OTT

AI-driven automated captioning for broadcasters continues its upward trajectory of accuracy and speed, while more recently the service is evolving toward hybrid on-prem and cloud models and multi-language translation capabilities. Above, Lexi is the cloud-hosted automatic captioning service from Ai-Media.

Over-the-top streaming offering YouTube TV has reached a milestone of 5 million subscribers and trial customers, making it one of the most popular nontraditional live TV services in the U.S. Owned by Alphabet, five-year-old YouTube TV has differentiated itself from the competition with unique features such as a cloud-based DVR, real-time statistics for live sports, and more. Now that an increasing number of people are cutting the cord and moving to internet-based television, here’s why this might this be the right moment for Alphabet to break out YouTube TV as a stand-alone operation.

Now commanding 28% of all video viewing time, over-the-top services have exploded in popularity. Borrell Associates found that they Increased from just 13.7% of all locally spent advertising in 2021, with more than a third of local media managers calling OTT their hottest-selling digital product. Find out why OTT is commanding such rapidly growing attention — and an equally growing piece of local advertising spend — and why OTT players like YouTube and TikTok are likely to take an increasing piece of the ad pie.

Regional sports networks are venturing into launching their first OTT channels to tap into the cord-cutting market. It’s an important move, but one that needs to be followed up with wider streaming distribution agreements to reach as broad an audience as possible.

For several years now cable operators have been arguing that the FCC needs to recognize the shift in children’s video consumption from “‘traditional linear television’ to unregulated online programming,” and deregulate accordingly. The 1990 Children’s Television Act set limits on ads in children’s programming and the FCC in 2004 limited the display of website addresses during children’s programming. NCTA told the FCC this week, as it did back in 2018, that it was time to eliminate those restrictions.

This is the third year for the RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey question: What, if anything, are you doing with OTT? It’s the second year that we’ve asked what, if anything, stations are doing with NextGen TV.

Live and local content are front and center of many strategic OTT decisions being made by media companies today, and new technologies are enabling their delivery at scale.

Dr. Mark Fratrik, BIA Advisory Services’ longtime SVP and chief economist, is retiring at the end of June. He talks with TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp about retrans’ slowdown, OTT’s rise and the need for broadcasters to keep their eyes on competitors coming from all directions. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

Bally Sports Plus will initially be available in five markets where the company’s Diamond Sports Group’s regional Bally Sports networks carry Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. The app will cost $19.99 a month, or $189.99 a year, and enable fans to watch games without subscribing to a multichannel pay TV cable, satellite or streaming service.

NBCUniversal says that 30% to 40% of TV ad campaign’s impressions should come from over-the-top streaming in order to optimize results, based on its recent test with advertisers using data from iSpot.tv.

Local-area Red Sox and Bruins enthusiasts don’t seem at all sold on ditching pay TV for this new $30-a-month OTT service.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Todd Krizelman, CEO and co-founder of MediaRadar, about AVOD’s $369 million quarter, which brands and categories are dominating the space so far and the likely trajectory for AVOD spending this year. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

TV stations and groups are increasingly turning to the cloud for playout solutions, and vendors are meeting them there with SaaS options. Above: Imagine’s Aviator control interface. The cloud-based system is designed to support both linear and OTT playout.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Kym Grinnage, regional VP for Gray Television and GM of its WWBT Richmond, Va., about spot TV’s resurgence, OTT growth and how he’s reconciling widening programming needs with a newsroom still exhausted and recovering from the pandemic.

One billion smart TVs will be sold in the next four years, according to Evan Shapiro, and not one of them will need an HDMI stick or hockey puck to connect to the internet.

While previous Devoncroft conferences took place at off-site hotels, the 2022 edition was co-located with the NAB Show and held on the Main Stage of the North Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It drew hundreds of senior executives for an afternoon of panel discussions on everything from cloud migration and IP connectivity to virtual production and blockchain technology. Above, Devoncroft Principal Analyst Josh Stinehour (left) and Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley talking technology.

Streaming services are facing a growing challenge in retaining what a new Parks Associates report is calling “service hoppers” who switched between services and resubscribed to services multiple times in the previous 12 months.

In a post-Volicon era, monitoring and compliance tools have gone beyond just making sure content meets regulatory requirements, moving into new broadcast environments and rolling out features designed to ease workflows. Above: Vela’s Encompass product showing both channel and transport stream analysis to help ensure quality of service.

Bitcentral’s acquisition of direct-to-consumer video publishing vendor Powr.tv this week sees the company edging closer to an end-to-end streaming publishing solution, building on its AI-powered video playlisting tool.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Syncbak CEO Jack Perry about VUit, the streaming channel aggregator of local newscasts, about deals it has closed with a slate of new local partners and the prospect of hyperlocal scalability in OTT.

Acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday (Nov. 18) that her planned refresh of the record on independent content providers’ access to distribution platforms will need to include over-the-top video.