Sneak Preview: Streaming Media 2025 with Conference Chair Andy Beach

In this interview with Streaming Media contributing editor Jan Ozer, Alchemy Creations' Andy Beach, recently named Conference Chair of Streaming Media 2025, offers an advance look at the event, set to take place at Santa Monica's spectacular Fairmont Miramar, October 6-8, 2025. Beach highlights the event's focus on technology, monetization, and content creation in the streaming media industry. The conference aims to provide a comprehensive forum for industry professionals, including unique sessions on AI implementation, shoppable moments in streaming, and insights from both creators and consumer brands. Registration details and further information are available on the Streaming Media 2025 website.

Enter Andy Beach, Alchemy Creations, ex-Microsoft, Streaming Media 2025 Chair

Jan Ozer: So, you left Microsoft, where you served long-term. What did you do at Microsoft, and what are you doing now?

Andy Beach: I was CTO for Media and Entertainment at Microsoft. I looked after the technology strategy, and there's so much going on and it's changing so rapidly that I felt a strong desire to get back to a startup roots that I had 12 years ago before I was there. And honestly, I feel like shows like this are so important to that because Streaming Media is where I learned a lot of the pieces that informed my education in this space. And so I was super-excited when they reached out and asked if I'd be interested in chairing the program since I was effectively a consultant and freelancing now.

Technology, Monetization, Content Creation

Jan Ozer: So, we're here on the NAB Show floor now. There's NAB, there's Mux, there's Mile High. What's going to be different about your show that's going to attract unique speakers and attract unique audiences for those speakers?

Andy Beach: The venue changes year to year. Last year was in New York. This is the first time it's been back in the L.A. and Southern California area in quite a while. And really, for me, I wanted that to be reflected in the program.

So we have three different tracks. We've got the technology that's underpinning the streaming and the production and the pieces that are going into that. That, to me, is the classic Streaming Media customer and attendee. But we've seen a lot around the business side, and how we monetize this, because monetization is changing so rapidly that you need a forum to go and learn and to understand what are the implications, what are the new ideas that we are talking about.

And of course, everybody wants to know how AI is being used for it, but I think an area that maybe has gotten less attention in years past—and I thought LA was a great place to put this—is the content creators themselves. The creator economy is huge. There are more and more people that are self-publishing, and they want as much information about this as the production companies and the platform companies and the ISVs in that space. And they need a moment to connect with the right trends in the industry and potentially even have themselves be discovered by one of the platforms that are also there talking about it.

Rachel's Sweater and the Shoppable Moment

Jan Ozer: Give me an example of the type of session you're thinking about that you can't get at NAB or any of the other shows that I mentioned.

Andy Beach: In that monetization track, there's a lot of different areas that we're already looking at about how the shoppable moment around streaming media is changing. In other words, not just advertising, but how do I actually make some sort of interactive experience that allows you to continue watching the show, and—either through your own device or the same device you're streaming on—have a way to immediately connect with something that's referenced in the show you're watching. This goes back to Friends and the Rachel's Sweater Conundrum: everybody who saw her wearing that sweater always wanted to be able to immediately buy it. The technology is there and there are people that are implementing it, and it's not so much that the studios are doing it—tt's the retail consumer goods companies themselves that are using the technology to make their own new advertising moments inside of these properties. And so there'll be a lot going on within there.

On the technology side, we've heard a lot about AI for the past two to three years. Now we're wanting to see how are people actually implementing AI, and how is it leading to something? Is it leading to new business? Is it leading to a new experience, or is it a cost savings? And if it is a cost savings, what is the real cost savings, rather than is the hyperbole that's behind it.

And then I have two different paths with the creators. I want the creators themselves to have panels where they're talking about the growing pains and the productions and the things they've learned as they're going through this. But then I want the consumer brands that are connecting to the creators to talk with the creators about what it is they're actually looking for. In other words, they might think that it's a certain thing, but they might have it very wrong. And so let them hear directly from the platforms—the Rokus and the Samsungs that are helping put these together—but also the Fremantles, the publishers of the content, and then the advertisers that are heavily steeped in that world as well, because there might become a connection and it might change the way they think about the kind of content they're producing in order to make themselves more monetizable.

Changing the Conversation

Jan Ozer: Wow, that's a pretty audacious show. You're looking at everybody from the brands who are spending the money to the creators who are trying to get their share.

Andy Beach: All of those are conversations we're having, and rather than just diving in on the technology or just paying attention to the monetization, I felt like it was important to have a little bit of each. Independents in this space have to wear all those hats anyway, so they don't want to have to go to three different shows to see it. They want to have a sampling and an understanding of where the pulse is and the pulse is changing so quickly that you can't wait for NAB next year to figure out what's going on. You need a check-in in between, and this is exactly what Streaming Media can be.

Jan Ozer: When do you start talking to vendors about it, and who your speakers are going to be?

Andy Beach: We've been talking to them really since January, but we've been looking to get reactions from what's going on at shows like this and make sure that we're dialing in the right sets of conversations. So it's already going on. Things will be more locked by May and finalized effectively. And then we will just start marshaling towards a great show in October.