Sneak Preview: Match Game: AI, Ad Tech, and Contextual Advertising

On Tuesday, Aug. 11, Revry's Alia J. Daniels, DCG's Crystal Foote, Servers.com' Bradley Lewington, and Sargeway's Sarge Sargent will join Dataxis' Ophélie Boucaud, Principal Analyst, Dataxis for the Streaming Media Connect panel "Match Game: AI, Ad Tech, and Contextual Advertising." This panel of ad tech and ad strategy experts provides a snapshot of the current and evolving state of contextual ad-targeting—one of the fastest-moving targets in the streaming and CTV industry.

NASA, Google, TiVo, Bally's, Wowza & TwelveLabs to Headline Streaming Media Connect with Must-See Series of Keynote Fireside Chats

On Tuesday, August 11, Streaming Media will launch 20th Streaming Media Connect virtual event with an exclusive fireside chat with NASA's GM & Head of NASA+ Rebecca Sirmons, back by popular demand! Each morning of the 3-day event will kick off at 11am ET/8am PT with back-to-back keynote fireside chats featuring a varied array of industry luminaries, including TwelveLabs' Simon Lecointe, Google's Shobana Radhakrishnan, Wowza's Krish Kumar, TiVo's Briana Larsen, and Bally's Media's Jon Lin.

What It Takes to Power World Cup Livestreams on a Massive Global Scale: A Q&A with Deltatre COO Gilles Mas

During the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Deltatre operated the broadcasting and streaming infrastructure for a number of major rights holders' World Cup platforms worldwide. In this Q&A, Gilles Mas, Chief Operating Officer at Deltatre, discusses the challenges and intricacies of pulling off this achievement and what this success means for the future of large-scale livestreamed events.

Are Sports Organizations So Busy Chasing New Fans that We're Forgetting the Ones We Already Have?

The sports industry has become increasingly focused on acquisition. We spend huge amounts of time discussing how to attract new fans, yet relatively little time discussing how to keep existing ones engaged. That's becoming a problem.

Sneak Preview: Find It Fast: Leveraging AI in CTV Discovery

On Thursday, Aug. 13, Dataxis Principal Analyst Ophélie Boucaud will moderate the Streaming Media Connect panel "Find It FAST: Leveraging AI in CTV Discovery," with panelists from TiVo, Gracenote, Hub, and Future Today. AI is transforming how viewers find content and the never-ending struggle for visibility in a saturated content ecosystem. This panel unpacks the recommendation engine architectures and real-time personalization pipelines that top streaming platforms and EPGs are using to surface the right content for the right user at the right moment and the increasing shift toward agent-assisted, conversational search.

Sneak Preview: The Retention Game: Managing Subscriber Acquisition and Churn

On Thursday, Aug. 13, Roku's Nicole Fencel, Philo's Steven Chang, Women in Streaming Media's Deepali Narsiker, and Horse & Country's David Guinan will join Chris Pfaff for the Streaming Media Connect panel "The Retention Game: Managing Subscriber Acquisition and Churn." Join this closing panel for a candid discussion on which subscriber acquisition and retention strategies work in 2026 and which ones fail to move the needle. Learn how leading streaming platforms are drawing on data science insights and leveraging personalization to turn one-show drop-ins into long-term, loyal subscribers.

The Next Battle in Sport Isn't Content. It's Context

The next battle in sports won't be fought over content libraries, streaming platforms or production workflows. Most organizations already have more content than they know what to do with. The real challenge is helping audiences navigate it. Helping them understand why a moment matters. Helping them discover stories worth following. Helping them connect with athletes, teams, and competitions in a meaningful way.

Comcast Secures Lock on UK Commercial TV

ITV is to sell its media and entertainment division, including its broadcast channels and ITVX streaming service, to Sky for £1.6 billion ($2.1bn), marking one of the most consequential restructurings in modern British broadcasting. The deal positions Sky, owned by Comcast, as the UK's largest commercial broadcaster and creates a new domestic heavyweight designed to compete more aggressively with global streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube.

Visualizing Verticalization at Scale: A Q&A with Ateliere's Flavius Goman on Ateliere Storyline

This Q&A with Ateliere president and COO Flavius Goman explores how Ateliere Storyline tackles high-volume content verticalization, including meeting the challenges of conscientious frame-cropping (especially for complex and high-action scenes), manual review, the story interpretation involved in compelling automated serialization, and how this technology might be used outside of a strictly entertainment context.

The Match Is No Longer the Beginning of the Journey

The sports industry spends a lot of time discussing how to attract younger audiences. Every conference seems to feature a panel on Gen Z viewing habits. Every strategy document contains a section on fan acquisition. Every rights holder, broadcaster, and streaming platform is searching for the next generation of supporters. Yet despite all this attention, I often feel we are asking the wrong question.

TiVo Channels Expands FAST Offering Across the U.S. and Europe with New Line-Up of Premium Content Partners and Channels

New curated selection brings expanded genres, global content, and leading media brands to audiences across North America and Europe

Serenading the Creator Economy With Branded Music Videos: A Q&A With VP of US Sales Melissa Sofo

In this Q&A, Vevo's Vice President of US Sales, Melissa Sofo, delves into how brands and artists are working together to increase audience participation through seamless authenticity and intelligent alignment with Gen Z and Millennials.

Philo Launches Pause Ads

New format launches across ad-supported channels with support from Magnite, Index Exchange & others, available via direct and programmatic activation

Vote in the 2026 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards are ready to roll. The polls are open! Let the voting begin!

What Fox Corp’s Acquisition of Roku Means for the Future of Independent Streaming: A Q&A with Future Today Co-Founder Vikrant Mathur

News broke this morning of Fox Corp's $22bn cash-and-stock acquisition of Roku. To gain more insight into how the Fox-Roku deal is likely to impact the future of independent streaming operators and ad-supported streaming in general, I conducted this Q&A with Future Today Co-Founder Vikrant Mathur.

Ungrounded LLM Fabricates Every Detail for Nearly 1 in 5 Movie and TV Titles Tested, New Gracenote Report Finds

Study underscores the need for authoritative content intelligence to build trusted search, discovery and recommendation experiences powered by generative AI

Elevating Content Verticalization With Emotion-Aware AI: A Q&A With Vionlabs' Arash Pendari

Vionlabs makes full content libraries "discoverable, engaging, and revenue-ready" using its "emotion-aware" AI. It's a company paying attention to the shift toward vertical and mobile-first viewing, including the micro-drama boom. Content creators that work with Vionlabs get the verticalization of long-form content into chapters and micro-episodes, preview clips for every title that can be used for social media and promotion, scene-level metadata that surfaces content to match viewers' moods, and non-intrusive ad breaks with contextual targeting. This Q&A with Vionlabs Founder Arash Pendari explores his thoughts on the use of AI in the streaming industry and how Vionlabs' platform works. 

Survey Says: Streaming Battling for Viewer Attention in a Fragmented Media Market

A new Accenture survey, "Reinvent for growth, the signals shaping media's next chapter" finds streaming slipping compared to social and gaming in battle for viewer eyeballs, and AI rising for production and post at diversified tech platforms.

Premium Live Event CTV Expansion Leads to Increases in Upfront Spending: A Q&A With JamLoop’s Jeff Fagel

A new survey by the performance-focused CTV advertising platform JamLoop has revealed a notable shift in marketing budget strategies toward premium live event CTV. Their survey of 120 brand and agency marketing leaders showed that perceptions of live event CTV have shifted toward performance capabilities, with an emphasis on accountability and measurable results.

Generative AI Got the Hype, Agentic AI Will Do the Heavy Lifting for Live Sports

The most important AI systems in sports may end up being the ones fans never see. Agentic AI is not flashy. Fans are unlikely to notice it directly. There will not be endless social posts about orchestration layers dynamically rerouting workflows or prioritizing distribution paths.