Sky Media scooped five prizes at the Videonet Connected TV Awards last night, one of the most impressive hauls ever achieved by one company. The sales division for Sky (the UK Pay TV operator) represents the ad sales business for Sky channels and a number of third-party channels. The company won ‘The Data-Driven TV Award’, the ‘Ad-Tech Hero’ category and then the ‘Outstanding Achievement in TV 2016’ prize with its Sky AdVance platform for connecting advertising campaigns across TV and online (you can read more about the solution here).
The awards were presented during a ceremony at Connected TV World Summit in London. Harmonic won the ‘Video Technology Hero’ category with its Harmonic Electra X advanced media processor family with graphics, branding and playout. The prize for ‘Best TV/Video Service Update or Launch’ went to TVPlayer for TVPlayer Plus, the new 25 channel entry-level Pay TV streaming service in the UK that includes channels like Turner and UKTV. Netgem won the ‘Contribution to User Experience’ category with The Companion Screen, a solution that includes programme information, social interaction and fast ‘skip back’, among other things.
Ericsson received ‘The Big Immersive TV Prize’ for its research into HDR in the HD/UHD broadcast chain and the HDR proof-of-concept with Intelsat.
John Moulding, Editor-in-Chief at Videonet and awards chair, commented: “Advanced advertising and data technologies are crucial to the continuing health of the television ecosystem and we are seeing how Pay TV operators can also diversify their businesses with ad-tech and data-tech services. Sky Media is a pioneer in both these fields. The transformative nature of what they are doing, as well as the technical innovation, helps explain the extent of their success tonight.â€
Justin Lebbon, Conference Director for Connected TV World Summit, congratulated all the prize winners. “All the companies we saw tonight have demonstrated to the judges that they have services and solutions that the market needs right now. There was a lot of great technology and great thinking represented out there.â€
The full awards results for 2016 are:
Video Technology Hero
Winner: Harmonic, Harmonic Electra X advanced media processor family with graphics, branding and playout
Commended: AirTies, Wireless Mesh Wi-Fi with Client Steering
Also shortlisted: Ericsson, Ericsson MediaFirst cloud agnostic platform for next-generation Pay TV, and V-Nova, PERSEUS video processing technology.
The Data-Driven TV Award
Winner: Sky Media, Sky AdVance platform for connecting advertising campaigns across TV and online
Commended: Freesat & TVbeat, audience measurement solution to analyse real-time viewing data from Freesat consumers
Also shortlisted: Conviva, Intelligent Control Platform for QoE and consumer engagement management, and ThinkAnalytics, Recommendation Engine for search and personalised recommendations in live and VOD.
Best TV/Video Service Update or Launch
Winner: TVPlayer, TVPlayer Plus, the 25 channel entry-level Pay TV streaming service with channels like Turner and UKTV.
Commended: Netgem, My TV for personalising TV and making live and recorded content available on multiscreen devices.
Also shortlisted: Eurosport, Eurosport Player re-launch including second screen complements for live coverage, and
FreeCast, FreeCast content discovery engine, bringing online media into an aggregated interactive guide.
Contribution to User Experience
Winner: Netgem, The Companion Screen for programme information and social interaction and fast ‘skip back’
Commended: NAGRA, intuiTV all-in-one-place television experience that blends live Pay TV, films and streaming services
Also shortlisted: Accedo, Accedo VIA GO ready-to-deploy suite of applications and experiences for OTT services, and Sky Media, Sky AdSmart for a proven reduction in channel switching when advertisements are targeted.
The Big Immersive TV Prize
Winner: Ericsson, Research into HDR in HD/UHD broadcast chain and HDR proof-of-concept with Intelsat
Commended: NAGRA, Direct-to-TV Security, enabling 4K television sets to meet MovieLabs security requirements
Also shortlisted: Mediamelon, QBR technology for streaming video, reducing bandwidth requirements and video artifacts, and NAGRA, intuiTV all-in-one-place television experience that blends live Pay TV, films and streaming services.
Ad-Tech Hero
Winner: Sky Media, Sky AdVance platform for connecting advertising campaigns across TV and online.
Commended: Sky Media, Sky AdSmart household-level addressable TV advertising system for linear TV
Also shortlisted: Channel 4, targeted online advertising with programmatic trading; Dish Media Sales, world first programmatic real-time auctions for broadcast linear TV.
Outstanding Achievement in TV 2016
Sky Media, Sky AdVance platform for connecting advertising campaigns across TV and online.
Special Citation for Beating the Ad-blockers
Sky Media – Sky AdSmart
Special Citation for Beating the Live Events Pirates
Verimatrix – VideoMark forensic watermarking solution
Special Citation for Making TV More Millennial-Friendly
NAGRA – intuiTV
The judges were:
All categories except advertising:
• Ben Schwarz, CEO, CTOi Consulting
• William Cooper, Founder and Chief Executive, informitv
• Ian Nock, Managing Director, Fairmile West
• Graham Lovelace, Director, Lovelace Consulting
• Jay Chinnadorai, Managing Director, Sumtotal
• David Mercer, VP, Principal Analyst, Digital Consumer Practice, Strategy Analytics
• Steve Hawley, Principal Analyst & Consultant, tvstrategies
• Harish Reddy, CEO, Acceleredge, LLC
• Jack Davison, Managing Consultant, 3Vision
• Matthieu de Chanville, Senior Principal, A.T. Kearney
• Ned Wiley, Independent Consultant
• Tom Thomas, Senior Security Consultant, Farncombe
• Stephen Featham, Founder, Aspect 23 Limited
• John Moulding, Editor, Videonet
Advertising category:
• Simon Thomas, Global Director – Audiences Research, GroupM
• Niko Muñoz, Hunter-in-Chief, Innovation Hunters Network
• Stephen Adshead, Strategy Director, MTM London
• Andrew Rosenman, President, Arise Communications Inc.
• Jean-Paul Edwards, Strategy and Product Development Director EMEA, OMD
• Ned Wiley, Independent Consultant
• David Brennan, Founder, MEDIA NATIVE