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Media/Entertainment Video > Blog

Today's viewers expect to be able to watch movies and TV shows anytime, anywhere, and on any device, including set-top boxes, game consoles, phones, and tablets. Here you'll find Streaming Media's coverage of OTT, social video, and other media and entertainment video, as well as the business models (AVOD, SVOD, TVOD, HVOD) behind them.

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CTV’s Next Chapter: Why Unified Monetization Will Decide Streaming’s Winners

Behind the scenes, monetization is often a patchwork process with systems operating independently and oftentimes competing rather than complementing one another. This introduces friction for publishers and buyers, and can impact efficiency and performance. Mediation offers a path forward that, if implemented correctly, can help publishers turn this complexity into a competitive advantage while also providing benefits for advertisers.

Rethinking TV: Balancing Linear and Streaming for Long-Term Brand Growth

Brands must remain nimble in their thinking regarding linear vs. streaming, given how quickly the landscape is shifting. Sports illustrate this perfectly. A single event today can play out across broadcast, cable, and streaming, either simultaneously or individually. Thursday Night Football on Amazon, NBA games shared across multiple partners, or the UFC's exclusivity deal with Paramount—each example shows how the same content can reach audiences in different ways.

From Gut Feel to Growth Engine: A Data-Driven Blueprint for Content Strategy

The winners of the next decade won't be those who make the most content, they'll be those who plan it best. Strategic planning is no longer a static, once-a-year exercise. It's an ongoing, intelligence-driven dialogue between creativity and commerce. Organizations that embrace this mindset will do more than survive the next wave of disruption: they'll define it. By combining data discipline with creative ambition, they can transform content strategy from a gut-feel guessing game into a measurable, sustainable engine for growth.

How Sports Betting Apps Are Gamifying the TV Sports Viewing Experience

Sports apps are having a ripple effect across connected TV. Features like interactive stats and polls are blurring the line between content and participation. Broadcasters and streamers are racing to keep up, building experiences that reward every tap, scroll, and cheer with data-driven connections. You could call it the FanDuel effect; I think of it as the gamification of live sports.

Netflix-Amazon Deal: An Expected Step in a Broader Strategy

Netflix's decision to make its ad inventory available through Amazon DSP is notable, but not surprising. This move fits squarely within Netflix's larger strategy to maximize advertiser access across demand-side platforms. Rather than a unique or exclusive partnership, it is another step toward ensuring that Netflix inventory is available to as many buyers as possible, wherever they choose to transact.

How L-Band Advertising is Unlocking Non-Intrusive Monetization in Streaming

Consumers are willing to tolerate ads in exchange for lower subscription fees, but they expect those ads to be relevant, less frequent, and non-disruptive. By leveraging screen real estate in a subtle yet effective way, L-band ads offer a compelling solution for service providers seeking to balance monetization with viewer satisfaction.

CTV’s Measurement Revolution: Outcomes as the Unifying Force

"On the glass" viewing has shifted decisively toward connected TV, where advertisers expect more than reach—they expect results. CTV has opened the door to a new era of accountability, where ad exposure is directly linked to business outcomes. Sales data is the unifying force, proving how CTV investments drive real-world impact. With this clarity, marketers can finally move beyond guesswork and optimize every impression for measurable performance and scale.

Optimizing OTT Experiences: Five Streaming Strategies That Deliver Better QoE

This article explores practical, vendor-neutral strategies that OTT service providers can use to strengthen QoE across the entire delivery chain, from pre-delivery checks and multi-stage monitoring to client-side analytics and emerging innovations in automation and personalization.

As AI Personalizes the Future, Local Ads Must Break Free from One-Size-Fits-All

As AI embeds itself deeper into the infrastructure of modern advertising, it's changing how we think about developing and tailoring the message itself. Ad creative can be dynamic, testable, and just as targeted as the rest of the campaign.

AI-Fueled Creative Resets Media Buying Expectations

With an explosion of creative technology like streaming digital video, AI-generated personalized commerce ads, and AI-driven campaign testing and measurement, the market is finally embracing creative as a major performance lever. Not only can advertisers make better creative, they can make more versions, test new creative strategies using real-time feedback, and understand exactly which creative elements drive outcomes.

How CTV Measurement Can Drive Optimization

If advertisers don't embrace new approaches to measure CTV effectively, they miss the opportunity to drive real outcomes. CTV can not only be measured better, it can also be used to drive outcomes with several interesting innovations.

Global Growth, Local Limits: A New Playbook for ROI in Sports Broadcasting

For sports organizations to unlock growth, protect margins, and reach fans wherever they are, they need a new kind of playbook: one that puts flexibility, efficiency, and market-specific value at its core.

How AI is Transforming Content Discovery in Streaming

With AI and machine learning, computer vision, and natural-language processing, AI can analyze video at the frame level, identifying faces, logos, scenes, emotional tone, and spoken keywords. The result is metadata that's deeper, more dynamic, and far more actionable. For streaming providers, it's not just about fixing a bottleneck but about turning discovery into a competitive advantage.

Streaming Redefined: Why Zapping Time and Personalization Now Define Viewer Retention

Zapping time—how quickly a viewer can switch between content or launch playback—has become a critical metric. Fast zapping time reduces reported faults, enhances satisfaction, and decreases support costs. Whether on smart TVs or mobile apps, any perceptible lag can quickly drive users elsewhere.

The Next Evolution in Streaming Depends on Distribution

In the modern streaming ecosystem, the content owner often must now deliver the content to numerous streaming platforms while modifying the content in each case to meet the tangled web of unique needs associated with distributing their content on each streaming platform. 

The Rise of Ethical Impressions: When AdTech Meets Social Impact

Not every impression is created equal. Some sell sneakers, some drive subscriptions, and a growing number do something else entirely: serve society. These are what we might call ethical impressions, ad placements that deliver measurable business results while advancing social good. In an age where audiences demand more from brands and marketers demand more from their media dollars, ethical impressions are redefining success.

Inside the Micro-Drama Boom: Life on Set, Opportunity, and the Future of Storytelling

The world of streaming is on the brink of another shift. After years of long-form dominance—sprawling series, multi-hour binge sessions, and cinematic storytelling—attention is swinging toward a radically different format: micro-dramas. And if the early signals are right, they could be the most significant disruption to OTT since the binge model itself.

Intuit Dome Is Just Fan Engagement, and That Means More Than You Think

With the rise of live events, redesigning for a better connection is the key to success. Some may say it's just about fan engagement. And they're right, but it's also much more than that: it's about creating unforgettable experiences that no one will want to miss.

Going All-In on Audio-Over-IP: How We Future-Proofed kronehit’s Broadcast Network

Running Austria's largest private radio station means living with the expectation of perfection. Every day, nearly a million listeners count on kronehit to deliver their soundtrack, whether via FM, DAB+, or digital streams. For us, "dead air" isn't just a technical term; it's a scenario we simply cannot afford. Our reputation and our audience's trust depend on seamless, round-the-clock operation. This is the story of why we took the leap to IP-based infrastructure, how we executed the migration without a single second of downtime, and what we learned along the way.

From Prestige to Performance: Rebuilding Streaming’s Monetization for Scalable Growth

In the broadcast era where there were high enough fill rates, RPMs and CPMs converged. In today's day and age where streaming platforms face significant unfilled inventory, this is no longer the case and focusing on just CPM leaves substantial revenue untapped.