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Broadcast and digital must work together to deliver the high-performance outcomes advertisers want, and in 2019 they are becoming more closely aligned. We will see better advertising ROI as a result. The most mature advertisers are experimenting with ways to make cross-platform measurement a reality. Meanwhile, improvements to the advertising process include automated planning and the use of machine learning to see where you can reallocate ad spend, in-flight, to maximise response. There is more work to link TV ad exposure to brand outcomes. Audience-level data underpins targeting and so helps expand reach or increase frequency into specific audience segments.

Imagen's Chief Technology Officer, Tim Jobling, discusses the challenges that broadcasters face when it comes to storing and accessing archive footage - a problem that is only growing with time as more and more content is produced.

The vision for what makes a next-generation, truly compelling TV service is becoming clearer. To the surprise of many – and to the anxiety of some – Google is central to this vision, largely thanks to its Android TV Operator Tier open source OS for set-top boxes. Here are some of the benefits that underpin the rapid growth in Android TV usage among Pay TV operators, and examples of ‘lighthouse’ deployments.

After some trial and error from broadcasters, the market stabilised on a price premium of approximately 20% for HD content over SD. Does the format of content still influence its value and what is the potential premium for UHD? On discs, UHD carries a 50% premium over Blu-ray and 6 million Netflix homes take a top-tier package to access UHD. But Apple is doing its own thing, introducing single pricing for HD and UHD. Pessimists see this destroying the value of UHD while optimists believe it will make UHD the new gold standard.

Research shows consumers are still using their TV sets, but accessing content via different platforms, and this is creating new opportunities. Google and Facebook are embracing the premium format with their own take on TV services. Even Snapchat is expanding its offering by producing original docu-series content. Connected TV is breathing new life into the viewing experience and that is good news for advertisers hungry for reach. There are new possibilities for creativity, including sequential stories as viewers move from TV to mobile. But connected TV is an interlinked landscape and marketers must be careful to avoid silos.

It became clear from this year’s EBU Production Technology Seminar (EBU PTS 2019) in Geneva that broadcasters are slowly adopting AI technology in their day-to-day operations. Several broadcasters presented their experiences with AI, but it was clear that not everyone is aware of the added value artificial intelligence delivers. This article explores four different areas where AI can benefit broadcasters: producing content, improving content accessibility, enabling advanced advertising opportunities and improving viewing experiences.

Five ways to use location data Location data helps studios and content owners meet geographic rights requirements that carry punishing penalties for breaches. IP address translation services, which show where a device is, do not have the pinpoint accuracy of GPS but can achieve almost the same results for service providers or operators, who may well be working at country or city level. IP address translation delivers other benefits including controlling service access, so consumers do not waste time signing up to something they are not entitled to receive. It means you can stop showing them content in a catalogue that is off limits where they live. It can also be used to present local offers.

The success of AR in television will stem from augmenting main-screen video with additional metadata and video information, which can be displayed in AR either in a headset or through a second screen experience. One exciting use-case is sports, since fans love data and that data is readily available. Some sports are especially well suited for AR, if they are dispersed over a large area, like in a motor race. It is impossible to view the entire action at once, so being able to choose additional information or viewpoints is a real consumer value-add.

Consumers have unlimited content choice but may reach a point when they have had enough of fragmentation across multiple streaming services. There must be some re-bundling. Key responsibilities for a Pay TV super-aggregator include low-touch onboarding of new content and providing a bridge between content silos. They must provide an elegant, data-driven approach to personalised content discovery.

The TV industry is once again seeking new codecs to boost video compression efficiency. A successor to HEVC is under active development: VVC (Versatile Video Coding). This standard is due for completion in October 2020 and is likely be approved as H.266 (VVC), but the licensing model is currently unclear. Meanwhile, AV1 is regarded as the natural successor to VP9, though questions remain over adoption beyond the largest SVOD providers.