Free Streaming and Sports

The second half of 2023 saw the launch of numerous premium brands and the rise of exclusive deals. What has happened in the FAST sports landscape since then? Let's find out.

Could Multicast ABR Really Have Saved the Paul/Tyson Fight?

When Netflix streamed the Paul/Tyson fight to a record-breaking 65 million simultaneous viewers, it wasn't all smooth sailing. Many viewers were left frustrated by buffering, freezes, and audio-sync issues. Like many other vendors, Broadpeak, a major player in streaming technology, claimed its multicast ABR (mABR) technology would have "knocked out video freezes" during the broadcast. It's a tantalizing promise, but could mABR realistically have delivered it? To understand, let's look at what mABR is, what's required to make it work, and why its widespread adoption is more complicated than Broadpeak might have you believe.

Brightcove Sold for $233m, Akamai Swoops in for Edgio, and Harmonic Raises For Sale Sign

Brightcove, the Technical Emmy-winning video platform vendor, has been sold to app developer Bending Spoons for $233 million. After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September select assets of CDN Edgio were picked up by Akamai last week. And a company with a "for sale" sign to watch is Harmonic.

Live Sports in the Streaming Era: What’s Changing and Why It Matters

Samba TV's recently released report, Live Sports on Streaming Platforms, provides five key sets of data points to help advertisers and sports leagues better target their audiences both during and after live sporting events. The report begins with insights into web-only sporting events, revealing audience numbers for the most-watched and least-watched games on platforms like Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

Gracenote Resources Provide New Insights into State of Streaming Content

Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has launched a new Data Hub providing insight into the current state of SVOD programming to identify global content trends and changes over time. Tapping Gracenote Global Video Data, the industry's most comprehensive database of TV show and movie information, the data visualization graphically illustrates the current makeup of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Paramount+ content catalogs to provide visibility into the programming that's keeping viewers engaged today. In this article, Trent Wheeler, Chief Product Officer of Gracenote, provides further insights about the benefits of the new Data Hub.

Comcast Cuts Cord as Deckchairs Shift Again

Comcast has cut the cord from its own cable networks, the first major studio to sign away its linear TV assets for a future almost entirely based on streaming. The move has been widely viewed as bold and inevitable but positive by analysts who believe that Comcast will be better placed for growth after the split from the cable networks, which have seen audiences decline.

Great New Gear: Cameras, Capture, and Connectivity - MVD Demo From Streaming Media Connect

Producing exceptionally engaging live streams requires robust, high-quality products throughout your workflow. The visual quality of your stream starts with the camera and must be maintained throughout the production process. At Streaming Media Connect, Ryan Brenneman, CTO, Mobile Video Devices, featured live demos of three of the latest and greatest solutions from Telycam, Magewell, and Miri Technologies.

Tyson-Paul: A Black Eye for Netflix and Live Sports Streaming?

If the majority of Tyson-Paul viewers tuned in to see the notoriously erratic Mike Tyson in another train wreck, they got exactly what they came to see. Except it was a different sort of train wreck: VOD champ Netflix failing spectacularly to pull off a massive live event, with widespread and widely reported buffering and outages denying tens of thousands of subscribers their guaranteed ringside seat.

ICYMI: Streaming Media Connect November 2024

Streaming Media presented its 15th Connect virtual conference November 12-14, 2024, with Media Industry Cartographer & CEO ESHAP Evan Shapiro and Streaming Media Editor-in-Chief Steve Nathans-Kelly as hosts and MCs, and featuring speakers from Microsoft, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Vevo, Philo, and more, and session topics ranging from streaming monetization to FAST strategy to OTT bundling to cloud streaming OpEx and live streaming at scale.

Cloud Streaming Experts Talk Live Broadcast Workflow Challenges at Streaming Media Connect 2024

On Tuesday, November 12, at Streaming Media Connect, streaming industry consultant Nadine Krefetz moderated the panel "Cloudsplitting: Tackling Common Cloud Live Broadcast Workflow Challenges." The group of experts from AWS, TV 2 Danmark, Alibaba Cloud, and Console Connect discussed actionable insights on refining and streamlining your scalable cloud live-streaming workflows and jumping and dodging the hurdles that threaten to break your stride.

Sneak Preview: Cutting Streaming Delivery Costs With AI

On Wednesday, November 13, streaming industry consultant Nadine Krefetz will moderate the panel "Cutting Streaming Delivery Costs With AI." AI is making inroads into streaming workflows and experiences at nearly every stage, from ingest all the way through discoverability. This panel explores how AI promises to streamline and reduce investments on the processing and delivery end through time-efficient, cost-efficient encoding tools that minimize buffering, fine-tune image quality, and enable workflow optimization. This panel explores how AI is currently impacting streaming delivery and playback experiences, how we can expect its role to continue to evolve over time, and how you can leverage AI's benefits in the streams you deliver. Confirmed panelists include leading industry figures from Microsoft, Netflix, and more.

Krafty Entertainment Acquires 17.5% Equity Stake in Sports First TV

Krafty Entertainment has acquired a minority equity stake in Sports First TV, the world's first global sports news TV channel. Sports First TV, which launched in March on FAST platforms in North America, was founded by Frank Brown, the former CEO of Viacom International Media/MTV Networks, where he served for 11 years. The channel is based in Sydney, Australia.

Sneak Preview: Cloudsplitting - Tackling Common Cloud Live Broadcast Workflow Challenges

On Tuesday, November 12, streaming industry consultant Nadine Krefetz will moderate the panel "Cloudsplitting: Tackling Common Cloud Live Broadcast Workflow Challenges." Some elements of streaming workflows and architecture may always stay on-prem. However, the cloud affords streaming pros opportunities for scaling and cost-cutting that make the lure of cloud workflows too powerful to resist for most live streamers intent on managing large and unpredictable audiences, improving QoE, increasing ROI, and satisfying brands. The panel of experts from AWS, TV 2 Danmark, Alibaba Cloud, and Console Connect will discuss actionable insights on refining and streamlining your scalable cloud live-streaming workflows and jump and dodge the hurdles that threaten to break your stride.

Sneak Preview: Engage and Grow - How to Succeed With Interactive Live Streaming

On Tuesday, November 12, Brian Ring, Principal Analyst, Ring Digital, will moderate the panel "Engage and Grow: How to Succeed With Interactive Live Streaming." The growth of highly interactive streaming genres such as gaming, auctions, and sports betting has put pressure on networks while increasing the need to integrate interactivity and heightened engagement into more traditional methods of content delivery. With the challenges organizations face to ensure that their users have the smoothest and most dynamic interactive streaming experiences, and the additional investment in delivery infrastructure required as those experiences scale, how can streamers deliver ROI from interactive streaming every time? Confirmed panelists include industry experts from Bulldog DM, Parks Associates, Play Anywhere, and Fox.

Survey Says: Captions On From Hearing to Comprehension

Ring Digital's latest FutureOfTV.Live quarterly report included revealing survey data on the state of live captioning in the TV and streaming ecosystem. We'll delve into the questions we asked and the survey's findings here.

Take Streaming Media's Interactive Ultra-Low-Latency & Live Streaming Trends Survey

New survey gauges the impact of (and planning for) hardware acceleration

NAB New York: Advanced Streaming and FAST Revenue Strategies for Local TV

How can broadcasters go beyond antiquated methods to provide fresh chances for profit on their FAST and AVOD channels? Beyond programmatic, where are the income opportunities and how can they be realized? Which vendors are interacting with marketers on streaming the most successfully, and why are they doing so? Leading industry professionals from NBCUniversal Local, CBS News, Scripps, and The Weather Company debated these topics on a panel at NAB New York.

Connatix and JW Player Merge To Create the Industry’s Largest Video Technology and Monetization Platform

Advanced offering brings unparalleled monetization and streaming capabilities across CTV and OLV for broadcasters, publishers, and advertisers

To Cloud, or Not to Cloud? A Live Streaming Producer's Dilemma

Maybe we've been looking at "the cloud" all wrong. It doesn't have to be some 3rd party place we push all our live streaming production elements to. Let's start looking at the production space right in front of us as "the cloud" and see what opportunities that opens up. What do you think?

Fandom Study Finds 80% of Consumers Rank TV, Movies & Video Games Higher Than Music & Sports as Leisure Time Activities

In an increasingly busy world, consumers flock to entertainment and gaming over other interests including music, food and cooking, sports, and travel. A new study from Fandom, The Power of Me Time, explores the reasons behind this trend through three key factors - Dominant Passion Points, Emotional Impact, and Engagement - while also highlighting what these insights mean for brands and marketers.