Radial Entertainment Formed by Oaktree Through Merger of Shout! Studios and FilmRise

The newly formed global entertainment company will operate FilmRise and Shout! Studios brands, leveraging the power of its combined best-in-class film & tv distribution, production, and streaming capabilities

Nominate Now for the 2025 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

What's your favorite streaming tool, tech, or service? What is the most important new innovation in the business in 2025? It's time to make your nominations for Streaming Media's 2025 Readers' Choice Awards, our annual industry awards program chosen by end users.

CTV Isn’t Just Another Screen—Why Brands Need a New Strategy for Shoppable Ads

The latest findings from BrightLine show that consumers are engaging with shoppable CTV ads differently and more intentionally—favoring rich, interactive formats like carousels and branded destinations. In this Q&A with Joshua Blum, Director of Research & Analytics at BrightLine, he delves into further detail about their recent findings and how platforms can adapt their shoppable TV experiences to adjust to these new behaviors.

DoubleVerify Uncovers ShadowBot Scheme Involving 35 Million Spoofed Mobile Devices

DV's Fraud Lab detected amateur-level fraudster mistakes behind a $2.5M fraud operation targeting CTV and mobile inventory

DIY Broadcast: How Underrepresented Sports Are Building Their Own Streaming Stacks

That's changing. With automated cameras, cloud production platforms, and AI-driven tools now capable of delivering the full suite of broadcast workflows—from live switching and graphics to clipping, highlights, and distribution—sports that once had no way to show themselves are building their own streaming stacks. They're not waiting to be picked up. They're going live—and taking control.

JustWatch Reveals Streaming Trends for LGBTQ+ Content in the UK During Pride Month

As Pride Month celebrations sweep across the UK, JustWatch - the world's largest streaming guide - has unveiled an annual analysis spotlighting the best streaming platforms for LGBTQ+ films and TV shows in the UK. This year's analysis showcases which services offer the richest selection of queer content, reveals the most-watched LGBTQ+ titles of the year, and examines how queer film and TV production has evolved over time.

Q&A: Celebrating Pride Month With Quickplay’s Paul Pastor 

Quickplay Co-Founder Paul Pastor has been using his platform as an out gay executive to advocate for more authentic and positive LGBTQ+ representation and inclusion in the tech world. In this Q&A, Pastor shares how he feels about the progress that's been made in LBTQ+ inclusion, why it's important to be your authentic self at work, what streaming media can do to engage in allyship, and how Quickplay is showing up for LGBTQ+ people, and more.

Netflix Makes Quietly Aggressive Aggregation Play

Netflix announced at Cannes Lions that it will distribute the channels and on-demand content of French commercial broadcaster TF1 to Netflix members in France, beginning next year. If successful, Netflix will have jumped a start on all its rivals who have so far resisted, or failed to entice, broadcasters anywhere to share their entire schedule and programme output with a third-party streaming platform.

DIRECTV and Lionsgate Team Up to Launch Lionsgate Collection

Unique and Proprietary Channel To Be Available Across All DIRECTV Satellite, Streaming and FAST Platforms

Twitch’s Dual-Layout Streaming: Technical Innovation or Industry Revolution?

As video producers, we all agree on one thing: we want to serve content in whatever format the viewer prefers. Until now, for live streaming in landscape or portrait, it's been a one-or-the-other proposition. That's changing. At TwitchCon Europe, amid the usual fanfare and cosplay, Twitch quietly announced a feature that could reshape the future of live streaming: dual-layout live streaming.

Warner Bros. Discovery Drops Linear Ballast to Float HBO Max

Having trailed the move a year ago, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) chief David Zaslav has followed through on plans to split the company in half. The company is to separate into Streaming & Studios (HBO) and Global Networks (TNT Sports, CNN, B/R, Discovery) by mid-2026 effectively undoing the $43 billion merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2022.

Cloud Production Is a Lie

I've noticed in Restream and other cloud streaming tools that when I have multiple people on, or when I'm playing back a video that exists on their server, my CPU load goes up. The conclusion is that these "low-end" cloud solutions push some processing back onto our computers. It's not all happening in the cloud. This is a direct contradiction to what we're led to think "in the cloud" means.

Merzigo and Fremantle Show Localization as a Fundamental Content Growth Strategy

Originating from Turkey, with bases in London and L.A., Merzigo has become a global business by helping content owners like Warner Bros. Discovery and Walt Disney maximize revenue from program distribution on YouTube and Facebook. It just inked a new deal with Fremantle which extends its reach further across North America, Europe and Asia.

Ad Supply Is Outstripping Demand, Says JWP Connatix

As streaming ad inventory continues to exceed demand, JWP Connatix co-founder Brian Rifkin sees an emerging buyer's market, with biddable CTV and context-driven monetization for live and VOD expected to define the next phase of programmatic advertising.

The Pros and Cons of Software Decoding for Publishers and Viewers

This article examines recent data on efficiency and power usage for hardware and software decoding and explores how this data shapes the value proposition for publishers opting for software decoding and viewers that wittingly, or unwittingly, watch services that deploy it. It concludes with two short surveys for publishers and consumers that ask for your perspective on and experience with software decoding. Be sure to take the surveys!

ICYMI: Streaming Media Connect May 2025

Streaming Media presented its 17th Connect virtual conference May 20-22, featuring speakers from Paramount, Meta, Google, NBA, Roku, Warner Bros. Discovery, AWS, Akamai, Fubo, DAZN, Fremantle, IAB, Philo, Estrella, Eluvio, nanocosmos, Cerberus, and more, and session topics ranging from and sports on FAST to biddable advertising to SGAI to AI in live streaming to MoQ and more.

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

On Wednesday, May 21, at Streaming Media Connect, Nadine Krefetz, Consultant, Reality Software, moderated the panel "Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) and the Future of Streaming AdTech," which explored how Server-guided ad insertion (SGAI) is now being used, how effectively it is being implemented, and how likely it is to move into the ad-supported streaming mainstream. The panelists were Sourya Roy, Senior Product Manager, Google, Jarred Wilichinsky, SVP Global Digital Ad Operations, Paramount, Katie Stroud, Senior Product Manager, Ad Experiences, IAB Tech Lab, and David Hassoun, Streaming Media Consultant, Muxed Consulting - ex-Dolby, RealEyes.

Addressing AI-Associated Authenticity Issues at Streaming Media Connect

On Thursday, May 22, at Streaming Media Connect, Nadine Krefetz, Consultant, Reality Software, moderated the panel "In AI We Trust? AI and Content Authenticity," which looked at how being assured of content validity is more important now than ever before in a world of AI-created synthetic content and deepfakes. The panelists were Andy Beach, Media & AI Strategist, Alchemy Creations, and Conference Chair, Streaming Media 2025; Renard Jenkins, President and CEO, I2A2 Technologies, Studios & Labs; Lindsay Stewart, CEO and Founder, Stringr; and Manny Ahmed, Founder and CEO, OpenOrigins. 

Samsung Ads’ Travis Howe Discusses Their NewFronts 2025 Announcements: Interactive Ad Formats, the Samsung Television Network, and Full-Funnel Performance Solutions

At IAB NewFronts 2025, Samsung Ads kicked off a suite of announcements, including the debut of STN, the Samsung Television Network, along with unveiling a bold lineup of interactive and innovative, data-driven solutions, including Optimal Reach, GameBreaks, Performance Conversion, and Data+. In this Q&A, Travis Howe, Global Head of New Product Solutions, discusses the details of these new offerings and how they will uniquely benefit advertisers and viewers.

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?