OTT TV > Featured Articles

Over-the-top (OTT) has changed how people watch television, and in some regions is on track to overtake broadcast, cable, and satellite. Look below for the latest news in OTT technology and programming, as well as insights and analysis into where the OTT market is headed.

Practical Approaches to Sustainable Streaming

In this article I'll expand on prior sustainability approaches, detail reasons to consider additional areas of power-consumption optimisation, and invite diverse stakeholders across streaming workflows to engage with Streaming Media magazine, GoS, and like-minded stakeholders in a mid- to late-2023 initiative around the LESS Accord, with an overall goal of readers recommending measurable best practices for consideration by September 2023.

The State of Live Streaming 2023

2022 was the year in which sports, the appointment-to-view genre with massive audiences and revenues, moved to the centre of major streaming provider strategies.

The State of Media & Entertainment 2023

While we're still seeing significant growth in the media & entertainment streaming market at the start of 2023, its pace has slowed compared to the first year of the pandemic. All of the entertainment streaming platforms are looking at a range of different services and approaches for their business models in order to continue to drive growth in subscriber numbers and justify the significant spend on developing content and expanding market share.

The State of OTT 2023

Netflix may have pioneered online pay TV on-demand with a model that every other SVOD chased. From April 2022, a pivot was required of every player, Netflix included.

Streamticker: The Biggest Streaming Media Mergers & Acquisitions of 2022

A look at the streaming industry's most notable mergers and acquisitions of 2022, from WarnerBros-Discovery to Microsoft/Activision to Limelight/Edgecast to Dolby/Millicast to Telestream/Encoding.com and more

The 2023 Streaming Media Europe 51

Our annual list of the most cutting-edge, influential, and dynamic technology companies in the European online video market.

Winning the Data War: Accessing and Leveraging Streaming Analytics

This article explores the topic of data rights versus technology capabilities as it impacts media companies' ability to leverage accrued data and analytics to target relevant audiences, expand their reach, and monetize their content offerings. If the intersection of data rights ownership and technology capabilities access were captured in a Venn diagram, the space in between would be very small for some media companies.

Advertising, Bundling, and the Future of Premium Streaming

With the arrival of lower-priced ad tiers for premium streaming services, increasing aggregation and shape-shifting bundling options, ongoing changes to the streaming landscape are transforming consumer behaviour and adoption of pay TV and streaming services. But what do the numbers say about emerging market trends? How are platform providers interpreting evident shifts, and does that translate into user experience innovation? And is there really a "Great Rebundling" afoot, as so many pundits have claimed over the last 6 months?

The Future of Streaming Monetization: Beyond the SVOD/AVOD Divide

All too often, the monetization discussion revolves around a simplistic binary that expands only slightly on the old ad-supported broadcast model for home-based media and entertainment: subscription vs. advertising. Savvy publishers, rightsholders, and streaming services see a more nuanced landscape. Gamification, interactivity, merchandising, and direct-to-consumer apps let both publishers and advertisers super-serve fans with content that goes beyond live linear or VOD.

As Netflix Goes Hybrid, Zype CEO Ed Laczynski Talks OTT's Ad-Tiered Present and Future

As last week brought the long-awaited, and arguably overhyped debut of Netflix's new ad tier, I had the chance to sit down with Ed Laczynski, CEO of enterprise OTT app and platform builder Zype—a perennial Streaming Media 50 honoree—to talk about what Netflix's move means in the context of the ever-evolving OTT monetization landscape, and get some perspective on longtime, current, and emerging trends. We also talked a bit about how will impact the current and coming ad inventory ecosystem.

Netflix's Andrey Norkin Talks Future of AV1

Streaming Learning Center's Jan Ozer interviews Netflix Senior Research Scientist - Video Algorithms and Alliance for Open Media co-chair Andrey Norkin about several topics around the future of AV1, including the necessity of HDR for premium content producers, Libaom's focus on SVT-AV1, and more.

The Streaming Toolbox: Tedial, Frequency Studio, Mlytics

The set of tools I'll explore in this article will help you orchestrate workflows, create FAST broadcasts, and do multi-CDN worldwide live streaming management. Using all of these tools, you could get your own channel up and running and deliver it everywhere—even in China. These set of tools were demo'd for me. In order for me to test an application, vendors need to provide dummy data, and not everyone can make it available within our editorial timeframe.

Submit Your Nominations Now for the 2022 Streaming Media 50 List

Want to make sure your company is considered for our annual list of the most important, innovative, and interesting companies in the online video space? Read on, and send in your nominations by August 1.

Netflix and Microsoft Team for Ads as Wider Consolidation Looms 

Having signalled its intent to launch an ad-supported service earlier this year, Netflix' announcement of Microsoft as its partner in the venture prompted immediate speculation about Redmond's intent to buy the streamer wholesale.

The Building Blocks of the Metaverse

The most important aspects of the entire metaverse project are the interchange standards and the tools, protocols, formats, and services that enable persistent and ubiquitous virtual simulations. Without them, there will be no metaverse.

Blockchain and NFTs: Power to the Creators

Some say NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are a novelty, a status symbol for the crypto rich, and a bubble that's bound to burst. Others argue that NFTs will fundamentally change business models in the creative industries. It's early days, but there's plenty of momentum behind NFTs and blockchain. Here's what you need to know.

Reconsidering Format and Media in the OTT Era

In an era when format and medium have been decoupled, and OTT has changed the notion of what is TV and what is film, 3Q's Andrew McCargar stresses in this clip from Streaming Forum Connect 2021 the importance of choosing format and media for a project, such as internal corporate training, based not on traditional categories, but by what you're trying to achieve, and adopt technologies that will serve that purpose best.

Streaming Players and OTT Cost Optimisation

castLabs' James Hynard and ITV's Vinay Gupta discuss the convergence of streaming players and its impact on OTT cost optimisation in this clip from their panel at Streaming Forum Connect 2021.

IBC: We've Been Apart for Too Long

The international focus of events like IBC generate a sense of excitement and a critical mass of activity that drives the whole industry forward. That momentum has been noticeably lacking in 2021, and it's time to get the ball rolling again.

The 2021 Streaming Media Europe Readers' Choice Award Winners

It's our biggest Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards competition in years. 16 categories. Almost 200 nominations. Nearly 10,000 votes. So who came out on top?