NLZIET – a Dutch streaming service which is owned and operated by the country’s three major broadcasting groups NPO, RTL and Talpa – has chosen Media Distillery to provide topic-based content discovery. The AI-powered content discovery solution – Topic Distillery – automatically analyses content to detect topics it contains, and then adds this information to the programming’s metadata.
According to Media Distillery, one of the challenges NLZIET faces is that, especially for non-scripted live programmes like news, talk shows, and sports programming, there is a lack of descriptions of the actual topics the programme contains, included in the EPG.
Media Distillery elaborates: “Due to the nature of these shows, the programme description provided in a TV guide / EPG is typically very limited and superficial and offers little informative value. An example would be the news: EPG descriptions typically state that a news programme contains news of the latest internal and foreign affairs and the weather, instead of more specific topics such as, for instance, the war in Ukraine, the Eurovision Song Contest, Will Smith or the Champions League Final. With Topic Distillery, such topics are detected and added to the metadata.”
The partnership will mean NLZIET viewers will be able to find content based on the detected topics, decide whether they want to watch based on these topics, and jump to particular parts of the show based on automatically generated chapter markers and chapter titles.
Survey results from a beta trial of the solution shows that 92% of respondents said they would use the solution when it becomes available. 90% of users said they would be interested in jumping straight to the segment of choice (as enabled by the solution) – this is made more significant by the fact that 85% of respondents currently manually scroll through the video timeline to find interesting parts.
The survey also finds that 72% of respondents said the solution gives more control over the desired topics and 74% said it gives them a better idea about what the content is about.
NLZIET and Media Distillery are currently testing several additional new features. New forms of chapterisation are in development, allowing viewers to quickly navigate in the playbar to specific topics without needing to search, and to watch items in short-form.
Sander Kouwenhoven, CTO at NLZIET, says: “Media Distillery is the natural partner for NLZIET. We both believe that innovation is the key factor for taking the quality of video entertainment to the next level.”
“With Topic Distillery, users no longer need to watch a whole programme to find their desired content, and content consumption is much easier. This solution could really transform the non-scripted live TV watching experience. By making more content easily discoverable, Topic Distillery prolongs the lifetime value of the content.”
Roland Sars, CEO at Media Distillery, comments: “We’ve only just begun to grasp the myriad ways AI can provide consumers with more personalised, user-friendly experiences, and we’re excited to discover more.”
