As Disney, WarnerMedia, Apple, and NBCUniversal prepare to launch direct-to-consumer (DTC) services—joining existing ventures like ESPN+, CBS All Access, and DC Universe—will existing SVOD and live-linear services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime be able to compete? Or will the DTC offerings falter against the incumbents? This session examines the pros and cons of DTC services and evaluates the likelihood of success in the crowded OTT landscape.

As online video services and, increasingly, cable and broadcast operators work to build competitive streaming offers, understanding consumer interests is key: What content do they want to watch? What features are important? What devices do they use? How much are they willing to pay? And how do these behaviors and priorities vary by consumer segment? This session explores findings from Altman Vilandrie & Co.’s annual consumer video survey, including consumer preferences for specific programs, interest in live news and sports, monetizing OTT, and other areas of critical importance to our industry. It includes a panel discussion featuring top executives from the TV industry.

What do you want to do with your data? For too long, data has been framed as a means to some end—collect data, compute analytics, interpret, then react. Today, we propose a new mentality: data as an end in itself. Join our panel as we dive deep into the questions video distributors need to ask in order to build a real-time feedback loop to guide their distribution strategies: How does data latency influence its usefulness? How can normalized data unite disjointed datasets and systems? What are some examples of automated processes already employed by companies today, and what kind of data infrastructure will it take to develop more automated processes within the video technology stack going forward?

The joint BBC/ITV venture BritBox appeals to Anglophiles in the U.S. and Canada with a deep catalog of British television content. In this case study, BritBox shares the secrets of its success, including achieving the right size for profitability and meaningful reach, building strong brand identity and a sense of community, careful curation, and using sophisticated discovery algorithms to keep viewers tuned in and prevent churn.

Get up-to-speed on the latest OTT platforms and enabling technologies. Details announced soon!

Since nearly the beginning of television broadcast, the linear dynamic ad insertion (DAI) business model has remained fairly unchanged. This ad sales model is an inefficient and operationally expensive process, with many manual steps and room for mistakes. The quickly transitioning OTT ad insertion model is fully targeted, happens dynamically at the time of viewership and can be measured directly and accurately. So, why aren’t we seeing faster adoption of the new OTT dynamic ad insertion model in the video space, and why are people hanging on to the linear broadcast model?

Derek Gebler, vice president of broadcast and video at TownNews, and Susan Bell, senior product manager, share lessons learned and best practices gained from years of real-world local news OTT experience. (Fun fact: Susan was part of the team that launched the very first independent local media app—WWSB—on Roku and Amazon.) Learn how to design and deliver high-performance OTT content, present it in a way that’s easy for your users to navigate and consume, measure the performance of your channels, and develop a business model that drives real ROI from your OTT outlets.

Server-side ad insertion (SSAI) is a pivotal technology that unifies ad serving in broadcast and digital, as well as offers greater targeting capabilities. It makes OTT feel more like TV, it combats ad blockers, and it allows engineering to create a standardized server-side architecture to replace the older, unique client-side architecture used for each and every endpoint. A number of challenges exist, from measuring audience surges to aggregating reporting across all devices. This panel reports from the SSAI trenches, discussing these issues as well as exactly what you need to know about using SSAI to successfully deliver personalized advertisement at scale.

Even companies that are not yet actively operating on a microservices architecture are looking for vendors who at least have a strategy to cater to it for the future. This session examines the core benefits (including redundancy, dev ops, scalability, and self-healing), the different approaches (including containerization and orchestration via Docker, Kubernetes, and Mesos, as well as native microservices models like Erlang), and the complexities of migrating a generic architecture to a microservices architecture.

The growth of OTT has created opportunities for distributors and marketers seeking to extend their audience reach. What do we know about OTT audiences and the various ways consumers are connecting with the content across platforms and devices? In this session, Marissa McArdle, VP of Product Leadership at Nielsen will share data on OTT viewing patterns and discuss recent advancements in cross-platform ad measurement that has given brands new insights into connecting audiences beyond the screen.