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Articles for Brandi Scardilli

Experts Talk Packaging and Selling Sports on FAST at Streaming Media Connect 2025

On Wednesday, May 21, at Streaming Media Connect, Ashling Digital Founder & CEO Michael Nagle moderated the panel "FAST Break: Packaging and Selling Sports on FAST." The panelists set out to answer these questions: What do FAST sports channels look like? What kind of sports programming works on FAST? How do successful FAST sports channels target audiences and satisfy advertisers at the same time?

Sneak Preview: Going, Going, Gone: Can Biddable Advertising Fix CTV’s Fill Rate Slump?

On Thursday, May 22, Chris Pfaff, CEO, Chris Pfaff Tech Media, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Going, Going, Gone: Can Biddable Advertising Fix CTV's Fill Rate Slump?" With FAST and CTV fill rates slipping throughout 2024 (except for a brief election bump), content owners and their partners are casting about for new and different ways to fill inventory. By clearing the way for advertisers to buy in just before show time rather than having to lock in their campaigns months in advance, so-called "real-time" biddable CTV opens up late-breaking, flexible opportunities to unload unclaimed inventory on an auction basis before it goes to waste. But as bidding on audiences reportedly surges for sports, is auction-based advertising really suitable for other premium content? Is it likely to change the way brands approach media-buying, or is it just another transitory trend?

Will Bundles and Indirect Sales Save Subscription-Based Streaming?

On Thursday, May 22, Alan Wolk, Co-Founder and Lead Analyst of TVREV, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Will Bundles and Indirect Sales Save Subscription-Based Streaming?" A recent Antenna State of Subscriptions report revealed that a streaming superbundle that finds Max cohabitating with Disney+ and Hulu scored an encouraging 80% subscriber retention rate in the first 3 months after activation. Paramount+, Apple TV+, and Amazon's Prime Video are also forming competitor alliances, and indirect subscription sales are on the rise. Are these arrangements becoming the secret to survival in a fatigued SVOD market? Are deeper reservoirs of content likely to slow churn in all cases, or are some catalogs more complementary than others? Who is leading the bundle boom, and who is profiting? Are Tier 2 services gaining a foothold in the superbundle subscription economy or being squeezed out?

Sneak Preview: Publishers Pay to Play Free: Next Steps in Ad-Based Streaming Monetization

On Thursday, May 22, Brian Ring, Principal Analyst, Ring Digital llc, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Publishers Pay to Play Free: Next Steps in Ad-Based Streaming Monetization." Increasingly, content publishers are finding they need more control over their ad stack. This panel looks beyond the touted monetization-ready feature sets in streaming playback solutions and drills down with key content providers on how well these solutions facilitate ad signaling and ad stitching and integrate with ad servers, discussing what kind of reporting they provide to measure success. The panel also highlights the differences in ad-based monetization strategies as between CTV platforms, online video players, and mobile apps. And finally, panelists dig deep into critical emerging standards that are changing SSAI this year.

Sneak Preview: FAST Break: Packaging and Selling Sports on FAST

On Wednesday, May 21, Michael Nagle of Ashling Digital, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "FAST Break: Packaging and Selling Sports on FAST" with Fubo's Pamela Duckworth, Swerve Sports' Christy Tanner, Sports Studio's Cathy Rasenberger, TATA's Tom Buffolano, and HRM's H. Robert Muzac. The panel will explore what FAST sports channels look like, what kind of sports programming works on FAST, and how successful FAST sports channels target audiences, and how they satisfy advertisers while breaking ranks with the industry trend of sports rights exclusivity.

Sneak Preview: Origin to Edge: Video Caching and Content Delivery

On Tuesday, May 20, Mark de Jong, Chairman, CDN Alliance, will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Origin to Edge: Video Caching and Content Delivery," with an all-star lineup including Warner Bros. Discovery, Sky, and BuyDRM discussing the benefits of edge caching and distributed architecture for live sports, personalization, security, anti-piracy, and more.

NBA, DAZN, Mtech, WTFast, Hub Will Talk Next-Gen Sports Streaming at Streaming Media Connect

On Thursday, May 22, the NBA's Michelle Auguste, DAZN's Joe Caporoso, MTech's Matt Stagg, and WTFast's Darcy Lorincz will join Hub's Jon Giegengack for the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Highlights First: Gen AI, Gen Z, and Next-Generation Sports Streaming." As a new generation of highlights-first fans moves into the sports fandom mainstream, sports broadcasters need the agility and tech-savviness to produce and monetize personalized, short-form sports content at scale that meets the experiential demands of Millennial and Gen Z fans. If you're a sports rightsholder and you're not gaming out how to bring a personalized SportsCenter to every viewer, you're looking at where the puck was and not where it's going.

In AI We Trust? AI and Content Authenticity

On Thursday, May 22, Nadine Krefetz will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "In AI We Trust? AI and Content Authenticity," featuring Think Alchemy's Andy Beach, I2A's Renard Jenkins, and Stringr's Lindsay Stewart. As generative AI is finding its way into streaming in many ways, this panel looks at two popular use cases: deep fakes and captioning. We'll discuss initiatives like C2PA to address emerging content authenticity issues and evaluate the current state of the art and tech.

How Contextual Targeting Impacts Programmatic and Indirect Sales

The buzz around contextual targeting is ramping up in the online advertising world, with the promise that it will solve issues surrounding privacy, transparency, and more. But where is its impact registering in the ad-supported streaming ecosystem? TVREV's Alan Wolk, Fremantle's Laura Florence, Philo's Aulden Kaye Yi, Roku's Charlie Goodman, and Vevo's Melissa Sofo offer their perspectives in a clip from the latest Streaming Media Connect 2025.

Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) and the Future of Streaming AdTech

On May 21, Streaming Media's Nadine Krefetz will moderate the Streaming Media Connect May panel "Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) and the Future of Streaming AdTech." SGAI arguably combines the advantages of CSAI and SSAI and allows for more targeted ads and better technical delivery, which is a boon to FAST and other AVOD platforms. Who is using SGAI now, how effectively are they implementing it, what can it do for you, and how likely is it to move into the ad-supported streaming mainstream?

Is Programmatic Still Problematic for Ad Addressability?

Historically, the prevailing assessment of programmatic advertising in the agency world has been that it doesn't provide the desired transparency in terms of where an ad ran or a clear picture of the audience the ad is addressing. Is this still a problem in the streaming ad ecosystem, or are these concerns overblown? Roku's Charlie Goodman, Philo's Aulden Kaye Yi, Vevo‘s Melissa Sofo, and TVREV's Alan Wolk discuss the answer to this question in a clip from the latest Streaming Media Connect.

Are Streaming RSNs and Local OTA Channels the Ticket for Local Sports Fans?

As live sports streaming rights continue to complicate the viewing experiences of fans who need to subscribe to more and more channels to watch the games they want to see, is making regional sports available through team-owned streaming networks and local OTA channels the best of both worlds? Or is this approach just another barrier to watching for out-of-region fans and a throwback to blackout rules? Tata Communications' Corey Smith, SVTA's Jason Thibeault, evision's Sunil Joy, and Omdia's Michael Frank debate the issue in a conversation from Streaming Media Connect 2025.

Are Premium Streaming Sports Rights Bets Paying Off?

Sports on TV and ads have always gone hand-in-hand. But what happens when streamers enter the picture and invest in premium sports rights? A half-decade ago, most premium streaming platforms thrived primarily on subscription revenue—but now, selling ads might be the only way to make sports streaming profitable, especially given the skyrocketing cost of premium sports licensing. DAZN's Joe Caporoso, SVTA's Jason Thibeault, Omdia's Michael Frank, and Tata Communications' Corey Smith weigh in during a winner-take-all debate from Streaming Media Connect 2025.

Implementing a New Codec in 2025: Key Factors to Consider

Transitioning to new codecs in the streaming industry is never an undertaking to be taken lightly, and bandwidth savings, encoding efficiency, and quality enhancements must be carefully considered and balanced against the challenges of ensuring playback capability for the broadest range of viewers who may be operating a motley assortment of legacy devices. Radiant Media Player's Arnaud Leyder and United Cloud's Boban Kasalovic offer their own deployment decision trees for implementing new codecs in this excerpt from a panel discussion with Streaming Learning Center's Jan Ozer at Streaming Media Connect 2025.

How Meta Deploys and Benchmarks AV1 on Android

In the benchmarking processes for Android platforms to assess their capabilities for decoding and playing streaming video codecs, the primary challenge is the fragmentation of Android specifications. Streaming Learning Center's Jan Ozer speaks to Meta's Hassene Tmar about his team's experience deploying, ramping up reach, and contending with device diversity when delivering AV1 video to its vast array of Android customers. Tmar explains the exhaustive benchmarking work the team members did to test compatibility and how they came to develop their own benchmarking solution in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2025.