It’s that time of year again when many of us start to look back over the past year and reflect on what’s changed and what we’ve achieved.
And what a year it’s been. The economic climate has loomed large this past year and is being keenly felt across the industry as consumers cut back on spending. After the wave started toward the end of 2022, this year, streaming services have continued to adapt to the changing market by expanding their SVOD offering to include ad-based tiers. AVOD and FAST channels too have continued to grow in popularity as more viewers seek out ways to watch content for free. With ad-revenue from traditional TV continuing to decline, most broadcasters are already streaming their content to OTT. Over the last year, broadcasters have been building on their existing offering by launching improved integratedBroadcaster Video on Demand services (BVOD) to give viewers access to on-demand content (AVOD) as well as linear content (FAST).
The industry is quietly continuing its transition to the cloud, with most broadcasters and content owners now operating at least some of their operations in the cloud. Traditional broadcasters, however, continue to face some difficult challenges, from falling ad-revenue on traditional TV, fragmentation of audiences, and the need to adapt to new technologies, to managing the technical complexities around delivering content seamlessly to an OTT and broadcast for consumption on a wide range and devices. Cloud playout is definitely becoming more and more popular and although it can’t solve all of the problems that broadcasters are facing, it can certainly help to address many of the technical challenges they have, not least because it provides a simple, affordable, flexible and scalable way of creating and managing channels.
It has been a momentous year for Veset, having been acquired by PLAY, Inc., a leading Japanese media technology company. With the backing of PLAY, we’ll be able to push innovation in the field of playout even further, to deliver greater value to our customers, and to viewers. And already, the acquisition, which took place earlier in the year, is helping us to further develop our offerings and scale the company.
Another highlight was IBC. With over 57,000 attendees, this year’s show lived up to expectations. We’ve been exhibiting at the RAI for many years now and just being there and walking the floor is a great barometer for how the industry’s feeling and where it’s heading. This year, there was a lot of focus on monetisation and advertising, and also, perhaps unsurprisingly, much interest and many conversations around AI. A real standout moment for Veset was when it won the 2023 StreamingMedia European Innovation Awards in the Content Protection & Monetisation category, together with Ad Insertion Platform (AIP). NAB New York was also a blast and as always, was a fantastic event with lots of networking opportunities and chances to meet partners and friends, both old and new.
We’ve made some major developments and added some exciting features to Veset Nimbus throughout the year:
· Dolby Audio added – to enable linear channels to be created with high quality 5.1 channels audio in Dolby Digital for enhanced audio quality.
· Veset Nimbus launched in AWS Marketplace – AWS customers can quickly create and launch professional linear, OTT, or FAST channels.
· Support added for HTML5 – enables users to create engaging and interactive HTML5 graphics and import them into a cloud-hosted playout stream.
· Integration with AWS Elemental MediaTailor –making it simple for users to build channels and insert personalised ads entirely in the cloud.
· Ad-insertion feature added – for server-side ad-insertion for ads that sit alongside the live feed to minimise interruption to the viewing experience.
· Support added for SMPTE 2022-7 – for redundancy, and seamless switching and synchronisation between primary and redundant streams.
With the increased consumer appetite for ad-based content, broadcasters and streaming providers alike are laser focused on maximising ad-revenue by increasing engagement and delivering the right ads to viewers.This is driving innovation in ad-tech, and so we’re expecting to see a lot of exciting developments in this field during the coming year.
There’s no doubt that AI is going to carry on creating waves in 2024. We’re already seeing the transformative power that the technology holds for the broadcast and media industry, and it’s only in its infancy. 5G will also likely play a big role in shaping the broadcast and media industry in the year to come. As 5G roll out and adoption continues, it’ll accelerate content creation and delivery, which will have a huge impact on the entire content supply chain, especially for live broadcasting.
While it’s difficult to predict exactly where AI and 5G will lead us to by the end of 2024, we can be certain of one thing: the industry’s transition to the cloud is going to continue and cloud playout is only going togo from strength to strength.
Veset Nimbus is an intuitive, all-in-one, cloud playout management platform designed to streamline professional linear channel operations with high levels of operational complexity.
To find out how Veset Nimbus can help you to create and manage professional linear channels entirely in the cloud: get in touch now.
