Major media and entertainment companies’ quarterly earnings calls ought to pull back the curtain on what’s really happening in the industry, but they routinely bury unflattering numbers in expert spin, and the press on hand rarely asks questions tough enough to draw out the real story. With 4Q earnings calls putting a bow on 2023, M&E industry cartographer Evan Shapiro pulls no punches in this real-time response, digging deep into the data to hold the spin doctors accountable, giving Streaming Media Connect attendees an unvarnished view of the industry that they won’t get anywhere else.

A panel of analysts responds to Shapiro’s take on the 4Q earnings calls, what the numbers tell us, and how we can expect premium streaming, OTT, and the M&E landscape to evolve in 2024.

The battle for supremacy among streaming codecs is as old as streaming itself, and even as the acronyms change, the benefits different codecs promise to deliver—from minimal bit usage to maximum playback compatibility—remain as critical as ever. The latest projections show old warhorse AVC entering deep decline, with AV1 and HEVC on the rise. Choosing transcoding options isn’t so much about the latest codec flavor of the month as it is about conserving bits, keeping costs down, striking a practical cloud/on-prem balance, improving sustainability and energy efficiency, and maintaining high-performance and playability on the broadest range of platforms. Which codecs are moving to the forefront in the early months of 2024, and what do content providers need to know to make sound encoding decisions that will still look good in 2025?

The ability to identify and reach the right audiences has always been essential for advertisers, and it’s one of the key benefits for brands in streaming and CTV. Disney Advertising’s access to first-party data from across its media portfolio puts it in an enviable position for audience targeting, but it's the company's innovative use of data modeling to arrive at a deeper understanding of its audience that may well take addressable advertising to a new level in the streaming world. In this fireside chat with Streaming Media's Nadine Krefetz, Dana McGraw, Disney SVP, audience modeling & data science, discusses Disney Advertising’s data modeling strategy and how it is transforming the way brands reach and engage viewers on Disney platforms. Whether you’re a publisher, distributor, or advertiser, this engaging keynote will help you understand how Disney has discovered advertising magic at the intersection of premium content, its proprietary Audience Graph, and a scaled Addressable footprint.

For a great deal of media consumed online, latency is irrelevant, as most media is archived and served by request, with virtually every viewer’s start time occurring asynchronously with another’s. And with much live content, however, perception of immediacy often matters more than immediacy itself. But as soon as rapid-fire interactions, along with transactions like bidding and betting and sales, come into play—increasingly the case with today’s high-stakes, large-scale live streams—time is of the essence, and ultra-low latency approaching real time becomes paramount. What does it take to deliver real-time (or ultra-near real-time) streams at scale in 2024, what are the persistent challenges, when is prioritizing ultra-low latency a must, and what are the trade-offs of doing so?

In terms of overall ad spend, connected TV (CTV) advertising is projected as the fastest-growing segment of the media landscape over the next year (even if CTV advertising isn’t growing as fast as CTV viewing as a percentage of overall viewing time). As CTV and FAST ad inventory grow, how is the CTV ad opportunity evolving and maturing for brands to leverage it effectively in terms of cost-effectiveness, measurement, targeting, brand safety, and more? Is co-viewing proving as advantageous for CTV advertisers as traditional linear TV? Are there specific types of advertising that are proving particularly effective with CTV? Are there specific types of programming, such as major sports events and elections, where CTV is likely to grab more attention and ad spend in 2024? How do those factors contribute to the overall landscape?

Content is king, but in a crowded and competitive media ecosystem when churn is always a few easy clicks away, delivering a smooth, reliable, and appealing user experience (UX) across a range of devices in the world of OTT and FAST is just as critical, both in terms of customer retention and product differentiation. What defines a cutting-edge streaming app in 2024, one that is functional, easy to use, and contemporary in look and feel, but still distinctive enough to stand out from the crowd? And what are the challenges of troubleshooting, updating, and maintaining the functionality of a top-notch app in today’s premium, niche, and long-tail content climates?

Competition for licensing high-profile sports events is hotter than ever these days, with the world’s largest media companies vying for sports rights and adding sports streaming tiers. While not every prime-time plunge into sports streaming has gone swimmingly, scale and spending continue to grow. It seems like more and more streamers have some skin in the sports game today, and the demands of scale and rising expectations for individualized experiences increase the pressure on sports streamers large and small to deliver a flawless experience. This panel of sports streaming experts and sports (and esports) stakeholders takes stock of the current sports and streaming scene and looks at what to expect as the stakes climb higher.

FAST has been the Next Big Thing in streaming for a couple of years now, and reports of the FAST market’s ongoing growth and maturation from a vehicle for mostly legacy and long-tail content to a viable platform for a broad array of niche and premium content continue to roll in. But how measurable is its success, and who is making it big in FAST these days? This session takes a no-nonsense look at FAST’s purported runaway success and may tap the brakes on some of the wilder claims.

Industry leaders discuss and present the latest cutting-edge solutions and strategies to help you maximize efficiencies and minimize costs in your streaming video workflow. ATTEND FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD!

OBSBOT develops AI-enhanced cameras that help AV and streaming professionals efficiently create stunning live streams. The flagship Tail Air 4K PTZ streaming camera combines exceptional visual quality, outstanding low-light performance, NDI HX3 support, and flexible connectivity in a compact form factor, while the Tiny 2 4K camera has ushered in a new era of webcams. This session includes demos of Tail Air and Tiny 2 and explores how they fit into the streaming ecosystem.

Attend this presentation for your chance to win an OBSBOT Tail Air AI-powered 4K PTZ streaming camera. Must be present to win.

Norsk empowers users to easily build even the most complex live media workflows in days or weeks, rather than months or years. Going beyond simple “source in, ABR ladder out” scenarios, Norsk enables dynamic source switching, picture-in-picture, data overlays, multi-language audio, DRM, and more. With the new no-code Norsk Studio, even non-programmers can build complex, dynamic live streaming workflows. Join us for this demo of Norsk Studio to find out just how easy live can be.

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While AI seemed to explode onto the scene in 2022 and 2023 with the rise of ChatGPT, LLMs, and Open AI, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) have been making inroads in streaming for several years now. And contrary to what you may have heard, neither is coming for your job. But AI and ML do play an ever-larger role in the recommendation engines in premium OTT platforms like Netflix. AI also powers efficient encoding solutions that lower costs and improve viewer experiences by minimizing buffering and enhancing image quality and enables workflow optimization at multiple stages. This panel explores how AI is currently impacting streaming production, delivery, and playback experiences; how we can expect its role to continue to evolve over time; and how you can leverage AI’s benefits in your streaming efforts, whether your offerings are live or on-demand, and whether you’re creating content, distributing it, or both.

The most effective streaming workflows are flexible enough to scalable both upward and downward to adapt to variable viewing demands and deliver the high QoE viewers expect and the brands which underwrite premium streams demand. Migrating some or all elements of your streaming workflow to the cloud is increasingly regarded as the most effective way to maximize scalability and agility while also managing costs. What types of innovations are today’s most successful cloud streaming practitioners implementing in their workflows to optimize their streams? Tune in to this session for practical and actionable insights on cloud streaming workflows that deliver and scale.

Optimizing streaming’s last mile is critical to maximizing streaming QoE, and the challenges only multiply when viewership scales and scatters around the globe. Leveraging traditional CDNs—and even a multi-CDN strategy—only takes you so far in addressing these challenges; moving the distribution point as close as possible to the end user is essential. But the edge point is still a moving target, bridging the last mile to the end user. What are the latest strategies content providers, CDNs, and ISPs are deploying to achieve and ensure last-mile optimization, and how do these complement each other to achieve the best performance possible?  

News of “5G Broadcast” trials brightened the future prospects of traditional OTA TV in 2023 with the promise of viable UHF spectrum delivery to mobile devices. Meanwhile, ATSC 3.0-based NextGen TV carried mixed signals amid patent licensing challenges that drove LG out of the NextGen game as local stations pushed forward with ATSC 3.0 plans and the opportunities for user targeting, customizable interactive options, and immersive audio that earned the format its “NextGen” rep. At the same time, the ongoing, massive growth of linear streaming services presents a formidable challenge. What will define the next generation of broadcast TV, particularly when it comes to OTA’s traditional areas of strength like news, weather, and sports?

In the streaming industry just as elsewhere, nothing succeeds like success! Learn about real-world problem-solving with cutting-edge streaming solutions as key industry vendors and their users share in-depth stories of successful implementations and applications. ATTEND FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD!

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Join us for an insightful session as we delve into the remarkable transformation journey of A+E Networks, where the company reclaimed control of its media supply chain by bringing content management workflows in-house. Learn how A+E Networks collaborated with TMT Insights and leveraged the Polaris operational management platform to revolutionize broadcast and VOD edit workflows, streamlining processes, and automating manual tasks. Discover the benefits achieved, and gain valuable insights into the strategies employed, challenges overcome, and lessons learned in accelerating the optimization of a cloud-based remote edit implementation.

What's the best way to draw subscribers and viewers to your streaming service and maintain the audience numbers that keep subscription services profitable and satisfy brands? What’s the secret sauce for content selection and monetization that sets successful services apart from the crowd? Tune in to this panel of OTT innovators to learn about strategies that have helped them succeed across numerous platforms, from connected TVs to handheld devices.