precision and perfection remain challenging and as much art as science—for dialogue and especially for singing—as they explain in this conversation with DigitalGlue's Philip Grossman and PADEM Media Group's Allan McLennan at Streaming Media 2025.

How Globo, Starz, and Paramount Sustain Streaming Experiences Across Legacy Devices

Like other premium streaming platforms, Starz maintains a "let's let everybody play" philosophy when it comes to delivering high-quality streaming experiences to all viewers on their platforms, but when it comes to supporting the broad morass of legacy devices and formats dating back to streaming's early days, challenges abound, especially in streaming's critical middle mile. Starz Executive Director of Software Development Rob Collins, Globo Head of Streaming and CDN Platform Marcos Petry, Paramount Director, Live Video Nishant Sirohi, and SVTA's Bhavesh Upadhyaha discuss strategies for meeting those challenges and where they draw the line when it comes to the most outmoded devices in this clip from Streaming Media Connect in December.

Sports Leagues and Broadcasters Must Tailor Engagement Strategies for Gen Z

Free Live Sports president Cathy Rasenberger argues that sports leagues and broadcasters need to adapt to the ways Gen Z viewers consume content—short-form, social, athlete-centric storylines—if they want to engage and retain younger audiences in this discussion with MTech Sport, Media & Entertainment consultant Matt Stagg, Play Anywhere CSO Pete Scott, and Hub Entertainment Research principal Jon Giegengack from Streaming Media Connect 2025.

How to Fight Sports Streaming Fragmentation Fatigue

The fragmentation of sports streaming rights and the proliferation of channels with some matches but not others makes it increasingly difficult for fans to track their teams' upcoming games. Free Live Sports President Cathy Rasenberger, Play Anywhere CSO Pete Scott, Hub Entertainment Research Principal Jon Giegengack, and MTech Sport's Matt Stagg discuss ongoing discoverability challenges and how Free Live Sports, Roku with its Sports Zones, Fox One, the ESPN app, and others are trying to create new sports destinations to counteract sports streaming's disaggregation crisis.