The Netflix Culture Memo and Diversity in the Digital Age

Praised at the time for focusing on "values and performance over rules and controls," Netflix's initial 2009 "Culture Memo" had a sizeable impact on the streaming behemoth's internal culture and across the industry as well, but it had some significant blind spots, virtually ignoring diversity and inclusion through multiple iterations over its first decade, as former Netflix Global Education Manager Lori Greene recounts in this clip from Streaming Media NYC. Weber Shandwick Chief DEI Officer Judith Harrison affirms that the Netflix Culture Memo's glaring omissions reflect a broader myopia across the media and entertainment industry, where notions of "cultural fit" that drive employment decisions rarely account for what a candidate might add to the culture of an organization. Greene, Harrison, and McCann DEI Chief Singleton Beato discuss these and other issues surrounding what the FCC defined in 2004 as "Diversity and Communications in the Digital Age" and our progress toward equity or lack thereof.

What DEI Means in the Streaming Industry

One essential step toward bringing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to a new level in streaming, when it comes not just to opportunity but to transforming workplace culture, hiring, promotion, conditions, and compensation, is defining terms. This, in turn, means reaching a better understanding of what DEI means and whose job it is to recognize disparities and work to remedy them. (Spoiler alert: It's everyone's.) In this candid and revealing clip from Streaming Media NYC, two Global Chief DEI Officers—McCann Worldgroup's Singleton Beato and Weber Shandwick's Judith Harrison—along with ThinqShift Talent Champion Jennifer Randolph and LPG edu CEO Lori Greene discuss what DEI means today and how a deeper understanding of it can provide a working blueprint for action.

Client-Side vs. Server-Side Ad Insertion: Which is Winning in 2024 and Why

Client-side or server-side? Ask 5 streaming adtech experts and you'll get 6 opinions. Streaming Media's Nadine Krefetz asks execs from Roku, Paramount, JWP, Akamai, and Infinitive which they prefer and why in this clip from Streaming Media NYC. Tune in and watch the feathers fly.

Are FAST Bets Paying Off for Independent Streamers?

Now that FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) has arguably moved past the "landgrab for distribution" phase and matured well beyond its initial preponderance of legacy content, are independent streamers' investments in FAST proving worthwhile? Execs from Crackle, Tastemade, and DangerTV—all members of the Independent Streaming Alliance (ISA)—discuss the challenges overcome and the challenges ahead in this discussion with Streaming Made Easy's Marion Ranchet at Streaming Media NYC.

FAST, Data, and Tracking Diverse Audiences

Given that traditional media measurement companies have always underrepresented diverse audiences, minority-owned content companies targeting multicultural audiences face unique challenges in tracking those audiences and leveraging the data to monetize their channels, as Publicis Media EVP Cultural Investment & Innovation Stephen Paez explains in this candid discussion with media universe cartographer Evan Shapiro at Streaming Media NYC.

How Streamers Can Help Advertisers Deliver the Right Creative

The USP of advertising on streaming platforms has always been the heightened opportunity to deliver the right ads to the right users with a specificity inaccessible to traditional TV advertising's monochromatic broad brush. But delivering on that promise remains a work in progress. PepsiCo Head of Media Strategy & Investment Katie Haniffy discusses specific ways streamers can work more effectively with advertisers to help them match the creative to consumer and ensure their ads convert in this interview with OMD U.S. Head of Video Investment & Activation Suzanne Irving at Streaming Media NYC.

How DAZN Leans Into the Curves of Consumer Engagement

Delivering premium content to broad audiences means acclimating to the viewing habits of different consumer demographics, which can make serving younger viewers with typically longform content like live sports challenging for sports streamers like DAZN. In this clip from Streaming Media NYC 2024, DAZN Global CRO and President USA Walker Jacobs discusses the engagement curves of social and CTV viewers and how DAZN has learned to lean into them.

Are CTV Platforms Like Google TV Creating a New Entertainment Sector?

CTV platforms like Google TV are filling the void as traditional cable systems recede from their former ubiquity, and arguably creating an entirely new category of content distributor, contends Google TV Product Manager UX Rob Caruso in this fireside chat with Media Universe Cartographer Evan Shapiro at Streaming Media NYC. Shapiro even coins a new term for this new entertainment sector: ‘Collabregator.'

Follow the Data or Stay on Brand? A DEI-Focused Digital Strategist’s Dilemma

Striking a balance between responding to what data tells you about your fan base's desires and staying true to your brand identity is a constant issue for digital strategists, in the FAST world as much as any other part of the media ecosystem. It can be especially difficult for a company like Fuse Media, with its stated mission of telling positive stories for diverse audiences, when the analytics say "more true crime" or "be more like TMZ." Fuse Media VP, Digital Strategy Rashaun Hall explains how he walks this tightrope in this discussion with Media Cartographer Evan Shapiro at Streaming Media NYC.

Securing Streams: What Are We Trying to Protect?

Few streaming stakeholders, from entertainment to enterprise, would deny that stream security and anti-piracy matter, but what are we really protecting when we apply DRM or other methods to curb the inappropriate appropriations of streaming content? Are we protecting user experiences? Profitability? Proprietary content? An international panel of industry experts from Synamedia, EZDRM, Vindral, United Cloud, and Help Me Stream weigh in on this critical question in this clip from Streaming Media NYC 2024.

How DAZN Monetizes Premium Live Sports Streams

Even as a leading global disruptor in premium sports rights acquisition and content delivery, DAZN must contend with the practical realities of serving customers in a broader sports streaming marketplace, and advertising and monetization strategy is inevitably more complicated than placing 15s and 30s and positioning branded integrations and the like, says DAZN Global CRO and President USA Walker Jacobs. Customization, fanbase-building, and more factor into the monetization equation, as Jacobs tells Reality Software's Nadine Krefetz in this candid fireside chat from Streaming Media NYC 2024.

Are Streaming Workflows Going 100% Cloud?

Cloud streaming workflows and infrastructure seemed like the wave of the future 5 years ago, due to the rapid growth of cloud technology, their evident advantages in scalability, and economies of scale, and accelerated adoption during the height of the pandemic. Today, streaming's cloudward progression seems like all but a foregone conclusion-though opinions vary on whether that hypothesis holds for certain live and VOD workflows, as well as productions with essential on-prem components-as this discussion involving key cloud practitioners from Endeavor Streaming, Grabyo, TMT Insights, and LiveX at Streaming Media NYC reveals.

PepsiCo’s Take on the Future of CTV Advertising

Looking ahead to the future of CTV, PepsiCo Head of Media Strategy & Investment Katie Haniffy sees shoppable advertising, investing more in live events on streaming platforms, and maintaining cultural relevance as key elements of new initiatives to leverage the emerging possibilities of CTV advertising and build fan bases, as she explains in this clip from her fireside chat with OMD U.S. Head of Video Investment & Activation Suzanne Irving at Streaming Media NYC.

How Google Leverages First-Party and Partner Data to Improve Consumer Experiences

For "data machines" like Google, the problem is never having too little customer data—it's all about managing the data overload to pinpoint the right data to leverage to build customized, targeted, personalized experiences that satisfy users and keep them engaged. Increasingly, according to Google TV Product Manager UX Rob Caruso in this interview with Media Universe Cartographer Evan Shapiro at Streaming Media NYC, it's working with partners to identify the right mix of first-party and partner data to take personalization to the next level.

SMNYC 2024: Adeia's Serhad Doken Talks Big-Picture Tech Stack Sustainability

Streaming Media's Tim Siglin interviews Adeia's Serhad Doken at Streaming Media NYC. Doken discusses the company's focus on inventing solutions for future industry problems. These inventions could lead to new products, markets, and services over the next five to ten years. He also emphasizes the importance of sustainability and the need to consider it from a broader perspective rather than focusing on small silos, and he highlights the complexity of the media ecosystem and the interconnectedness of its various parts.

SMNYC 2024: United Cloud's Boban Kasalovic Talks End-to-End Streaming and Content Security

Streaming Media's Tim Siglin interviews United Cloud's Boban Kasalovic at Streaming Media NYC. Kasalovic discusses United Cloud's development of an end-to-end streaming solution and an anti-piracy platform called Gladiator. The platform uses machine learning and AI to analyze data and identify critical behavior that could lead to piracy. The company has also implemented Widevine CAS for its hybrid solution.

SMNYC 2024: Fremantle's Laura Florence Talks FAST Gamification and Beat the BUZZR

Streaming Media's Tim Siglin interviews Fremantle's Laura Florence at Streaming Media NYC. She discusses how Fremantle seeks to engage audiences with older content by incorporating interactive elements, such as trivia and fun facts, into the viewing experience, allowing users to interact with the content through a mobile app. She also discusses the use of restorative AI to improve the quality of older content shot on tape for modern viewing platforms.

SMNYC 2024: Netflix Engineer Sujana Sooreddy Talks Sustainability, Mentorship, and Women in Streaming Media

Streaming Media contributing editor Tim Siglin interviews Netflix engineer Sujana Sooreddy at Streaming Media NYC 2024. She discusses the challenges of encoding and transcoding content for different formats and devices, and she highlights the importance of using data analytics to understand compute usage and viewability of a particular stream. She also talks about the increasing number of women in the field and the value of mentorship within the community.

SMNYC 2024: Synamedia's Robin Oakley Talks Stream Security and the Consumer Experience

Streaming Media's Tim Siglin interviews Synamedia's Robin Oakley at Streaming Media NYC 2024. He emphasizes the importance of a proactive approach to security and highlights the company's work with the common access token format, a CTA Wave initiative that aims to create a common CDN token syntax that can be used across multiple CDNs. He also touches on the challenges of protecting content while maintaining a quality experience for the consumer and the increasing sophistication of piracy.

SMNYC 2024: id3as CMO Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen Talks Norsk, Low-Code, No-Code & Streaming Media Past and Future

Streaming Media's Tim Siglin interviews Norsk CMO Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen at Streaming Media NYC 2024. Schumacher-Rasmussen is a former editor of Streaming Media and current Chief Marketing Officer of id3as, a UK-based software development startup. He introduces Norsk, a live media server with a low-code SDK that allows users to build complex, scalable, live streaming workflows. Rasmussen predicts a trend towards no-code solutions in the industry and emphasizes the importance of making streaming accessible to non-experts.