Amagi's Brian Ring Talks FAST, CTV, and the State of Streaming
In this interview at Streaming Media West 2022, Brian Ring, Senior Director, News & Sports Solutions, Amagi, sits down with Founding Executive Director, Help Me Stream Research Foundation, and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media to chat about what Amagi does, along a discussion about the ongoing growth of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) and what that means for the future of the streaming industry.
“Brian, tell me a little bit about Amagi,” Siglin says.
“Amagi is a leader in online linear streaming, or what we call FAST,” Ring says. “This is linear streams delivered primarily to CTV platforms like Roku, Vizio, Samsung TV Plus. The company's history, however, its core growth business, is in master control channel playout in the cloud. So we're really the first cloud-born master control that is now broadcast engineering grade.”
“I don't know if you were in the research keynote session we did yesterday," Siglin says, "But one of the questions we asked in the State of Streaming Survey for Autumn 2022 for the first time was: what types of devices do people deliver to, battery-powered, or mains powered? So connected TVs and like that. What was interesting was some companies will say, ‘I do primarily mobile devices.’ Others will say, ‘I do primarily connected devices.’ It turns out on average in the industry, [it’s] 44% battery-powered devices, 56% connected TV sets, top boxes, etc. So clearly, you're moving in the majority direction, which is good.”
“It's an interesting frame,” Ring says. “I had not heard it like that, but yes, I believe the TV is in part a big gadget that sits on the living room wall. And it deletes a lot of energy to deliver those bright pixels that keep us engaged. So I do see that. I mean, people say video is video -- sort of kind of but living room wall video is a little different and I think one of the reasons we're seeing such a great uptake of online streaming linear channels.”
Siglin says, “So you've been around the industry for quite some time. What trends are you seeing now that sort of surprise you? That it's taken us this long to get to versus ones that you never thought were going to happen? FAST sort of surprises me that it took us this long, to be perfectly honest.”
“Well, it's interesting,” Ring says. He notes that the term “linear” is often misunderstood and incorrectly used by entities such as finance and ad tech. “Linear is actually the viewing experience,” he says. “It's the idea of a channel, sure. And we became so enamored of the SVOD Netflix model that people thought streaming was on-demand. And I think we're having a rebirth of this idea of having a linear channel. Especially if it's curated and crafted, it is instant gratification. It can be a place where you tune in and let it run for hours, in kind of a companion mode. So I do think that is somewhat surprising that it has taken this long. However, in the sense that the CTV OEMs had not, it really took them forever to deliver decent user experiences. Smart TVs were around for a decade plus before they [provided] a decent user experience. Back in 2017, I used to do white papers on the quality of experience for streaming – [was] it at par with broadcast? And I think what's happened, is the acceleration in tech has just matured…you can do a live linear stream for a very low cost without buffering and without blocking. And so the quality cost curve has dramatically changed. I think those things are two important reasons why FAST has taken off.”
“It's interesting,” Siglin says. “Having done six of these State of Streaming Surveys now, we would ask questions around live in the first two surveys, and we realized we needed to add live linear as a continuous model because while we traditionally think of live as sports, in reality, these pre-programmed playlists that go out as live linear take almost as much effort to push out as a live event.”
“You're exactly right,” Ring says. “And some of these terms have to be parsed and explained. I focus on news and sports solutions at Amagi. For example, graphics can be live as well. So one clever thing to do is if you have highlights in a sports context, or in a news context, you may have a VOD asset from a story that was produced in the morning, [and] maybe later that day or the next day, you can have a data driven update in the crawl associated with that asset. ‘This crime was committed today, criminal caught, indictment,’ or whatever…update the audience.
Ring continues, “Tom Ryan, Pluto TV, they deserve all the credit in the world. It was an amazing idea to put VOD assets, not have to encode them and have them in a linear stream. However, if it's Andy Griffith’s channel, you love Andy Griffith and you tune in, you get Andy Griffith, it's a fantastic viewer experience. If your channel isn't that, it isn't IP-centric, etc., then these now, next, later graphics, the crawls, the things that we've used for 50 years, or whatever to keep audiences, become much more important. So that's kind of an important technical distinction [that] I'm trying to do my part in educating people.”
“One of the fascinating things that on-demand solutions like YouTube,” Siglin says, “It started as really basic videos. But now I can go on there and watch seven hours of 4K footage of Iceland with ambient music. And so essentially that's your wallpaper, and how YouTube monetizes that, I have no idea because most of those run without commercials. But…you can pop in to watch it like we used to do in the old days to see what's on. The beauty with it too is because it's sort of an on-demand, you can back it up a little bit and watch if you miss something.”
“That's right,” Ring says. “And that's also what's coming next for FAST. You will be able to do the pause or the rewind, so that's great. I love your reference of…I think it's called the Long TV Movement. Slow down, which I absolutely love. I have been doing direct-to-tv, direct-to-consumer TV surveys for a long time and I've done several on this idea of background usage of TV. Doing the household chores, having it in the background, it's in the office, or whatever. These are actually recognized behaviors. We don't talk about them a lot because it's like we want the TV to be the forefront and highly attentive type of thing…but dipping in and out. It's part of our day.”
Siglin jokes, “Well if you've ever had kids, you know, the TV can be a babysitter from time to time too, so maybe watching Norwegian Fjords for an 18-month-old will hold their attention for 12 minutes so you can go make a cup of coffee. And that's enough…”
“A hundred percent yes!” Ring says.
Learn more about FAST, CTV, and the State of Streaming at Streaming Media East 2023.
[Editor's note: This is a sponsored interview with Amagi. Streaming Media conducts sponsored interviews based solely on their value to our readers.]
Related Articles
Building a sound app development strategy well-matched to brand and content is critical to creating a CTV experience that sticks. Scripps Networks' Yazmin Wickham, Norigin Media's Ajey Anand, Atmosphere.TV's Zach Hobbs, and Reality Software's Nadine Krefetz discuss what works and what doesn't as well as the ongoing work involved in this clip from their panel at Streaming Media East 2023.
31 Jul 2023
Why did Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST) take off in such a significant way in 2020? LG's Senior Director of North American Innovation and Development Team, Matthew Durgin, discusses this topic with VP Marketing for Plex Scott Hancock and media cartographer Evan Shapiro in this clip from their Streaming Media East 2023 panel.
28 Jul 2023
Streaming Media's Tim Siglin sits down with Patrick Courtney of Fuse to discuss FAST brand verticalization and UX in this exclusive interview from Streaming Media East 2023.
26 Jun 2023
Tim Siglin of Help Me Stream Research Foundation and Contributing Editor of Streaming Media Magazine sits down for a talk with Gustavo Neiva de Medeiros, the President of TeleUP, to discuss digital rights and rural streaming delivery in this interview from Streaming Media East 2023.
30 May 2023
A session on The Business of FAST: The Challenges in Monetization, Market Saturation and Viewer Engagement in the Streaming Summit at NAB 2023 brought together panelists from Brightcove, Gusto TV, Plex, Samsung TV Plus, SlingTV, and Vevo to discuss the surging FAST segment of the streaming market and strategic approaches to maximizing revenues and enhancing discoverability and personalization as more viewers tune in and new channels increasingly glut the market.
18 Apr 2023
With Web3 nearly upon us, is a new generation of Free Ad-Supported Television--FAST 2.0--on the horizon? How will it differ from FAST's current iteration, and what will its evolution mean to consumers, content companies, and tech providers? LG's Matthew Durgin, Vizio's Greg Barnard, and Best Ever Channels' Jonathon Barbato weigh in on FAST's fast-approaching future in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2023.
14 Apr 2023
Parks Associates VP, Research Jennifer Kent discusses the forces driving ultra-low latency streaming including the ascendant sports betting industry in this interview with Streaming Media Editor-in-Chief Steve Nathans-Kelly at Streaming Media West 2022.
02 Jan 2023
Estrella Media VP Business Operations discusses sales force operationalization and strategy for content production across multiple media delivery platforms in this interview with Streaming Media's Tim Siglin at Streaming Media West 2022.
30 Dec 2022
Best Ever Channels Co-CEO Jonathon Barbato discusses effective strategies for launching Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV channels in this interview with Streaming Media's Tim Siglin at Streaming Media West 2022.
19 Dec 2022
WiseDV VP Business Development Vassil Lefterov discusses the evolution of Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) and how WiseDV's app is serving that market in this interview with Streaming Media's Tim Siglin at Streaming Media West 2022.
14 Dec 2022
What are the best ways to improve the OTT user experience, especially for FAST platforms? Four industry experts weigh in on specific areas that could use improvement and streamlining in order to improve the overall UX for OTT subscribers with both targeted advertising and programming.
25 Oct 2022
Hub Entertainment Research's Jon Giegengack discusses recent survey findings on ad-supported connected TV in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2021.
01 Sep 2021