Analysis

Connected TV World Summit opens its digital doors on Wednesday and Thursday and there is still time to register for the free streams. Themes include super-aggregation, better blending of linear with on-demand, the future of content distribution, successful deployment of next-generation TV platforms into multiple territories, and the growing connected TV opportunity for platforms, content owners and advertisers.

It has been a tumultuous year for media. The challenges have included getting television and advertising content produced with social restrictions, understanding consumer sentiment and delivering appropriate advertising when the world is changing every day, and all while introducing entirely new workflows and working practices across the board. Our industry leaders deserve some recognition for dealing with years of structural change in the space of weeks. The newly launched Media Leaders Awards will put them in the spotlight.

Planet V is programmatic, on our terms. So says ITV as it emphasises the need for broadcaster control and the avoidance of programmatic value-chain payment extraction as a pre-requisite for a more digital world. The end-to-end planning, buying and reporting platform for ITV Hub is now live as a fully self-serve solution. More than one premium publisher is confirmed to join the platform in 2021.

Comscore has partnered with Samba TV to harness ACR-based viewing insights from Smart TVs to demonstrate ad exposure and match that against business outcomes like purchase behaviour. The deal applies to Europe and is part of an ambition to boost TV measurement and analytics globally. The companies claim their measurement capabilities are unmatched and that the partnership is a game-changer for global marketers.

Revry is the born-digital LGBTQ-focused streaming provider that started life in SVOD and AVOD, launched one streaming linear channel and is now dramatically expanding its linear/live offer in an attempt to become the first ‘niche’ SVOD to become a multichannel ‘broadcaster’ operating purely in the digital realm. Linear TV is the preferred means to specialise programming output within what is already an audience sub-segment, in a bid to super-serve a diverse community.

Synamedia and AWS have been explaining why they believe the Pay TV industry is at an inflection point, in need of an updated UX that includes blended OTT and broadcast services, plus a new business footing with a permanently lower cost base. On a recent webcast, they explained how a unified cloud TV platform helps achieve these objectives as part of a transformation that begins with the elimination of service, network and screen based operations siloes.

To complement Videoscape Europe – the thought-leadership conference focused on BVOD, AVOD, SVOD, D2C and vPay TV, and the latest instalment in the Mediatel digital events and content series – Steven Scaffardi speaks to five television industry experts to discuss how media companies can triumph in the fast-moving, premium video streaming marketplace.

The production and distribution giant has massively boosted earnings for some catalogue titles by going direct-to-consumer rather than using late-window broadcast deals. And it turns out that linear works just fine in the streaming environment. Insight TV joined Endemol Shine to share their experiences working with Samsung TV Plus with free, ad-supported content via a channel guide.

The broadcast channel group has a German streaming joint venture with ProSiebenSat.1 and a forthcoming platform that will combine Discovery and Polsat content for Poland and international markets. In Sweden and Finland, Discovery’s Dplay service will soon include TV4 and C More content following an OTT licensing deal with Telia. Winradit Kolasastraseni, GM at Dplay, has told Videoscape Europe about his vision for a Hulu-like aggregation role.

The virtual thought-leadership conference on June 11, which is streamed to the industry free, has senior speakers from Warner Media, Dplay, Tele2, KPN, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Pluto TV Europe, Network 10, Publitalia '80, EBU/DVB, RTL AdConnect, Crunchyroll, CBC, Endemol Shine Group, all3media International, Insight TV, Samsung Ads Europe, Marquee TV, and Streaming Video Alliance among others.