How to Monitor Live Streams for Optimal Ad Server Performance

From an observability standpoint and eyes on glass, what are the key metrics to watch to determine if ad insertion is going smoothly during a live stream? Altitude TV's Dave Zur, Sargeway LLC's Sarge Sargent, Qualabs' David Hassoun, and FanServ's C.J. Leonard discuss challenges and best practices for monitoring live streaming ad performance in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Leveraging SGAI for Longtail Live Sports

With sports that aren't orchestrated for built-in TV ad breaks and a traditional broadcast run of show, SGAI provides critical advantages for monetizing sports content without pulling fans out of the action and causing them to miss key moments in the game. FloSports Product Manager, Ad Tech Adair Lyden explains these and other reasons why FloSports is embracing server-guided ad insertion (SGAI) as a good fit for their content and programming model and provides an early look at how it's working for them in this conversation with RingDigital's Brian Ring at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

AI-Enriched Metadata Drives Better CTV Content Discovery

Why are streaming services, channels, and platforms across the CTV and OTT ecosystems turning to AI/ML-enhanced metadata to remove the friction from CTV content discovery and improve user experiences? Cineverse's Tony Huidor and SUMM8's Jamie Mackinlay discuss how AI-enriched metadata and natural language interfaces are enhancing and transforming discovery and bringing users closer to the content they want to watch in this discussion with Integration Therapy's Rebecca Avery at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Why to Invest in Lowering Sports Streaming Latency in 2026

The knock against streaming for live sports has always been higher latency than broadcast, and the agony of hearing your cable-watching neighbor cheer a goal before it happens on your screen. One could argue that live-streamed sports aren't really live in this scenario. But given the costs and challenges of lowering latency, is it really worth the investment, or should sports streamers be prioritizing other engineering challenges or elements of the fan experience? MTech Sport's Matt Stagg, DAZN's James Pearce, BT Group's Ian Parr, and TATA Communications' Corey Smith discuss the current business case for lowering sports streaming latency at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

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.