(Friday, December 20)
As the year comes to an end we thought we’d take a look back the the Top 3 Trends that defined 2024.

(This article is from the IABM MediaTech Radar newsletter published on November 20, 2024.)
Last month the IABM Business Intelligence Unit’s Head of Knowledge & Insight, Chris Evans, travelled to Oslo to attend Northern Waves TV Conference. At the event Chris presented data insights from IABM’s State of MediaTech report and led a fireside chat with NRK’s Head of Distribution, Bjarne Myklebust, discussing the optimization of hybrid-cloud infrastructure, the threat of video piracy in the Nordic region, and navigating business transformation as a public service broadcaster.

The event brought together a vibrant gathering of professionals to network and discuss the most pertinent topics in the broadcast and streaming business environment. An excellently curated conference agenda gave representation to both global trends and uniquely regional topics. For this month’s spotlight we will share a summary of the business insights we learned from across the full agenda of conference sessions.

• A consistent point highlighted across many of the day’s talks was that despite the wealth of choice available on streaming platforms, audiences are spending too long on average locating and deciding what to watch. The consensus was that as the competition in the streaming landscape continues to intensify and consumers become more comfortable with service stacking and surfing, platforms need to focus on delivering notable improvements in content search, discovery and recommendation if they want to anchor a continuous spot in users’ subscription mix.

• User experience (UX) design is crucial to delivering a successful streaming experience. However, Brigita Brjuhhanov, TV Product Owner at Elisa Eesti AS, highlighted that platforms should be careful not to skew their UX too heavily in favor of one demographic at the expense of another. For many traditional broadcasters, older generations remain a large share of their audience and revenue streams but are at risk of being alienated by UX that specifically target digital natives. Brjuhhanov delivered a reality check to continuously review and evaluate service innovation from an end-user perspective.

• Audiences have become more fragmented across different devices and platforms, splintering the touchpoints for advertising spend. Enabling personalization through connected TV and streaming platforms can be a means to increase value, through more relevant ad targeting that leads to deeper engagement. Tim DuBois, Head of Video Partnerships, Northern Europe at Google, illustrated the importance of applying a data driven approach to ad optimization, with the revealing insight that consumers that spend the least time watching video can be some of the most valuable to advertisers as they are out in the world influencing others.

• With speakers representing the interests of numerous different Northern European broadcasters, the conference illustrated the vital role broadcasters play in representing local and national stories to complement global media streamers. Kristjana Brynjólfsdóttir, Head of TV Development & Platform at Sýn Iceland, Vodafone, noted that in the competitive video entertainment landscape, scaling up is not always the solution. For a broadcaster like Sýn Iceland, that primarily serves a relatively small national audience, forging creative partnerships with neighbouring broadcasters and media companies can be a pathway to new opportunities and efficiencies to combat pressure from global streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

• AI is being embraced but cautiously. Johan Lindén, Manager Engineer AI at SVT, noted how the broadcaster has applied departmental segmentation for use of the tools. At SVT, news broadcasting cannot be a test environment for AI, yet creative teams are able to explore the potential of Generative AI to develop best practice. Lindén explained that if the usage of AI throughout organizations is inevitable, then they must present the pros and cons of the available models to their employees. This is to ensure that users are part of the learning curve and understand which models are appropriate to use when, and why.

• Content owners in Northern Europe are particularly vulnerable to video piracy due to relaxed consumer attitudes to stealing content. Niklas Hammarbäck, Product Manager Streaming at Viaplay Group, stated that the industry is playing on the defence and only working reactively, giving pirates an easy time. Hammarbäck advocated for more disruptive interference with pirates’ activities, and rather than punishing individuals for acts of piracy, these efforts should be refocused on changing the perception of the behavior in general.

MediaTech Radar is a monthly newsletter authored by IABM’s Business Intelligence Unit. It focuses on a spotlight topic in MediaTech and reflects on a series of past, present and future business developments in the industry. In this edition, our spotlight topic is Northern Waves TV Conference, the annual TV tech and business conference hosted in Oslo during October. For more info visit https://theiabm.org/

(Thursday, November 28) There are many key topics & trends that have shaped the streaming media industry in 2024. Looking back at the industry this year, there are two that stick out above the rest: AI & CTV fragmentation. Both of which are on the rise, but at much different paces. I feel that we’re still seeing a lack of development across both of the hottest topics: AI and CTV Fragmentation.

AI is definitely the buzzword of the year, but has it been anything more than that so far? We’ve seen some great and innovative product ideas emerge, but far fewer production ready solutions. While POCs are expansive – I have seen, first hand, many of the largest organisations are still not supporting the use of AI Tools for work products across Marketing, Tech, and Engineering.  

I’ve also noted that many companies are busy setting mandates that lessen or restrict the use of AI tools. Overall, they’re being cautious for the right reasons, but I believe they’re not spending nearly enough time and investment for training staff on the safe and efficient use of these tools. Across every event in 2024, I have only observed a handful of raised hands when I ask professionals if they use AI for work products and outputs on a regular basis.

When it comes to the CTV OS landscape, we have seen continued fragmentation with no signs of consolidation in sight. Samsung and Apple have taken monopoly positions in many countries and are using this position to their advantage to maximize revenue shares from relevant Apps within their Stores, It would be a tough decision for the Content Providers that are already struggling to make ROI to share revenues now with OEMS or CTV Device Manufacturers. Hardware providers like TP Vision (Philips) have used multiple OS’s now that contributes further to fragmentation, while we are yet to see giants like Samsung expand their TizenOS visibly outside their own hardware. With the recent announcement of Ventura OS from The Trade Desk signalling that Adtech providers are now moving into the OS space, I predict fragmentation will more than double in the coming years. 

Streaming TV is still a new space for many and the important trends witnessed throughout 2024 only makes 2025 more exciting. We look forward to seeing the growth of AI into next year and the many new OS’s to come!