No changes were made to existing STB configurations during the deployment, which harnesses the Appstage application framework within the 24i Mod Studio streaming platform from 24i. This solution is pre-integrated with playout solutions provided by Amagi, a FAST solution leader known for its cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV. “The app was configured to perfectly align with Virgin Media’s UX, facilitating a seamless integration of channels into Virgin Media’s EPG,” the two vendors point out.

Srinivasan KA, Co-Founder and CRO at Amagi says: “Our achievement in integrating multiple FAST channels into Virgin Media’s STB environment through a unified gateway has significantly enriched user choice and paved the way for incremental revenues.”

Donald McGarva, CEO of 24i and its parent company Aferian plc, adds: “This has been a real team effort to give Virgin Media’s customers access to a range of exciting new streamed content with a great user experience. The successful and seamless roll-out to a variety of device models already in the field is a testament to the powerful and flexible combination of 24i’s Appstage Big Screen client, cloud-based Backstage content management system, and Amagi’s unrivalled FAST solutions.”

Amagi provides a complete suite of solutions for channel creation, distribution, and monetisation. Amagi’s clients include ABS-CBN, A+E Networks UK, beIN Sports, Curiosity Stream, Cinedigm, Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox Networks, Fremantle, Gannett, Gusto TV, NBCUniversal, Tastemade, and Tegna, among others.

Virgin Media was one of the first Pay TV providers in the world to onboard Netflix as an app, kicking off the ‘super-aggregator’ era, and is now pioneering the integration of FAST within the Pay TV user experience. Earlier this month it announced the arrival of NextUp – the comedy SVOD that combines a catalogue of stand-up shows with livestreamed events – as a FAST channel, with the adventure sports and entertainment provider EXTREME as a facilitator.

“Partnering with EXTREME and Virgin Media O2 to bring our live comedy content to new audiences enables huge growth, not only for the channel but the acts, agents and venue partners who we work with,” said Sarah Henley, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of NextUp. Mark Dodd, Managing Director Media Network for EXTREME, added: “NextUp LIVE Comedy is one of the most exciting producers of programming we have encountered in ages and alongside Virgin Media O2, as a major player in the entertainment industry, we can soon offer millions of Virgin Media O2 homes the best live comedy has to offer, all at no extra cost.”

Operators understand that they will need to offer more value on top of their existing services to keep customers on board, especially at a time when home budgets are being scrutinised and stretched.

We believe there’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity for telco and pay TV providers to diversify their retail offer, by moving beyond quad-play to ‘omni-play’ and beyond super-aggregation of video content, to the aggregation of our increasingly smart lives.

By ‘aggregating more’ operators will be able to increase customer loyalty and raise ARPU, from services as diverse as multiplayer live gaming and home security, to smart domestic energy management.

Leverage existing technology

The technology exists for providers to deliver a single gateway to services, a unified UX with single billing and customer care, and in so doing they can move from discounted bundles to ‘mega-bundles’.

This is the golden opportunity to take control of the emerging Intelligent Edge – the future brain of the connected home.

The Intelligent Edge, hosted on operator CPE such as the video set-tops, connected TVs and broadband gateways, can be harnessed to improve existing TV/streaming services and launch new entertainment offers, including gaming which is more likely to appeal to younger demographics.

The same technology can be used to take a leadership position in smart home services.  The Intelligent Edge gives operators a flexible, dynamic and elegant means to introduce new services without the overhead that is often associated with software deployment to devices in the field.

‘Aggregate More’ is already in play

The innovative bundling of new services with smart home tech like video doorbells, indoor cameras, motion/contact sensors and environmental sensors, exemplifies the new possibilities when we look beyond entertainment and connectivity and ‘aggregate more’. Sky for instance recently launched an innovative smart home protection service, Sky Protect, offering customers comprehensive home insurance and smart home monitoring devices, bundled in one app.

The recent market introduction of connected TV platforms such as Sky Glass and Comcast Xumo are additional examples of aggregated consumer offers. Sky Glass bundles premium hardware, that includes a 4K display, 5.1 channel sound and camera, with financing that is attractive to both consumer and operator. This is before adding a compelling bundle of apps and OTT services, delivered via a sophisticated, unified user experience, featuring universal search and far-field voice control.

Leading operators are clearly looking for the most efficient, cost-effective and attractive way of providing as wide a range of services and applications to their consumer base as they can. Through existing managed CPE devices, telcos and pay TV operators already have an edge in the emerging ‘Aggregate More’ market. But perhaps not for long with Big Tech snapping at their heels.

Containerisation is a key technological enabler

The power of the operator Intelligent Edge is underpinned by Downloadable Application Containers (DACs) – via an application platform with a common backend and authoring that spans the cloud and CPE.

Containerisation further supports agile product development for a community of third-party application providers that operators could then roll out under their service and provide additional value.

The same approach not only enables providers to stand up and nimbly deploy these new services but breathes new life into legacy devices as well. Since operators have invested significantly in their existing infrastructure and devices, they want to make sure they maintain their longevity. With DACs, they can. Containerisation brings cloud-like power to the home and full capability for flexible, cost-effective deployment.

The opportunity is not all about new customer-facing services. There are underlying operational benefits to be tapped as well. Operators can use the Intelligent Edge to ensure QoS and QoE across all services and applications to ensure operational effectiveness. They can deploy applications to monitor the performance of their network and key services, and proactively identify issues before customers notice and raise calls to the call centre. The net result is higher customer satisfaction, fewer truck rolls, and lower operating cost.

Find out more at IBC 2023

At IBC 2023, we invite you to meet with us and explore how we can turn that head start into clear (and unassailable) leadership, and how a next-generation service strategy can be implemented in practice. Contact us to arrange a meeting.

Learn about Consult Red in Media, Technology and Telecommunications.

This was one of the observations made when Videonet hosted ‘The Content Discovery Leadership Breakfast’ in Amsterdam during September, supported by Gracenote. The event was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, attended by a selection of platform operators and content owners, and the role of on-platform and off-platform search revealed differing attitudes, depending on what role someone played in the value chain.

One Pay TV provider declared that a platform operator must be the single source of truth to viewers when it comes to content discovery on the platform. This means that viewers should not need an online search engine [e.g., Google] because they know they will find the content they want via the TV platform’s user interface. But a special interest streaming provider was all-in on search, including paid search, and this company translates the programme descriptions given by suppliers (which may assume that viewers already have reasonable knowledge about the topic) into SEO-optimised text that can be discovered more effectively via online search engines.

Search Engine Optimisation was separately cited as a huge factor for sports discovery – with an observation that pirate streaming services have excellent SEO. And a different Pay TV provider admitted that nobody can find content on their platform via search engines unless the operator buys paid search advertising – something they are now looking to remedy!

The psychology of content discovery, the critical role of unified search, what you do when promotions are persistently ignored, and the need to improve EPG and VOD imagery were among the subjects discussed. There were also insights on the importance of recommendation serendipity, coping with sports rights fragmentation, and dealing with missing or out-of-date EPG schedules.

What follows is a summary of the discussion. The attendees were asked to state what would help them achieve more viewing time (for their content or platform) over the next two years, and explore opportunities to improve content discovery or use content discovery to competitive advantage in the same timeframe. They were also asked to reveal their sharpest pain points in content discovery today and what challenges lay ahead, and consider where the content discovery value-chain can collaborate more effectively.

The points below are observations from at least one breakfast attendee that were tacitly accepted by the group – meaning that nobody argued against the view. Sometimes multiple people contributed to these points.

Helping consumers to avoid buying content they can get free

Given the cost-of-living crisis, this observation gets an early mention: good content discovery is not just about getting people to programming faster and ensuring a better match of what someone likes to what they see – it could also save people money (and no, not because they stay at home instead of going to the pub!). If consumers have better visibility of all the content they can watch free, it may reduce the need to subscribe to a new service or inadvertently rent a movie that they already had free access to.

The fear of being a television failure on Friday night

The psychology of content discovery was also addressed and there was much support for the assertion that viewers have a fear of failure when making content choices, especially when watching with someone else. Investing your time into content that you decide you don’t like is the worst thing that can happen on Friday night, one attendee declared. Linear TV still has value because it partially removes the pressure to make a decision, requires less effort (in discovery) and has an easier exit if you get it wrong.

Don’t bore people with promotions they keep ignoring

There was an acknowledgement that commercial imperatives may dictate some of the content that is promoted (where a platform or streamer has a new blockbuster Original that they own, for example). But one Pay TV provider was adamant that you should not “bore people” for weeks with promotions if they are not working.

After you have shown a title twice to a cohort, if there was a mere 2% pick-up rate (for example), continued promotion would create long-term fatigue and reduce trust in your recommendations, they argued. Try some optimisations, for sure (like changing the background image), supported by A/B testing, but if the response rate remains low, you should change the promotion, they advised.

Unified search is a key building block for super-aggregation

It was clear that unified search is a big priority for content discovery. An operator should not care where the content comes from, as long as someone is watching on their platform. This unified search needs to include VOD, SVOD, AVOD and FAST if you have them onboarded. Search is incomplete on many platforms today. Unified search is a building block for super-aggregation, as there may be dozens of places where consumers might find content they want to see. Good voice support boosts both endeavours.

Improving VOD/EPG imagery – including with personalisation

There was widespread agreement on the power of EPG and VOD imagery to improve content discovery and content take-up rates, with personalisation of imagery a goal worth setting. One speaker noted that empirical evidence shows that when you use images that suit the tastes of a viewer, there is an uplift in the number of minutes and different titles watched.

A piece of content like Game of Thrones can be characterised as both an ‘action adventure’ or a ‘love interest’ story and, depending on what someone has aligned with previously (based on what they have watched) the EPG imagery could reflect one of these characteristics. If someone has shown an interest in a particular actor, you can feature that actor in your imagery rather than a more generic image focused on the storyline.

This is summed up by the idea of ‘using the right picture language’. There was a suggestion that to help the moment of consumer decision making, simple phrases could be added to the content imagery. For example, the movie image includes the statement: ‘Critically acclaimed’.

Make it more likely that recommendations offer something new

On recommendations, there was an assertion that recommendations today narrow down the suggestions based on what the viewer has seen previously, and there should be more emphasis on offering something new. Filtering based on the attributes of the show itself will help and make it more likely that if someone wants to be frightened, or made to smile or cry, they will be offered programming that matches this need.

Granular programme descriptors will help in this endeavour, as these go well beyond genre and the cast list to flag factors like mood, scenario and character (so some films could be characterised as ‘heists gone wrong’, for example). This benefits both content owners and platforms, it was suggested, and if they use the same language [to help describe the content in greater detail] it helps surface content and connect similar content.

One speaker summarised how this could be applied in practice along with voice discovery, with a consumer saying to the TV: ‘Cheer me up’ and being given a list or programming with humour as a characteristic.

Keeping recommendations simple for service providers

One operator revealed that you can serve 90% of the customer base with acceptable recommendations based on dividing the population into just eight different profiles/personas. The other 10% of the customer base would require super-individual attention to meet their needs via a long-tail of minority use-cases. Another operator has been investigating how customer demographics can be used in the recommendation decision-making process (as part of a wider exercise that explores the use of demographics for advanced advertising). The challenge is how to get customers to opt-in with their demographic details.

Don’t be afraid to ask viewers: ‘What are you in the mood for?’

An attendee reported that when you start a healthy eating plan, the provider asks you what you want to eat, and what you cannot eat. “Maybe we should be just as explicit on television. We could ask: ‘How was your day today’, ‘What are you in the mood for’, ‘What would you hate right now?’”

High linear TV viewing may suggest your VOD discovery is weak

When one operator launched its multiscreen app, management expected VOD to dominate, but today 70% of viewing is either live/linear or catch-up, despite having a huge library that includes newer VOD titles. The data shows that linear viewers are also the most loyal. This operator decided these figures point to a weakness in VOD discovery and is looking to solve this.

Give content partners the brand prominence they deserve

One panelist reminded everyone to give prominence to the brands behind the content, as there is still enormous consumer awareness for what these brands represent. So, HBO and Discovery, for example, should be given strong brand prominence because people know what these media owners will deliver them. But brand prominence can get lost in the UI today.

Helping fans find live sports as rights fragment

The difficulty finding live sports is one of the biggest challenges for the content industry today, because for consumers it is one of their sharpest pain points, and the reason is the fragmentation of sports rights across more broadcast and streaming services. One round-table attendee, who is a rugby fan in the U.S., said it is a nightmare trying to find a rugby match you want to watch – to know what service it is on, and at what time.

There is inadequate metadata for live sport, and this is especially noticeable on streaming services. One major streamer could not confirm the start time for their football matches to a distribution / metadata partner.

There is also a need for better sports imagery for the user interface. It was suggested that we are due a redesign of how sports appear in the UI, moving from an action-based focus (as seen at one operator who proposed this) via carousels to a “more DAZN-like approach” focused on teams and players. Separately, it was suggested that the UI should offer more information about leagues, teams and players.

Filtering search to remove content in the wrong languages

There are opportunities to make content discovery more localised, even for operators already in-market. One operator said it has to respect multiple languages and ensure names of shows are displayed correctly in all languages. They are now working towards a search filter that will allow users to remove content that is not available in their preferred language, or which does not contain subtitles in their preferred language.

Handling EPG gaps and inadequate metadata

EPG gaps for live/linear television are a fact of life, and this will not change. Sometimes broadcasters do not know what they are going to fill the schedule with and sometimes they are in flux, as seen during the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the death of Queen Elizabeth II. An example was given of a channel owner that sends an operator a large EPG slot described only as ‘Children’s programming’, with no further detail on the programming within it, so the content cannot not be characterised or made discoverable. Sports metadata can be completely inadequate, and another example given was tennis content simply described as ‘tennis’.

Some improvement can be made by a resourceful distributor. One operator uses its own programmatic decisioning to predict what will go into an EPG position that is not detailed. If it knows that the Friday 7pm slot carries a drama, and it is halfway through the season, it makes a bet that the currently empty Friday 7pm EPG spot will be filled with this drama, for example. But this is not possible for all EPG gaps.

Informing out-of-market distributors about EPG disruptions

A Pay TV provider explained how a tennis match may be scheduled for 2 hours and 40 minutes, yet take 5 hours, disrupting the EPG. In the local market of the rights holding broadcaster, distribution partners are told about the schedule adjustments. But distributors outside the local market are not. This (out of market) operator only becomes aware of the EPG disruptions by watching the content feed and making EPG corrections. “It would be useful if they had a network to communicate the EPG changes to all distributors. Those changes could be communicated to everyone within minutes,” the Pay TV operator declared.

Limit image format customisations for the UI

There can be a lot of image formatting work when content owners launch onto new platforms and there was a call for standardisation to make life easier – or at least more flexibility on the part of distributors. One company was told by an OTT provider that it only accepted images in one particular format, otherwise they would not display correctly in their UI. A month from launch, every image in the supplier’s database had to be recast.

Very customised platforms are a barrier to agility. For a small content provider with limited resources, customisations limit the number of distribution end-point opportunities they can pursue.

This live webcast explores the future of aggregation – and how platform operators and streaming services that curate content can differentiate themselves in the battle to acquire and keep users. It considers the value of Originals and exclusive content – and how platforms and streaming services that lack exclusive content can set themselves apart in the 2020s, and what their value-add is for consumers.

You will hear about the evolving relationship between content curators and aggregators and their content partners – including the onboarding of apps and the benefits that Pay TV operators can bring to streaming app providers beyond ‘carriage’, from carrier billing through to marketing and advertising partnerships.

Our panellists consider the opportunities for aggregators and content curators to segment the Pay TV market and address a larger total audience, serving genre super-fans through to light and casual viewers. Extended aggregation opportunities are investigated – like music streaming and exercise apps – and we ask: can platform providers become more central in the digital consumer home?

The panellists are:

• Brigita Brjuhhanov, TV Product Owner/Team Lead, Elisa
• Joe Nilsson, Chief Commercial Officer, SportsTribal
• Tim Pearson, Vice President, Solution Marketing, NAGRA
• Mary Ann Halford, Partner, Altman Solon
• Moderator, John Moulding, Editor-in-Chief, Videonet

This webcast is live and will include audience questions. It is free and you can register here.

Elisa is one of the most important small/medium Pay TV providers in Europe, demonstrating how operators can cement their position in homes with its next-generation TV platform, Elamus, which was launched last August.

SportsTribal is a new FAST (free ad supported streaming TV) platform devoted to sports, featuring 35 channels that span billiards to combat sports, giving rights holders another distribution option beyond Pay TV and direct-to-consumer apps. This service is an app itself, appearing on Smart TV platforms.

NAGRA is a long-time leader in multiplatform television delivery and UX development (in addition to content protection, data-driven business analytics and cybersecurity. The company has extensive experience helping Pay TV providers (and indeed sport rights holders and streamers) creating platforms and services designed to attract consumers.

Altman Solon is one of the world’s largest global strategy consulting firms with an exclusive focus on the Telecommunications, Media, and Technology (TMT) sectors and among its many subject specialists has helped global media companies and dynamic new players adapt to the disruption of OTT/streaming video and the new strategies for creating, marketing, and delivering video content.

Other themes that will be addressed during this one-hour live video discussion include:

• The potential of CE platforms (from Samsung and LG to Amazon, Google and Apple) as content curators and aggregators.
• Best practice in content discovery and navigation – how to get consumers to the content they will love faster and more reliably.
• Content that attracts and keeps users on aggregated services and the relative merits of international vs local and hyper-local.
• Device strategies to reach the total subscription TV market, from high-end home gateways to streamer boxes and direct-to-TV (operator-as-an-app) approaches.
• Where content will come from as major international studios sell more of their output to their own D2C streaming service (life without your own studio).
• The potential for streaming services to grow their app ‘universe’ with third-party content relationships, and how third-party content is curated and presented.
• How smaller operators remain competitive in television services, ensuring sophisticated aggregation, personalisation, content discovery and navigation experiences.

Register here

Instead Vodafone Group, which counts 22 million TV households across 11 European markets, believes it will stand out by providing homes with a mix of broadcast linear TV and the streaming services they want, in a unified experience that is built upon bespoke and individualised discovery for each household, itself driven by smart metadata integrations, plus complementary partnerships with direct-to-consumer streaming services that range from simple reselling to carrier billing to customer care. And Wierig added that centralised negotiations with content providers should enable discounting for Vodafone customers.

Reiterating the commitment to television, the executive pointed to the strategic reorganisation of Vodafone Group to create a harmonised, pan-European approach to television product and innovation. Wierig heads the new Group Entertainment department, created 2.5 years ago, that is creating this more holistic entertainment strategy, backed by a global product management team and featuring centralised negotiations with content providers.

Speaking at Connected TV World Summit in May, Wierig said Vodafone avoids any possibility of becoming a ‘dumb pipe’ by extending its connectivity DNA and customer footprint to new product categories spanning entertainment, smart-tech, home ecosystems and payment solutions. And in entertainment, it is the complementary nature of the partnerships with streaming TV services that is driving innovation. “We support the direct-to-consumer strategies of content providers by giving them access to our connectivity customer base and our strong marketing and sales performance. We work closely with them to help them penetrate our customer base with their content and services.”

Wierig said that yes, Vodafone is a super-aggregator, but he emphasised that this means the aggregation of both broadcast TV and “the very valuable and relevant content from the OTT streamers.” It is not just about aggregating apps. He pointed to a 60% viewing share for linear TV today – and believes it will remain at this level. “That means our clear goal is to bring relevant content to our Vodafone homes as a hybrid solution – a best-of-breed and ‘best-of-blend’ across linear TV, with its associated TV Anytime and TV Anywhere, plus the best OTT services.”

Asked by interviewer Ben Keen, Analyst & Advisor, Technology, Media & Telecoms, if more apps would mean less subscription TV linear channel deals, the answer was a firm ‘no’. Wierig made it clear that Vodafone Group is committed to aggregating linear Pay TV channels that it licenses, packages, prices and markets.” But it was clear that more apps onboarding and apps-based viewing will mean holistic packaging and pricing innovation, with bundling viewed as a key value-add. “One of the elements we can bring to the table is centralised negotiations, and the chance of a discount [on the cost of a streaming service].”

Wierig believes Vodafone can help streaming services to grow at a time when consumers may need convincing that they should add a second or third paid service to their streaming stack. He also believes that the introduction of lower-priced, ad-supported tiers by some formerly subscription dominated streaming services will give Pay TV operators more flexibility when creating bundles and placing OTT services into packages.

Content discovery is where Vodafone can add serious value to streaming apps partners and, given that streaming services can be found pretty much everywhere, this is a business imperative if you want to play in the future aggregation marketplace. “The question is how every consumer can find the right content, given that content sources are increasing significantly. So, we look closely into customer segmentation. Our goal is to give every customer – whether a family with kids or a single person household, or a couple – an individualised experience.

So, this is about discovery, and that requires proper metadata integration and unified search across various content offerings. “It is not always easy to convince OTT service providers to be really open [with metadata] but we are getting there, first of all because we are complementary to their D2C approach and we can offer strong marketing and sales, and that is a perfect fit strategically,” Wierig told the London audience.

Vodafone Group is particularly active as a TV provider in Germany, Spain and Portugal, and has enjoyed content exclusivity – as with sports rights – in certain markets. But the Group has concluded that it is generally happy with non-exclusive partnerships. Wierig agreed that this has the affect of de-risking the business, providing a better ‘risk-to-reward’ balance. Shunning exclusive content rights like sport does not mean turning down any exclusives, however, as seen by the recent HBO Max exclusive telco marketing partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, for example. “It does depend on the opportunity, and where it is needed and it is helpful, and where the risk/reward profile works, it is something we can look at. But in general, we are more on the non-exclusive path.”

Bravo noted: “OTT technology simplifies all the technology standards we have to use in our devices, which has time-to-market benefits. And you can see the amount of investment in set-top boxes by big streaming companies. Until now we had lots of legacy in the broadcast and multicast space. We have created a new television ecosystem – a single product for all our NatCos. Now we must improve OTT capacity and move customers to the new ecosystem.”

Interviewed by Andy Waltenspiel, Managing Director at Waltenspiel Management Consulting, Bravo confirmed that Deutsche Telekom views the set-top box as a key control point and a device it is committed to, even though it is seeking ways to implement its full Pay TV operator experience on other devices. He agreed with comments his boss, Pedro Bandeira (VP Product and New Business, Europe at Deutsche Telekom) made previously (elsewhere) that the TV industry had possibly under-invested in CPE in recent years.

“It is clear the customer experience is connected to what happens in their homes and that applies to all CPE, not only set-top boxes,” Bravo noted. “People thought for many years that telcos were selling X Mb of fibre or xDSL but, to be honest, we were selling Wi-Fi, and for that you need the best devices. I think we need more powerful devices, and you need to control the number of providers that you use – if you have a zoo [of devices] you have lifecycle management issues.”

In January this year Deutsche Telekom launched its MagentaTV One STB, powered by Android TV OS, in Germany to deliver its premium TV experience. This follows the introduction of the Android TV OS powered MagentaTV Stick in 2020. On the partnership with Android, Bravo pointed to the importance of apps aggregation and the ability to scale apps availability. Asked about the decision to choose Android TV over a home-grown OS, he said: “You have to think about the trade-off between control of the user experience and scalability.”

Asked how Deutsche Telekom can differentiate in the super-aggregation function, he pointed to the need for “an excellent user experience for content discovery and the way you implement that with different [consumer/content] touch points.”

Touching upon non-STB device strategy, Bravo acknowledged that Deutsche Telekom was watching Sky Glass with interest. He did not rule out the possibility of DT making its Pay TV experience available through its own television sets, too. “We are tracking this proposition to see if it makes sense,” he told the London audience.

Waoo viewers can now receive integrated search results from across the Waoo platform, including catch-up TV, the EPG and more than 12,000 TV and movie titles available to rent in the Waoo Bio VOD store. The Android boxes will include Disney+, Discovery+, Viaplay and the national broadcaster DR as preloaded, onboarded apps. Network PVR is part of the service.

“Aggregation is the keyword. Using our existing 24i streaming platform to reach Android TV boxes with the Google Play Store means we can offer our customers a wider range of attractive content,” declares Martin Jürgensen, Waoo’s Senior Product Development Manager. “This box is a versatile media hub in the home.”

He adds: “The new Universal Search function is already proving popular with our subscribers. As a viewer, you just have one place to go to find the content you’re looking for, so you don’t have to browse all kinds of catalogues and archives. You can just start entering the name of an actor or a show and then the result will pop up. It’s an easy way to discover content and it works across all devices including STBs, web and mobile phones.”

Joachim Bergman, CEO at 24i, says: “We are delighted to support Waoo on their step into content super-aggregation. The combination of a custom Android TV launcher and our cloud-hosted Universal Search solution is a great way to give customers what they want – quality, choice and convenience.”

Interested in super-aggregation?

This May, Connected TV World Summit will explore how Pay TV stays relevant in a world where content exclusivity is harder to achieve (due to studio direct-to-consumer services and streamers fighting for sports rights). A key theme is how to master super-aggregation (for platforms and for streaming services). You can find out more about the event here and register here.

Outlining the forces he thinks will shape television in 2022, he listed co-innovation, data and analytics, greater use of the cloud, and super-aggregation as stand-out items.

Targeted advertising is a great example of why we need more co-innovation, he suggests, pointing to the value of end-to-end technology solutions, but also the need to work within local regulatory and business relationship contexts that platform operators and broadcasters/streaming services are sensitive too. “It requires a huge transformation [for media companies] to introduce advanced advertising and there is lots of work with customers to clarify the business detail and their objectives, as well as preparing for the technical integrations,” Leonetti confirms.

Viaccess-Orca (VO) supports server-side and client-side ad insertion for broadcast and streamed television, across linear and on-demand, to support targeted advertising, and this solution can be pre-integrated with programmatic infrastructure, including from Smart AdServer. The advanced advertising offer draws heavily upon the data analytics expertise at VO and along with co-innovation, it is data and actionable analytics that will help to differentiate solution vendors in the years ahead, Leonetti reckons.

Advanced advertising, next-generation user experiences and the evolution towards super-aggregation are all built upon strong data capabilities, and Viaccess-Orca has been outlining how data impacts each one. With advertising for example, one of the keys to success is the privacy-compliant use of first-party media owner data, including viewing data, to create specific audience segments that an advertiser can address.

Some of the data being fed into the decisions about which ad is served to which households include household composition, personal interests and life moments. All three of these inputs can be partly or largely derived from viewing data. Artificial Intelligence algorithms help to extract these insights and contribute towards an understanding of purchase potential. AI is also being used to fit the advertising experience – including the ad display models used – to viewer preferences, including taking account of sensitivity to advertising.

When it comes to the UX, Leonetti points to the way that marketing teams have been unleashed thanks to a better understanding of what is happening on platforms and how individual consumers use a service. QoE is a crucial starting point, so you know viewers have an uninterrupted and high-quality video experience.

“Now set-top boxes are using home Wi-Fi you have to know the quality of the Wi-Fi, which has a huge impact on QoE,” VO’s CEO offers as one example. Outlining another, he adds: “You may discover that what turns out to be a must-use feature is hidden too far down the menus, and you can improve the customer journey.”

One Viaccess-Orca Pay TV customer increased the revenue on their TV service by an astonishing 12% thanks to a better understanding of subscriber behaviour and better content discovery, all of which stemmed from harnessing existing data.

There is an important correlation between UX and advertising: personalisation and higher engagement means more hours spent watching video and so more targeted ad insertion opportunities. Studies have also shown that consumers welcome relevant ads, so targeting is thought to add to the overall uplift in the user experience.

Item No.3 on Leonetti’s list is the cloud, which is where more of VO’s data and analytics solutions are now being hosted. “We have many RFPs still asking for on-prem deployment so we must support this capability, but we see high demand now for cloud migration. We are leveraging the cloud for our next-generation of analytics solutions. This is not about cost savings for customers – economics is the wrong reason for doing it; it is about the ability to adapt quickly so you can create new features and solutions every month.”

Viaccess-Orca is helping customers create privacy-compliant data lakes that different departments can tap into for their different applications – with marketing and UX product managers being among the beneficiaries. “Something [data] that was previously used by just a few people is now open to everyone,” Leonetti declares.

Super-aggregation is the fourth trend VO is helping platform operators to tackle and this also requires core data management skills that have already been used to populate and update EPGs and drive recommendation engines. The difference, Leonetti says, is that the use of data to link and surface content is now being expanded beyond broadcast and local on-demand services to onboarded streaming services.

“There are more services, there is more data. Content is duplicated. You have to identify the same content that is appearing in different services,” he observes.

And how far do the onboarded apps share viewing data to help with content discovery? “On the set-top box that depends on what our customers can negotiate with the SVOD services. Some are very open to full integration into the operator ecosystem, although it is different from one content owner to another.”

Leonetti adds: “The integration of SVOD services is becoming a must.  All Pay TV providers are trying to position themselves as a super-aggregator; this is a priority and a major trend.”

Do these priorities resonate with you?

Super-aggregation, content discovery, advanced advertising and operations transformation are all on the agenda at Connected TV World Summit 2022, which addresses ‘The Great Recalibration’ of TV. Discussions include how media owner first-party data can be fully harnessed to create incremental value to advertisers and new revenues for TV. You can find more information here.

Jeroen Ghijsen, CEO of Metrological, says, “The Lightning-based Deezer app was built to provide the optimal music experience on TV. Now, our global operator customer base can seamlessly access Deezer’s extensive catalogue of songs, playlists, podcasts and more from the comfort of their living room.”

The version of Deezer in the Metrological App Library was developed in the open and lightweight Lightning app development language and Software Development Kit. “This SDK is tailor-built for developing high quality UX and browser-based TV apps with great, native like, performance,” Metrological says. “Lightning optimises the user experience for high-performance apps across next-gen, as well as memory constrained legacy devices.”

With a Deezer premium subscription, the Deezer music streaming app provides listeners with access to an audio catalogue of more than 73 million songs, podcasts and radio stations. Deezer is free, with a subscription then unlocking premium features.

Miall-d’Aout adds: “We want all our users to enjoy simple, highly relevant and personalised content no matter what platform they prefer to use. Deezer helps companies improve customer satisfaction and boost long term ARPU.”