SHOW PREVIEW

THE FUTURE FACE OF TV

The future face of TV
A
s the mid-part of the decade approaches
and the global economic downturn
recedes in the key markets, the
broadcast industry can be proud of itself on
a number of levels. Mostly in terms of its
resilience and the innovation that it has shown
despite the most testing of circumstances.
It has come out, indeed flourished, with
service bouquets capable of delivering TV
content in new and exciting forms across new and exciting platforms:
online video is now well established more or less everywhere, leading
to proliferating over the top services, which are now beginning to eat
away at traditional pay-TV services.
Second screen is for many first in mind and catch-up TV and
on-demand services are table stakes as the advances in gateways
and wireless technologies mean it is normal for TV and video to be
consumed everywhere around the home, arriving to set top boxes and
other receivers and delivered at acceptable levels of quality to state of
Is software still eating broadcast
technology?
4 16
The long and winding road
to UltraHD 2 7 17
How can operators deal with the
mobile video revolution? 9 force behind internet video
TV everywhere: from experimentation
to expectation and execution
11
Limiting latency, the potential hidden
killer of online video
12
Social TV is here to stay
14
How content providers can drive
value from data
15
The future face of TV ● 3
the art TVs, PCs, laptops, netbooks, media tablets (such as the iPad),
mobile phones, games platforms and portable media players of all
descriptions. The mass availability of high bandwidth TV network
infrastructures such as fibre to the home and advanced DSL and cable
networks have allowed IPTV and cable providers to face off satellite in
the delivery of the most advanced, enhanced and enriched TV content
and services such as 4K/UltraHD. The rollout of 4G/LTE networks has
meant TV everywhere/mobile TV is now a commercial reality.
And the latter is an important point: all of the aforementioned
industries are in monetisation phases. It will be the aim of this
supplement, timed to coincide with IBC 2014, to examine the
landscape in which such services will bring about business
transformation, delivering prosperity to all corners of the
broadcast market.
Joseph O’Halloran
Editor In Chief
Rapid TV News
Plugging security leaks in the
4K age
Breaking down the barriers to digital
ad insertion
Content and engineering: the driving
18
Are conversational interfaces the
future?
21
Why interactive video and why now?
22
Taking content truly everywhere
23
Is software still eating broadcast technology?
A broad swathe of industries is being
disrupted by software-delivered services
and software companies in general. Does
this number include broadcasting?
By Steve Plunkett
Chief Technology
Officer
Red Bee Media
A
little over a year ago, with thoughts
turning to what major trends in
broadcast technology would be at
the forthcoming IBC show, apart from the
predictable replacement of 3DTV with
4K /UltraHD as the Next Big Thing, a more
general theme seemed to be emerging. To
paraphrase Marc Andreessen, software
appeared to be eating broadcast technology.
In his original article, Andreessen argued
that software was “eating the world” and it
does indeed seem to be chomping its way
into broadcasting. This shift from atoms to
bits has lagged behind other industries for a
number of reasons, but primarily due to the
nature of high resolution video processing
and distribution. Tape-based workflows have
refused to die and for good reason – they
provide a reliable and predictable medium
from camera to playout, but times are
definitely a-changing. File-based workflows
have seen dramatic growth over the past few
years and this of course removes some atoms
from the scene (tapes, VTRs and people, for
a start).
Thus I posed the question in a blog – Is
Software Eating Broadcast Tech? It proposed
that as always, change is the only constant in
a technology-driven world and broadcasting
was in the eye of the storm at that point in
time. Innovation is hard, most innovations fail
and companies that don’t innovate die. But,
concluding, it asserted that shouldn’t stop us
for a minute.
So how does this question look a year
later? Based on the number of traditionally
hardware-centric vendors announcing or
showcasing their software-based product
roadmaps at NAB 2014, it’s looking like a
resounding yes. Particularly in the media
processing and playout areas, both
historically dominated by hardware-delivered
products, everyone seemed keen to stress
their future credentials as providers of
software solutions that would run, variously,
on commodity IT hardware, virtualised
infrastructure and the cloud.
This is all good news, but it is not
something that can happen overnight or with
little effort and no teething problems. Here are
my thoughts on the upsides, downsides and
likely difficulties ahead (with a tip of the hat
to Sergio Leone):
The good
Software-based products will ultimately
deliver much greater flexibility. We can
deploy them on infrastructure that suits
our purpose (cost, speed, location, vendor
preference, etc) and we can do so dynamically
– such as using common compute resources
to perform an Auto QC at one moment
and then reallocating them to perform a
transcode at another. This allows us to either
get much greater efficiency from our private
infrastructure, reducing its physical density,
optimising power consumption and so on,
or pay a third party such as a public cloud
provider only for the resources we need at any
particular time.
We can perform the deployment much more
rapidly than in the physical product world too.
Need a new channel? No problem, choose
The future face of TV ● 4
“Software-based
products will
ultimately deliver
much greater
flexibility”
from a menu of service options
and it will be ready to receive and publish
content in minutes rather than weeks or
months. I am hugely over-simplifying this, of
course, but you get the idea – in a software-
centric world, the effort takes place before
a channel deployment through software
integration of channel templates; the act of
deployment to available virtualised hardware
is a process of launching machine images
and/or configuration profiles, not a large
installation project. This should result in
reduced costs, greater business agility and
high fives all round.
The bad
Unfortunately, this transition to software
nirvana is non-trivial. Writing good quality,
high-performance software to process audio
and video, particularly in real-time, is hard.
We know this already of course because such
software already lives inside the hardware
products we have used historically.
But hardware-delivered products should
contain what is sometimes called mechanical
sympathy (a term coined by Jackie Stewart to
describe a driver being at one with a racing
car by understanding its hardware intimately).
The product designers and developers know
exactly what to expect from their chosen
hardware stack and optimise accordingly. In
the ‘software-running-on-hardware-of-your-
choice’ world, things are less certain.
Different CPU implementations will
provide different functional and performance
characteristics through clock speed variations,
cache sizes/levels, multi-core architectures,
internal bandwidth, specialised accelerators
and that’s just the CPU. Mix in storage
IOPS/throughput variations, memory size/
bus bandwidth differences, GPUs, LAN
throughput, OS and driver versions: the
list goes on. In this new world the software
will need to be capable of optimising for
generalised rather than specialised hardware
and vendors will need both to provide
guidance on minimum system requirements
and accept that supporting a much more
diverse underlying infrastructure will be more
complicated and costly.
Then there is the question of how best to
combine software components to perform
multiple operations on the media. For real-
time delivery, the serialised model of video
processing, necessitated by using discrete
hardware components, interconnected via
SDI, isn’t likely to be optimal in the future.
The future face of TV ● 5
Instead of emulating this architecture by
interconnecting virtual machines with IP
interfaces (though the most viable approach in
the short term), it would be attractive instead
to cluster multiple operations on the media
being processed while it is in memory on a
single machine. This is an obvious benefit of
integrated systems such as ‘channel in a box’
solutions.
Unfortunately this is an area lacking in
standardisation, or even interoperability,
so today that often means taking the whole
integrated system from a single vendor even
though they are likely to be good at some
functions (probably based on their product
heritage) and not so good at others. And
because increased software complexity often
pushes the boundaries of reliability, the result
of more functional integration can be system
fragility. Not a property that sits well with
the high availability familiar to and expected
from the broadcast television industry.
The ugly
If we know where we want to go (the good)
and we know it’s not going to be easy (the
bad) then the transition period over the next
few years is likely to be the ugly. Customers
who have bought into the vision will be
impatient to receive it and thus put pressure
on vendors to deliver soon. The vendors
meanwhile will inevitably find it is harder,
takes longer and costs more money to get
there than they estimated (or at least publicly
communicated). There is an old software
development maxim that applies here – you
can have it faster, cheaper or better but you
can only choose any two.
The nature of this type of industry
disruption tends to lead to a change of
fortunes. Some companies will fare better
than others in the transition. This is all
happening against a background of industry
consolidation, it’s one of the reasons driving
it, and it will be tough for certain categories
of companies. Large companies may be
better able to absorb the costs required to
successfully evolve and small companies
may be nimble enough to adapt more quickly
but those in the middle might find it a tough
road ahead.
Pretty much every vendor at NAB 2014
said they would have their new software
products ready for business by the end of the
year if not before. Let’s make a note in the
diary to see how things look a year from now.
The long and winding road to UltraHD 2
Despite a frank
admission that 4K
was yet to make a
wow, those leading
UltraHD are already
setting out plans for
the next generation
of such services
By Joseph O’Halloran
Editor In Chief
Rapid TV News
A
t first glance, the sumptuous
surroundings of the Ducale Palace
in Lucca, Italy, seem rather odd as
the place where European TV’s future could
be decided, but the building has in the past
been a seat of power and maybe history was
repeating itself.
For it was here that the Forum for
Advanced Media in Europe (FAME) sat,
setting out a roadmap for the evolution of
UltraHD in the continent, examining why
the market had not taken off to date, what
was needed to kick-start it and what lessons
could be learned from fellow professionals
in Asia, in particular Japan and Korea, where
development was far in advance.
Setting out the scene, Stephan Heimbecher,
head of innovations and standards at Sky
Deutschland, put a rather hefty stake in
the ground for an industry that has been
guided by technological futures rather than
commercial realities. In his candid address,
he reminded the audience of content owners,
distributors and operators that the stark reality
was that many broadcasters are actually still
in transition to HDTV and that there was
fundamentally no immediate big market for
the first generation of UltraHD services, let
alone a prospective second generation.
Sharing insight of research, he conceded
that UltraHD was unlikely to be an instant
hit. Moreover, he revealed that consumers
regarded UltraHD sets as being far too
“We do indeed need
courage to make it
a mass market, but
you can only share
a cake once you’ve
baked it”
Thomas Wrede, SES
expensive and that in any case there was a
general lack of content to make a purchase
worthwhile. Heimbecher added, somewhat
worryingly, that there was evidence of
consumer scepticism of UltraHD due to the
abject failure of 3DTV.
Counter argument
Proposing a counter argument that all players
in the UltraHD ecosystem had to have the
courage of its long-term convictions, despite
being chided somewhat by Heimbacher’s
UK colleague Chris Johns of BSkyB that his
company’s transponders didn’t come cheap,
Thomas Wrede, vice president of reception
systems at SES, called on the European
UltraHD players to have more courage and to
“just launch” services.
Adding that the industry had to show a little
more action and a little less conversation, he
said: “We discuss [the issues] too much. We
should just launch something as consumers
are used to the rapid launch of [other
advanced TV services].”
Wrede confirmed that SES had the capacity
to go live immediately if necessary with
UltraHD, as did Markus Fritz, director of
The future face of TV ● 7
commercial development and marketing
at Eutelsat who while sharing the general
thrust of his arch-rival, was a little more
circumspect about prospects.
“The entertainment industry will only make
UltraHD happen where there is viability,” he
cautioned. “We do indeed need courage to
make it a mass market, but you can only share
a cake once you’ve baked it.”
NHK’s UltraHD cake is most certainly out
of the oven and the conference offered the
opportunity to hear from the company’s Keiya
Motohashi, also senior strategist 4K/8KTV
and head of the Next Generation Television
Forum in Japan as to how development
was much in advance, thanks to not just
innovation but also a lot of government
subsidy. Poetically, Motohashi described
UltraHD development as a long and winding
road with, even for NHK, a number of
key issues to be addressed. UltraHD post-
production, he revealed, was still optimised
for film production and improvements had to
be made when it came TV.
“We need to improve day by day,” he
added. “A [viable UltraHD] business
ecosystem has not been established yet and
needs to be expanded. All of the issues that
need to be solved are not easy.”
That said, Motohashi was optimistic that
his marketplace at least would see services
established within the next year, with 8KTV
trials happening by 2016 and full-scale
4K and 8K by 2020 at least. The long and
winding road of UltraHD, whether this or the
next generation, he asserted, would lead to a
revolution whose ramifications could be on
the scale of the invention of the printing press
by Gutenberg.
Plugging security leaks in the 4K age
Those operating
pirate streaming
services are
often technically
sophisticated
individuals or
organisations,
looking to generate
a profit. How do you
beat them?
By Jonathan Friend
CTO
Friend MTS
W
hen one hears the term ‘online
piracy’ the mind springs to the
music and movie industries’
decade-long battle against file sharing. In the
television industry there has, of course, been
an equally hard-fought engagement against
those facilitating access to encrypted signals,
but this has always been in the ‘offline’ world
of satellite and cable systems.
The industry has been somewhat protected
by the simple lack of adequate last-mile
internet bandwidth to deliver a linear stream
in a sensible quality to provide a competitive
user experience on the large screen. This
was an obstacle the movie industry didn’t
have shielding them due to the acceptable
‘out of order download’ nature of a file-
sharing protocol such as BitTorrent. So,
the battles have remained those of control
word (‘card’) sharing, CAM emulators and
countermeasures.
In recent years, however, there have
been two paradigm shifts that have levelled
the playing field in the pirates’ favour: the
increase in last-mile bandwidth; and the
adoption of the multiscreen experience.
These together have brought the issue of
online piracy to the fore for pay-TV operators.
A common misconception is that the
perpetrators of online piracy are social misfits,
opportunistically providing a service in order
to gain a form of acceptance within society.
“The audience
figures on many
pirate streaming
services would
be the envy of
many a legitimate
streaming service”
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Unlike file sharing, the operation of a
unicast streaming service requires significant
resources (servers and bandwidth, or an
account with a CDN) and this costs money.
The higher the demand for the content
the greater the resource requirement, and
therefore the increase in cost to the service
operator. These sums can stretch into the tens
or hundreds of thousands of dollars per month
~ an amount one could hardly spend as a
service to society.
The audience figures on many pirate
streaming services would be the envy of many
a legitimate streaming service, and without
the cost of the content large profits are there
to be had. The revenue of these businesses
comes sometimes from low subscription fees,
but more often than not the content is free to
the viewer, or at least free in initial monetary
terms. While advertising is certainly a source
of revenue, the involvement with organised
crime and malware distribution is equally as
lucrative.
DRM is the oft-cited technology for
securing streaming platforms. Whether
services are providing VOD or live streaming
capability, there are a variety of technologies
The future face of TV ● 8
available to secure the content.
It is difficult to argue against the benefits
of a well-implemented digital rights
management system. While it’s clear that
these deter the casual thief, without which
the problem could be even more widespread,
the evidence of leakage from these services
(obtained for example where different/
additional graphics are added to the online
versus broadcast product), and the visibility
of the content on major pirate services,
shows that they achieve little to tackle the
professional thief.
Forensic watermarking has been in use
for many years by the movie industry to
identify the source of leakage of pre-release
content: screener discs, etc. Set-top box and
VOD service watermarking systems have
been available for a while and, while these
are in use, without universal adoption their
effectiveness is limited. Limitations in
their adoption are abound: receiver device
modification; CDN edge modification; they
don’t work well with live content; how do
you find the leaked watermarked content;
watermark detection is a complex, time-
consuming and expensive process. All of
this stems from the legacy application for the
technology being for movies and not for what
would traditionally be televised content.
As we move into the 4K era and beyond,
what is needed is a single system that can
work equally as well for live and VOD,
doesn’t require player/device or CDN edge
modification; has in-built leak discovery
and watermark detection; and will uncover
and enable you to tackle the operators of
pirate streaming services in just minutes
through proactive notification not reactive
investigation. This is all now possible ~ and
just in time.
How can operators deal with
the mobile video revolution?
Of all the matters to
address in the video
industry, ensuring
quality of experience
is a priority matter
By Anna Yong
Senior Product
Marketing Manager
Citrix
W Götze scores the
hether you are streaming the latest
TV series on Netflix while on
your commute to work, browsing
Facebook on your lunchbreak or watching the
most talked-about goals from the weekend on
YouTube on the train, you will have probably
noticed that videos sometimes seem to take an
eternity to fully buffer.
In these situations you have probably found
yourself asking ‘is this the type of service I
expect to receive from my mobile operator?’
Too often, you are not getting the Quality
of Experience (QoE) you expect and need
to enjoy that video content. Mobile video
stalling is today’s dropped call. A poor video
QoE can damage customer loyalty and drive
customer churn for the mobile operator.
In a recent report from Citrix it was
discovered that video generates more than
50% of total mobile data traffic on wireless
networks. Of this, YouTube accounts for
82% of all videos over mobile networks.
The announcement by Facebook that it will
expand its auto play video ads to seven
countries outside the US and the arrival
of Netflix in France, Germany, Austria,
Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg
heralds an inevitable rise in mobile data from
consumers.
But the challenge for operators is already
“Can you imagine
the frustration of
experiencing video
stalling just as
winning goal of the
tournament?”
significant. Currently, on average, mobile
videos on an LTE network stall for an average
of 15 seconds, while on a 3G network video
stalling averages 47 seconds. Furthermore,
video abandonment rates dramatically jump
when videos stall. It is clear that currently
subscribes are not getting the QoE they expect
or deserve especially and that this stat is
seemingly only heading in one direction as
data usage rises.
Lessons to be learnt
The impending increase of data from
Facebook and Netflix traffic means operators
urgently need to take steps to ensure QoE is
not affected. The outlook for consumers looks
bleak unless operators learn lessons from
events when network traffic was at its highest,
such as the World Cup, and seek out ways to
improve mobile video QoE.
The future face of TV ● 9
Nowhere was it more apparent that video
is the biggest single source of network traffic
than during the World Cup. Citrix observed a
three to fourfold increase in HLS streaming,
the video format used to serve live streaming
of the tournament. Live streaming puts more
pressure on the network as everyone switches
on at exactly the same time and methods such
as caching cannot be deployed.
Spike in demand
Data from the period of the World Cup
reveals that some operators still need to learn
these lessons and understand that more needs
to be done to deal with the rise in demand
during live events. When demand for live
video streaming spiked (such as during the
Brazil v Germany game where we observed
a 20-fold increase in data traffic across a
single sports network, ESPN) the number and
duration of videos stalling doubled. Can you
imagine the frustration of experiencing video
stalling just as Götze scores the winning goal
of the tournament?
Operators need to urgently address video
QoE. New initiatives from the big players
Facebook, Netflix and Instagram are making
video a mainstream part of a subscriber’s
experience. Measuring and mitigating
negative impacts on the mobile user
experience for video in such a time-sensitive
and demanding environment can be a
significant differentiator for mobile operators.
After all – who would want to watch the
Götze goal even two seconds after everyone
else saw it?

Cut bandwidth by half with superior video quality
using the most powerful HEVC and UHD-enabled STBs
Visit our stand 14.D20, hall 14 at IBC 2014!
w w w. d u n e - h d . c o m
TV everywhere: from experimentation
to expectation and execution
As demand for
TV everywhere
increases,
broadcasters and
pay-TV providers
are seizing the
opportunities
it brings
Campbell Foster
Director of Product
Marketing
Adobe Primetime
T
he 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
marked a shift in viewer expectations
of multiscreen TV everywhere, and
in the IP delivery of live and linear TV
programmes. Consumer experimentation
yielded to expectations of performance
and engagement. Technology experiments
among broadcasters and pay-TV providers
yielded to real investments in IP delivery and
monetisation of TV content across connected
screens.
In many cases, upstart video businesses
yielded to established companies with the
scale, resources and capacity necessary for
delivering live events to massive concurrent
audiences with the stability and reliability of
traditional broadcast TV.
Historically, watching television content on
a mobile device – particularly live and linear
programming – was frustrating, with playback
errors and redundant advertising creating
a less-than-satisfying viewing experience.
Prior to 2014, media companies were in
an experimental phase, testing different
technologies and partnerships for multiscreen
delivery, while holding tightly to the existing
business models that have historically made
television profitable.
Data from the Sochi Games highlighted
how quickly and enthusiastically viewers
were beginning to embrace mobile and
“Viewers are
watching more
television on more
devices – a trend
that bodes well for
broadcasters and
pay-TV providers”
desktop TV viewing as a genuine alternative,
or supplement, to traditional linear delivery.
Over 25 million viewers watched NBC’s
digital broadcast of the Winter Games on
desktops and devices, with the US v Canada
men’s hockey game garnering an audience
of more than 2.1 million viewers. More than
10.8 million video hours were consumed on
NBC Olympics’ digital platforms, and the
NBC Sports Live Extra app was downloaded
more than 11 million times.
The BBC’s broadcast television coverage
of Andy Murray’s Wimbledon victory in 2013
drew a peak audience of more than 17 million
viewers – one of the largest TV audiences
for a live sporting event in UK history – with
device consumption a footnote. One year
later, ESPN’s coverage of the Argentina v
Germany FIFA World Cup final drew an
audience of more than 1.8 million on digital
devices alone.
Admittedly, this apples-to-oranges
comparison ignores differences in
The future face of TV ● 11
consumption patterns across borders, among
other factors, but the larger point is that
viewers are watching more television on
more devices – a trend that bodes well for
broadcasters and pay-TV providers, and for
advertisers wishing to marry the reach of
television with the personalisation of digital.
Perhaps most importantly, according to a
recent report from Needham, TV everywhere
is boosting linear tune-in: ESPN’s multi-
device FIFA World Cup delivery added 12%
to its TV audience. Rather than cannibalising
its core TV business, ESPN is growing its
traditional linear TV audience by creating
great viewing experiences on devices.
Not all plain sailing
Not every live broadcast in 2014 has been
a success. TV everywhere coverage of the
Oscars in the US and certain World Cup
matches in the UK experienced major
outages. Both are examples of broadcasters
failing to scale adequately to meet consumer
expectations for multiscreen TV.
As broadcasters and pay-TV providers
seize the opportunities that TV everywhere
presents, and monetise content through
dynamic ad insertion and subscriptions more
efficiently, established companies like Adobe
are creating measurable value for customers.
The technology providers that will thrive in
this new environment are the ones helping
media companies achieve real results and
efficiencies by providing the flexibility,
scale and capacity required to meet viewers’
expectations for live, linear and on-demand
TV across desktops and devices.
Limiting latency, the potential hidden killer of online video
After a couple of very strong years of
growth, thanks to the mass availability
of compelling content, online video has
now evolved to the point where the key
issue is quality of experience. But how
is this ensured?
By Joseph O’Halloran
Editor In Chief
Rapid TV News
I
t’s funny to think that it wasn’t that long
ago that people wondered how online
video could be successful. Now it seems
that the only thing that will limit online video
will be service providers narrowing consumer
choice by buying each other out – such as
Amazon’s acquisition of LOVEFiLM – and
for services not providing an acceptable
quality of service.
The latter is not so much overlooked as
rather assumed, that is to say people assume
that a service worthy of the name will be
delivered in high quality. But that’s exactly
what it is: an assumption. And potentially a
business-threatening one; latency could be the
hidden killer of an online vide service.
Just glancing at the 2014 Cisco Visual
Networking Index (VNI) shows that the
increased appetite for IP-delivered video is
poised to have a profound effect on bandwidth
consumption. The VNI predicts that monthly
global IP traffic by 2018 will be the
equivalent of 8.8 billion screens streaming
the FIFA World Cup final in 4K/UltraHD,
all at the same time with an annual run-rate
equivalent to 5.5 billion people binge-
watching Game of Thrones Season 4 via
video-on-demand in HD or 1.5 billion
watching in 4K/UltraHD or 4.5 trillion
YouTube clips. Of this online video will
be the fastest growing residential Internet
service, Cisco added, with a CAGR of 10%
from 2013-2018, growing from 1.2 billion
users to 1.9 billion users. More interestingly,
4K/UltraHD video is set to account for 11%
of IP video traffic by 2018, up from 0.1%
in 2013; HD video will account for 52%
(up from 36%) and SD will account for the
remaining 37% (down from 64%).
Will the cost be passed on?
Dealing with this demand is something that
is very much at the forefront of the minds of
not just service providers but also the network
operators. The issue has taken its sharpest
relief in the investment that Netflix has
made, rather begrudgingly it has to be said,
throughout 2014 with Comcast, AT&T and
Verizon in the US to guarantee an acceptable
quality of service. The question is whether
the cost of these fast lanes will be passed
on to the viewer. If so, that will mean that
any buffering or glitches in quality will be
regarded as even more unacceptable.
These issues are something of a priority for
Jason Thibeault, Senior Director, Marketing
Strategy of Limelight Networks. Thibeault
believes that viewers have been raised on the
experience that surrounds television – that
is, when we turn the TV on the pictures are
going to start playing and the experience will
be of high quality. And so we are taking those
expectations into the online world and forcing
the companies that provide those services to
offer the same type of experiences.
“What we are seeing from our perspective
as a service provider is that more [of those]
who are delivering content are trying to
compete not on the service offering itself
because everyone is coming to market with
the same features and functionality,” he
The future face of TV ● 12
argued. “And now because content is so much
easier to license, these companies are really
competing on the quality of experience.
How fast can I get the video to you and at
broadcast quality?”
What is the new reality is that companies
such as Netflix are being driven to push the
bar upwards. Indeed as the over the top leader
expands around the world it has not only
pushed online distribution of HD content but
also has a confirmed 4K content distribution
strategy already in place. This has seen global
incumbents such as Comcast, BSkyB and the
BBC being judged against what is available
online. It has also resulted in such companies
feeling compelled to follow suit with similar
types of services that are adding even more
strain to the networks.
Even though Thibeault does not think that
mass numbers of viewers are really holding
online content providers to the same quality
standards of broadcaster just yet, he does
believe it is a process that is starting happen
and one with huge ramifications.
“It’s really important that online video
distributors and the content owners
understand that of equal importance to their
content is the experience around the video.
What we have to remember is that when
people go to watch a video, the difference
between watching online and the TV
experience is that you can’t just tune it on and
have it go,” the analyst explained.
“There’s no such thing in the online world
of a set of channels that you can tune into –
you have to go find that video and that video
is embedded in an experience that is equally
as important as the video itself:
what’s surrounding it; what does the player
look like; how fast does the player load;
how fast does the website that the player is
embedded in load?”
All of which, and hence viewer experience,
is seriously affected by latency. All forms
of it. “The online video industry needs to
understand that it is subject to both kinds of
“They also suffer from the latency around
the video experience, the non-traditional
latency that we might see from an eCommerce
provider such as how fast does every little
object load, what’s my type of interaction,
how quickly can users start clicking.”
Iterated approach
But what can the distributors do about such
things? For Limelight the key was to adopt
an iterated approach whereby rather than
just ‘solve’ the video problem and then the
associated experience, it built a network in the
service offering to address latency in general.
This, Thibeault insisted, was the fruits of the
company’s foresight when it started in the
early parts of the last decade when it foresaw
an explosion in online video and built a
network with the capability to support media
servers and all that was required to deliver
video, including the experience around it.
This approach is one that Thibeault is
confident will stand it in good stead even
as demand increases and services becomes
more data intensive as 4K video usage rises.
In fact he would go far as to say that he does
not regard 4K as that challenging. “As video
gets larger it’s really to us just the same: bits
being delivered. So there’s nothing more
special to us about 4K than say 1080i etc;
there’s just larger bits to deliver. But as more
content owners deliver more 4K traffic it fills
up our pipes faster. We are getting bigger each
“Looking into year to support more and more of this higher
resolution content. Things are just going to
the crystal ball, get bigger and bigger: 4K, 8K, 16K; where’s
Thibeault believes it going to stop?”
Looking into the crystal ball, Thibeault
that for content believes that for content owners the most
owners the most pressing challenge will come from the number
of devices to support. “For the content
pressing challenge owners, I think it’s more about more people
will come from the consuming more content on more devices,
such as viewing 4K content on a tablet and
number of devices smartphone – this multi-device content
to support” consumption that we are seeing already but on
a much larger scale. We’ll also see a tighter
integration between the television experience
and the online video experience.”
It seems logical that content delivery
network providers are set to become the
latency. You can call one video latency – that shovel providers of the new TV Klondike as
is how fast is the video loading, how quickly providing high quality experiences across
can I get to first play, what kind of bit-rate any device anywhere becomes table stakes.
switching am I having during the experience,” And for provider these stakes are high, too
Thibeault added. high to gamble.
The future face of TV ● 13
Social TV is here to stay
Are Facebook and
Twitter now natural
extensions of YTV
services? If so,
where do they and
other social media
services fit into the
vision of operators
and providers?
By Graham Reid,
YouView
R
ecently, 22 sportsmen from Germany
and Brazil kicked a football around
a pitch for 90 minutes. Twitter
exploded. It was reported that a record 35.6
million people tweeted about the World Cup
semi-final, and in 90 minutes the Internet
confirmed that social TV was booming.
But what is social TV? Back here in
Britain, we at YouView have discovered that
social media is affecting the way we connect
over TV more than ever before. We’re
tweeting telly tips to each other, checking
Facebook for TV news, and sharing our TV
experiences over the social online world.
Social TV is people connecting over TV in
new and modern ways.
To celebrate YouView’s second birthday,
we recently conducted our second annual
census into TV viewing habits and found that,
for starters, almost a quarter of 18-24 year
olds talk about their favourite telly every day
on Twitter, with Facebook not far behind with
a figure of 20%.
Social media has had a huge impact on our
TV tastes, with around one in seven viewers
now getting TV recommendations directly
from it.
As a company on the rise, it’s important to
us to know our customers inside out as we
look to innovate and improve our platform.
With BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5,
“Social media has
had a huge impact
on our TV tastes,
with around one
in seven viewers
now getting TV
recommendations
directly from it”
BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva making up our
seven-strong group of shareholders, we’re
seamlessly combining live and catch-up
television, maintaining a high quality on
demand TV service that continues to improve.
So, where does social media fit into
our vision? Firstly, the mobility of social
media means that people can discover TV
recommendations wherever they are, at any
time. That’s why we launched our YouView
app, with the ability to set recordings on the
YouView+ box on your mobile. Our research
found that 10% of TV viewers, across all
available platforms, now use remote record.
Changing habits
The importance of on demand content also
continues to grow, putting us in a great
position as TV viewers’ habits change and
evolve. Crucially, what the numbers continue
to show is that, while social TV becomes
ever more powerful, the average TV user
The future face of TV ● 14
still wants to just sit down in the living room,
find their favourite programme, and watch it.
This means that discoverability (a YouView
watchword) is crucial. Whether it’s finding
the right programme on live channels, using
seven day scroll-back via the programme
guide, delving into on demand players
such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD or
Demand 5, or bringing up a list of recordings,
as television evolves the need for great
discoverability is paramount.
Sharing the experience
Our TV census also focused on the rise of
second screening. Telly fans don’t just want to
view their favourite drama, they want to share
their experiences on Twitter with their friends,
or check the news headlines, or browse the
net on their tablet. While the numbers are
still relatively small (14% of viewers use
Facebook while watching TV, and 4% use
Twitter), they’re significant enough for us to
take notice. With YouView’s funding secured
for the next five years, we’re now looking at
how we widen our content delivery across all
platforms and devices, giving viewers a more
complete TV experience.
A final question then: what did we
learn from our research? Well, it looks like
social TV is here to stay. Just like the social
media outlets that facilitate it, it’s growing.
People are sharing more information with
each other, more easily than ever before.
But TV, as much as it ever was, is nothing
without great content.
Driving value from data
Having compelling
content is not
enough: monetising
it effectively is the
name of the game
By Sef Tuma,
Managing Director,
Accenture Digital
Video Services
W
hile content companies have
traditionally allowed downstream
organisations to provide direct call
to action marketing to consumers, the advent
of digital interactions provides an opportunity,
and in some cases a responsibility, to use
these nascent channels to increase uptake,
engagement and loyalty or ‘stickiness’. An
improved ability to segment a consumer base
gives marketing departments the ability to
leverage internal creative capabilities (such
as content curation/editorial) tied to more
sophisticated targeting tools to not only
create effective marketing messages but also
generate feedback on what works.
With the right execution this can create a
test-and-learn culture that delivers a smarter
organisation, able to optimise its marketing
spend and react quickly to changing consumer
sentiment. While this would require an
investment in a platform (or a partnership)
to support these capabilities, the return
on investment should be measurable in
marketing ROI and increased consumer
engagement to drive other revenue models on
digital channels (e.g., advertising). The key
benefits can be described as follows:
• Product definition – For digital-only
products, or traditional products that are
distributed across a number of channels, the
insights collected from digital interactions can
be extremely valuable. Given the end result
is a more engaged audience, any information
about current engagement, segmented by
content or demographic, can support decision
making as products are designed. This works
very well in ‘test and learn’ scenarios in
which functions and features may be difficult
to prioritise without data to show what works
“Content segments
do not need to be
specifically based
on genre or talent”
best with the target consumer.
• Content pricing – Finding the optimal price
point to enhance returns is driven by the
ability to segment and test different content
pricing models and messages across various
digital channels. As content catalogues
become larger, the ability to understand the
likely yield based on the characteristics of
both the consumers as well as the audience
can help support more predictable pricing.
• Ad sales and operations – While the
value of digitally collected data has been
understood to support online ad sales,
more innovative players in the industry are
developing the ability to use the same data
to better understand the value of traditional
advertising. Given most consumer devices
can handle OTT distribution of video, as well
as collect data across both linear and OTT,
the use of correlation as well as segmentation
techniques can improve understanding of
whether a household is more responsive to
certain types of advertising, independent
of pure programming considerations. The
insights here can be used in a number of
ways from enriching traditional advertising
footprints, which may have STB devices that
can provide targeted linear advertising, to
The future face of TV ● 15
creating an option for traditional advertising
to use OTT as a ‘make good’ channel.
• Rights acquisition – More insight into
consumer engagement across digital channels
helps rights negotiations as innovative
content and consumer segmentation can help
better package or consolidate rights across
numerous windows and enhance the return
on spend. For instance, being able to cluster
the consumer base across a number of content
segments that have been calculated through
usage or interaction enables connections
around content usage (or recommendation
effectiveness) that can support decisions
about expected return for particular mixes of
content rights packages.
• Content commissioning – Better
understanding of core digital audience
behaviour enhances the content
commissioning process by providing insight
into the types of content segments that are
most effective with the footprint reached
through those channels.
Content segments do not need to be
specifically based around genre or talent.
Appropriate, fine-tuned algorithms around
correlation and predictive modelling can
create new types of segments. These can
be used to support and test curation and
editorial recommendation processes, and then
help predict whether commissioned content
would have similar hit rates. Netflix has
demonstrated the success of this approach
numerous times, harnessing its usage data to
help green-light relatively pricey productions
more confidently.
Breaking down the barriers
to digital ad insertion
Delivering the right ad
to the right viewer at
the right time should
be easy, right?
By Garrick Simeon
Managing Director,
General Dynamics
Mediaware
A
s we know the key factor for the
future of broadcasting will be
delivering different, tailored versions
of programmes to a range of devices – mobile
phones, tablets and computers, as well as the
new generation of smart TVs – with targeted
advertising, local news and other items that
will attract regional audiences. But how easy is
this and how ready is the broadcast industry?
Broadcasting has long followed established
engineering principles of extensive research
and development, followed by long trial
periods, before implementing innovative
technologies. But recently we have seen that
where there is a perceived instant benefit –
either from more efficient working or higher
viewing figures and revenues – the adoption
period can be much shorter.
Today we are in a place where the use of
information and communications technologies
(ICT) is increasing and the benefits of IP
technology are clear but facilities largely
continue to work with uncompressed video.
This is partly for the high quality it brings
but also because it is what people are
used to. There is some comfort in dealing
with a familiar format and since modern
network infrastructures have made moving
uncompressed video around easier, there
would appear to be little point in changing. In
addition, the technical impracticality of moving
uncompressed, full-bandwidth video over IP
only reinforces such a view. It will take time
for many to forget about how, in the past, IP
packet-based networks have lost data, produced
jittery pictures and generally caused problems.
However changes are being forced by
the consumer and the commercial end of
“Existing
broadcasting
techniques are not
necessarily the best
way to connect with
this new market”
the broadcast market and in terms of hard
business this also means finding ways to
make money from localised advertising.
National and regional broadcasting, using
the traditional linear model of scheduled TV,
reaches a vast number of potential consumers
but as more people begin to watch streaming
and on-demand services – whether on smart
TVs, computers or mobiles – a new market is
opening up.
Encoding material
However existing broadcasting techniques
are not necessarily the best way to connect
with this new market but IP and compressed
technologies are well placed to smooth the
way in extending the reach of broadcasters.
The best way to do this is to encode
material once and localise it at the point
of transmission, or as close as is possible.
Inserting commercials and local content into
a service after it has been compressed for
play-out is expensive and time-consuming.
As well as needing a significant investment in
hardware, decoding and re-coding in this way
also results in lower picture and sound quality
each time the process is carried out.
The future face of TV ● 17
Operators should take advantage of the fact
that video is already being compressed through
the delivery chain and insert ads and play-out
functions while it is in that format and ignore
the temptation to go back into base band.
Advanced MPEG splicing technologies are
now meeting both the quality and important
integration requirements across the entire chain
requirements of linear delivery. Having an
integrated system means that the automation,
traffic management, billing, logging and
reporting functions needed to make everything
work can be incorporated easily.
Splice points
Splicing allows operators to target both
advertising and programming on a regional
or local level across multiple platforms,
including DTV, cable, IPTV, OTT and online.
Technologies such as InStream, developed
by General Dynamics Mediaware, offer
this capability for all-compressed digital
video systems. As well as the practical
task of inserting specific material, such
solutions can enhance viewing experiences
by creating splice points that are seamless
and so indistinguishable from the original
programming. It also handles frame accuracy
in a live environment in different ways
to older MPEG-based systems, which
allows input streams and ad files to be
configured on the fly.
The result is that systems for real-time,
frame-accurate processing of compressed
video, are giving broadcasters the tools to not
only improve profitability and operational
efficiency but reach more people with
professional, targeted programming.
Content and engineering: the driving
force behind Internet video
In an increasingly
competitive
landscape, defining
and articulating your
role within the mix is
fundamental
Jonathan Beavon
Director of Strategy,
Service Provider
Video
Cisco Systems
E
xamining the progression of Internet
video trends over time, our annual
Cisco Visual Networking Index serves
as a useful benchmark. As a proportion of
total IP traffic, video transmission totalled
36% in 2008; today that figure is closer to
70%. The increase is even more remarkable
considering total IP traffic grew five-fold in
the same period.
In case it wasn’t already, the meteoric rise
of Internet video became apparent following
a claim from Netflix earlier this year. Having
launched its video-on-demand offering in
2008, the streaming service announced in
May that it already makes up a third of all US
Internet traffic.
Trend slowdown
As broadband speeds continue to rise and IP
video markets mature, it seems very unlikely
that this upward trend will slow. Indeed, in the
case of most of the pay-TV operators that we
speak to, the conversation has shifted from
simply ‘how do we make this work?’ to ‘how
can we make the most of this?”
There are crucial decisions to be made
early on. OTT video providers put content
at the heart of their offering, while cable
TV differentiates itself on connectivity
and distribution, specifically based on
the speed and reliability of its broadband
products. Large satellite TV operators have
taken a hybrid approach, coupling in-house
production, investment in commissioned
IP video to drive unprecedented surge
in bandwidth usage by 2018
Thirst for IP-delivered video is poised to have
a profound effect on bandwidth consumption,
according to the latest Cisco Visual
Networking Index (VNI).
The survey predicts that annual IP traffic
for 2018 alone will be greater than all of the
Internet traffic that has ever been generated
globally (from 1984-2013).
That would mean monthly global IP
traffic by 2018 would be the equivalent
of 8.8 billion screens streaming the FIFA
World Cup final game in 4K/UltraHD, all at
the same time. The annual run-rate in fact
should be about 1.6 zettabytes, or more than
one and a half trillion gigabytes per year.
That’s also equivalent to 5.5 billion people
binge-watching Game of Thrones Season
4 via video-on-demand in HD or 1.5 billion
content with the option to distribute over both
broadcast and broadband networks.
Regardless of the route taken, gearing up
for the impending growth of video traffic
generally entails some form of technological
or infrastructural development. Content
delivery networks, conditional access
technologies, digital rights management
(DRM) and STB software are just a few of the
factors that must be considered.
Video businesses increasingly need speed-
The future face of TV ● 18
watching in 4K/UltraHD; 4.5 trillion YouTube
clips; or 940 quadrillion text messages.
Online video will be the fastest growing
residential Internet service, Cisco said, with
a CAGR of 10% from 2013-2018, growing
from 1.2 billion users to 1.9 billion users by
2018. And on the business front, desktop and
personal videoconferencing will be the fastest
growing business Internet service with a
CAGR of 45%, growing from 37 million users
in 2013 to 238 million users by 2018.
Taken together, IP video will be 79% of all
IP traffic by 2018, up from 66% in 2013. More
interestingly, 4K/UltraHD video will account
for 11% of IP video traffic by 2018, up from
0.1% in 2013. HD video will account for 52%
(up from 36%) and SD will account for the
remaining 37% (down from 64%).
to-market, flexibility of deployment, and
most importantly control of the technology
that underpins their business. Set against
that context, technology suppliers’ remit is
changing; we are increasingly approached
for our expertise in consultation and service
viability.
With IP video traffic set to treble again over
the next four years ours is an exciting industry
to be part of, with many great innovations to
deliver to our customers.
Are conversational interfaces the future?
How we experience
content is increasingly
becoming as important
as availability. But have
interfaces been meeting
user expectations?
By Charles Dawes,
Global Strategic
Account Director,
Rovi
W
ithin the entertainment tech sphere
voice recognition and interaction
has been portrayed as the ultimate
human-to-machine interface. But while
speech-driven interfaces have been used for
decades, practical uses have, until recently,
been limited to supporting basic structured
queries and stock responses. The truth is,
speech-driven interfaces have not yet realised
their full potential and delivered the natural
interactions we envisioned.
Unfortunately, while speech capabilities can
be broadly applied, we are currently seeing
a great disparity in performance of voice-
enabled services. Although there’s evidence
of serious attempts to try and break through
to the futuristic ideals of speech-driven
interfaces, most solutions available today
are largely unintuitive. This is because they
still rely on structured menus for information
retrieval so navigation with voice is as tedious
as it would be with touch input.
At this stage we are only really scratching
the surface of what’s possible. While many
task-orientated systems may provide the
notion of conversation continuity, in reality
each request-response pair is independent of
the next and is therefore limited in context –
not exactly the ideal basis for a conversation.
Conversational interface – what
does this mean?
Conversational interfaces allow users to
converse similar to the way humans do with
one another. They are user interfaces that
simulate natural communication qualities on
devices and applications, allowing users to
interact with them in casual language modes.
This level of interaction can unlock a
range of opportunities when applied to basic
activities such as booking a cinema ticket –
comparing dates, locations time schedules
and prices – or deciding what to watch on
TV when faced with hundreds of live TV
channels, thousands of VOD titles, and
potentially millions of OTT options.
Consumers increasingly desire the ability
to speak naturally with devices and have
them effectively understand and execute
their requests. One of the essential enabling
technologies for these new experiences
is graph-based search and discovery.
This graph (aka ‘knowledge graph’) is a
semantic database of named entities, where
the relationships between these entities are
dynamically mapped for predictive and
intelligent results for search and discovery.
“What’s that Matt Damon film
about fracking?”
For consumers, a more intuitive discovery
and recommendation process is critical as
video is a semantically opaque medium.
Multiple criteria are now involved when
it comes to ways in which people evaluate
viewing options – from cast to plots, genres,
moods, and more – all of which are subjective
to users. With this in mind, the TV viewing
experience is a prime example of where a
knowledge graph-based semantic approach
is of great benefit to consumers. As the
landscape becomes increasingly complex
with the sheer volume of content available,
traditional lexical metadata and structured
menu-driven search and navigation prove
difficult and cumbersome. A knowledge graph
assists in streamlining discovery by showing
content options in the way people think about
The future face of TV ● 21
programs rather than through traditional
keyword or structured menu-based attributes.
Semantic technologies become even more
interesting with conversational interfaces that
enable semantic interpretation for natural-
language queries. This is extremely exciting for
those in the TV space as it can discern when
a user is drilling down into a context or has
switched topics, such as moving from movies to
sports. This not only mimics our conversation
style, but it also reflects how users typically
browse for programming, often not sure what
specifically they’d like to watch or perusing a
range of different viewing options.
When will we start talking to
our TVs?
With the technology moving forward at such
a fast pace, it’s safe to say that conversational
interfaces are the logical next phase for the
emerging era of smart-connected devices.
Samsung for example has introduced a
remote control with built-in microphone
that facilitates voice-interaction and we can
undoubtedly expect Google to introduce
something similar when it launches
Android TV.
However, simply adding speech enablement
to existing solutions will not provide
consumers with the interactions they desire.
To become fully functional and effective for
users, voice technologies must be backed
by sophisticated search capabilities, such
as knowledge graphs and deep metadata.
By building these technologies effectively,
consumers can expect to reap the rewards
of fast, accurate and intuitive voice content
search. Stay tuned, talking to your TV may
soon no longer be a sign of madness.
Why interactive video and why now?
The good news for
online video is that it
is now well established
in broadcasting with
an ever increasing
number of players. The
bad news is that such
growth makes standing
out ever harder
By Pieter Mees,
CEO and co-founder,
Zentrick
I of their general
n a recent report from Cisco, it was
estimated that IP video will account for
79% of all consumer Internet traffic by
2018, up from 66% in 2013. With faster
and better online provision, as well as a
host of devices that allow people to access
the Internet on the go, online video has
quickly become the go-to method for people
seeking to fulfil their information and
entertainment needs.
This trend has been echoed in business,
especially in the area of content marketing.
Numerous studies and reports have shown
that over half of companies use online video
as part of their general customer outreach and
over 64% of marketers expect the medium to
dominate their strategies in the future. With
near limitless potential reach, successful
video allows customers to act as endorsers
and promoters by sharing content with people
within their social networks, leading to
increased time and interactions with
the brand.
Standing out from the crowd
However, this new paradigm has created a
host of challenges and issues for organisations
looking to best use it. Considering that
YouTube, by far the biggest online video
platform, receives more than a billion unique
users every month, brands and companies
must work hard to ensure that their video
“Over half of
companies use
online video as part
customer outreach”
stands out in the crowd and really delivers
sufficient engagement. Also, with companies
increasingly looking at the bottom line and
costs, the ROI of digital video, be it against
revenue, subscribers, leads or click-through
etc, is an area that needs to be addressed.
One answer to this issue is interactive
video. A modern business needs to maximise
the interactive capabilities built into digital
devices (touch, the web, geo-location etc)
to ensure that it not only engages viewers
and customers, but also sustains that
interest. Interactive videos create a unified
environment that gives consumers truly
engaging experiences, so they have a clear
path to follow up their initial interest within
the video. This new online paradigm allows
users to click for immediate reaction, link to
related information or have their experience
personalised according to available data. They
can engage, follow their own thought process,
act upon it and respond immediately for
instant results, which are personalised.
Interactive online video can also deliver
true economies of scale by unifying outlets,
The future face of TV ● 22
networks or partners with automatic cross
screen compatibility. Companies and
organisations can scale and optimise both
workflows and assets to drive business
growth while reusing creative work across
paid, owned and earned media. Not only this,
but by collecting engagement information
about viewers along the way, brands can
programmatically target, personalise and
optimise content to meet media performance
goals, serving the right content to the right
user at the right time for real time marketing
optimisation.
Encouraging brand engagement
Recognising and partnering the latest trends
in the video and online worlds is what
interactive video is ultimately about, while
at the same time ensuring that they are used
in the most effective ways possible for real
results. From social rewards to real-time
commerce, inline gamification, timed surveys,
embedded contact forms or local store finders,
the interactive layers embedded in this new
form of video can encourage and facilitate the
next step in brand engagement. Ultimately,
video has become more like the apps that
we know and love on our devices; a content
experience where everything is clickable, and
dynamic and compatible across all devices
and screens.
If online video was the original
development, then think of the interactive
iteration as Video 2.0 – the next stage in one
of the most important business developments
in the online world.
Taking content truly everywhere
As the way we
consume media
continues to evolve,
IBC announces the
launch of Content
Everywhere, a new
series of global
events that will cover
every aspect of the
innovation story of
our industry
I
BC Content Everywhere is a new series
of global events that reflect the changing
nature of the industry and will launch at
IBC 2014 in Amsterdam in September.
Destined to take place at key regions
round the world, they have been created as
a response to requests from IBC exhibitors
and attendees alike, and acknowledge that
IP-connected smartphones, tablets and
personal computers are altering the way we
consume media. This especially applies to
TV and video content as broadband pipes
get fatter across continents and mobile
delivery technologies become faster and more
widespread, short-circuiting the traditional
developmental cycles and bootstrapping
whole regions online faster than would once
have been deemed possible.
The events will cover rich media
production, devices, apps, digital marketing,
social media, content personalisation,
big data, cloud services, second screens,
investment and much more.
Global reach
And they are truly global, the initial three
events spanning Europe, MENA and LATAM,
with the latter two taking place in Dubai and
São Paulo next year.
Not only will the inaugural IBC Content
Everywhere Europe provide a forum for
discussing the latest developments and the
future of digital content in Europe’s single
“Content is
truly migrating
everywhere and
these new events will
follow its progress
assiduously”
market, but it will also mark the debut of
a radical new technology that promises
to change the nature of the tradeshow
experience. Touch & Connect exploits
near-field communications technology to
allow attendees to exchange contact details
or information by touching device-to-device
or device-to-tag. Via some innovative
distribution geography it extends the reach
of IBC Content Everywhere throughout
the whole IBC show and 24/7/365 online
as well, granting access to a special online
portal and a global community of like-
minded professionals working in this rapidly
developing field.
Given a constant slew of surveys indicating
the growing importance of connected devices
to the global viewership, content is truly
migrating everywhere and these new events
will follow its progress assiduously.
You can expect the subject to be examined
in detail too in one of the IBC Conference
keynotes this year. The agenda-setting
The future face of TV ● 23
keynotes are given by the thought leaders
at the very forefront of innovation in the
industry, an international line-up of the
pre-eminent and most visionary leaders
in their field that anchor and guide the
conference agenda.
Each day of the conference this year will
cover a different aspect of the innovation
story of our industry and each will feature a
dedicated keynote. Here, one of the visionary
speakers attracted to IBC will give their
analysis, insight and predictions of the day’s
agenda, looking at the present challenges,
future opportunities or potential disruptors
that we collectively face.
Big names and big subjects
Always informative, thought-provoking,
insightful and often entertaining as well, the
IBC keynotes provide exactly the sort of
top-level insight that helps delegates make
their strategic business decisions for the
years to come. Expect some big names and
equally big subjects to be announced over the
coming months.
For more information about IBC Content
Everywhere please visit the IBC Content
Everywhere dedicated website
www.ibcCE.org
To view the full IBC2014 Conference
Programme please visit
www.ibc.org/conferenceprogramme