Perhaps one of the most significant developments in the D2C streaming war is the move away from content acquisition towards production, and the vertical integration of studio and service pipelines, which will restrict the distribution of content to non-owned services.

According to data collected by 3vision, Amazon Prime still continues to increase its content acquisition, acquiring seven SVOD TV premiers in 2020/21, up from four in 2019/20, and two in 2017/2018. However, Netflix – the current largest global SVOD platform – has decisively shifted away from acquisition to production, with the number of SVOD TV premiers acquired by the service dropping from 17 in 2017/2018 to only one in 2020/2021.

With greater focus on production, studio services are now relying on their own pipelines, selling content to themselves at a much higher rate. In 2020/21, 67% of TV series premiers in Europe were sold by studios to their own services, almost doubling the percentage from the previous year and more than tripling it from 2016/2017. In particular, Disney and Lionsgate have led the charge with regards to selling-to-self – this year, 93% and 100% of their studio content respectively, were sold to their own services.

Another significant leap in the sell-to-self direction was made by NBCUniversal: in 2019/20, it sold 91% of its studio produced content to third party services, but then reversed radically in 2020/2021, selling 64% of content to its own services – over seven times more than the previous year.  A portion of this content was sold to its Pay TV and free TV services.  With Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal and Lionsgate all increasing sell-to-self activity, vertical integration of service pipelines clearly represents a rising phenomenon with significant ramifications for the TV ecosphere at large.

The speed at which vertical integration can occur is constrained by pre-existing content deals, as demonstrated by the 3Vision graphic below; however the vertical integration levels for show premieres in many of the largest regional markets are already either well above or close to 50%.

Strategy: cooperation, partnerships and niches

The strategies of smaller SVOD players are now tending towards a greater degree of cooperation, with cross promotion and co-commissioning of content, as well as joint ventures and partnerships. Discovery and WarnerMedia are now heading towards a partnership, which, Jack Davidson, suggests, is a “recognition that they weren’t big enough alone to succeed”.

Similarly, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS have announced a  joint venture in the form of SkyShowtime, the new SVOD service which will leverage Sky’s experience with D2C and ViacomCBS’ content and brands. It is expected to be made available in 22 European territories by 2022, including Albania, Portugal, Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain and Sweden, with Paramount+ streaming services being rolled into the platform across the continent. In core Sky markets (UK, Ireland, Italy and German speaking countries), NBCUniversal will also launch its D2C service, Peacock, on Sky owned platforms.

While Netflix currently leads in terms of content volume for the niche, the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery will see Netflix relegated to second place, demonstrating how smaller SVOD players can leverage smart distribution agreements to compete with even the largest SVOD platforms in certain niches.

Pre-existing content deals and distribution challenges

Channel owners like ViacomCBS and NBCUniversal are adopting partnerships and distribution deals as strategies, in part, to combat the problems they face when rolling out streaming services across new markets. 3Vision emphasised that a  key challenge facing studio SVOD platforms is having to maintain their traditional distribution commitments, while being unable to compete with the heavy spending of larger SVOD platforms – the estimated combined content spend of AMC networks, ViacomCBS, Lionsgate, and Discovery on D2C is still smaller than that of Disney alone for 2021.

Discovery is an instructive example. Jack Davidson, EVP of 3Vision, reckons that, despite Discovery+ reporting significant subscriber growth, the rate of increase is arguably disappointing given that their D2C platform was rolled out in some of the largest markets in the world, including India and the United States. In addition to this, much of its subscriber growth can be attributed to discounting or bundling, which may see Discovery+ experiencing low retention levels and fewer conversions, when the service ends. He remarked: “They’re walking a tight rope between Pay TV partnerships, which are so critical to their existence ‘in bundle’ in many markets, and a D2C launch. And  in some markets they have their very considerable Free TV interests to be concerned about.”

Another factor slowing regional roll outs of newer D2C services is pre-existing content deals, which act as a constraint on their rollout timelines. Jack Davidson highlights the obstacles facing WarnerMedia in this regard, complicating its efforts to quickly penetrate key European markets. “In this case, the problem is the pre-existing content deals in markets that make the roll-out a great deal more complicated. Everyone faces challenges with content…but some are aggressively buying their way out of deals, others are waiting for them to expire, and some are tailoring their rollout and their product strategy to suit. With Warner there remain pre-existing deals in key valuable markets, most notably in Sky territories.”

Despite WarnerMedia announcing the roll out of HBO and HBO Max across 60 countries by the end of 2021 in March – including 21 in Europe – it has scaled back its timeline ambitions, with the D2C service launching only in six new European territories this year and expecting to launch in 14 more countries where it already has a streaming presence (mostly in Eastern European territories) in 2022. 3Vision expects that WarnerMedia has found Europe a complicated market to navigate, and believes the media owner intends to focus its efforts on Latin America by improving the services that are already in place, and which are set to be converted to HBO Max. WarnerMedia’s  plans with regards to Africa and the MENA region are unclear at present time.

The move of media owners towards streaming services is also reflected in the commissioning of U.S. scripted TV premieres. Figures presented by 3Vision (acquired from their show-tracking research) reveal that U.S. scripted premieres that were broadcast (either on Pay TV or free TV) have shown a pattern of decline over the last five years, while U.S. SVOD scripted premieres have generally risen – notwithstanding a small drop experienced in 2020. Netflix has led the commissioning spree, with 44 new scripted premieres gained for its platform in 2021, vastly outstripping its D2C competitors; Disney+ has commissioned ten new scripted seasons this year, while Hulu and Amazon Prime Video have commissioned nine each, and HBO Max, six.

How the SVOD platforms are performing

SVOD platforms have seen an extraordinary subscriber growth in the last two years, with Netflix boasting 209 million total global paid subscribers in Q2 2021, up from their 167 million pre-pandemic figure. Disney has also experienced startling SVOD success within the same timeframe, with 116 million total viewers subscribed to Disney+ and an increase of 93 million globally.

The degree to which media groups with a Pay TV and free TV heritage have succeeded in capturing streaming market share has been varied. ViacomCBS has recently revised its investor KPIs to reflect global subscriptions, showing impressive growth from 29.9M in Q4 2020 to 42M subscribers in Q2 2021. During the same period, global HBO and HBO Max subscribers have risen by 7 million, to 68 million total. Smaller players in the D2C streaming wars include Discovery and Lionsgate, with 18M and 17M total streaming subscribers respectively each, and AMC networks, which has racked up an approximate 6-9M streaming subscribers across its OTT services.

The performance of other SVOD platforms is more difficult to gauge, or compare directly, in the absence of a standardised set of KPIs reported by all streaming platforms – the most straightforward indicator being the number of paid subscribers. Amazon, for example, reported 175M global Prime Video users in 2020; however, its SVOD service is bundled with its Prime package delivery, making a direct KPI comparison with other SVOD platforms less meaningful. Similarly, NBCUniversal is only reporting its Monthly Active Users (MAU) – claiming a global reach of 100M in 2021 – while AppleTV reports 40M global users, but a high percentage of that figure will receive the service for free, as part of a bundled package.

In the United Kingdom, BARB – an audience measurement company – estimates that 18.8 million UK homes currently subscribe to an SVOD platform, up from 17.4 million at the end of 2020. U.S. consumer spending on traditional TV services fell by 8% to $90.7B in 2020 alone, according to a report published by U.S. Subscription TV Forecast, while spending on streaming services soared, growing by 34% and reaching $39.5B. Digital TV Research estimates that 2020 represented the biggest boom for SVOD platforms, with 201 million new subscribers added globally. It further forecast that the total number of TV streaming subscribers will cross the 1B mark this year and climb to 1.64B by 2026.

== Video Technology Hero==

Here we were looking for technology heroes – the solutions that are solving the big problems or opening the door to the major opportunities in the television and video markets. The technology must be used to enable or support the delivery of a television/video service. Technologies could come from every part of the delivery chain, from data centres and headend or playout facilities through the broadcast networks to end-user devices.

Avid – Avid MediaCentral

Today, audiences can access media content from anywhere instantly, and stay up-to-date through a range of media, including online platforms, mobile apps and social media. The race to deliver news and other programming first demands instant distribution to a wide array of platforms, each with its own formats and delivery standards. Developing a workflow that integrates and automates delivery to each of these platforms is therefore essential to winning the media race.

Launched in July 2018, Avid MediaCentral is a powerful next-generation media production, management and distribution platform that aims to solve these challenges. An intuitive UI makes it easy for media producers to search, access, edit, collaborate and publish content from any workstation, laptop or mobile device.

This system eliminates cumbersome workflow silos. MediaCentral facilitates multiplatform delivery by automating background tasks. Among the capabilities are automated content indexing and workflow orchestration. Every team member is connected in a completely integrated workflow that offers a unified view into all media assets, whether they are stored on premises, in a private data centre, the public cloud or a hybrid environment.

IBM Aspera – IBM Aspera on Cloud

Received Gold Award (winner)

Moving content has become much more challenging. The file sizes are growing, and networking infrastructures are more diverse and flexible.

Media organisations are increasingly adopting a hybrid cloud workflow that uses a combination of public cloud, private cloud and on-premises storage and compute resources. Files that need to be exchanged are often stored in multiple clouds and on-premise systems. Traditional transfer technologies bridging these environments are slow and unreliable, while physical disk shipments are slow and carry security risks.

Aspera provides innovative file transfer solutions that help media organisations operate and collaborate more effectively on a global scale, and IBM Aspera on Cloud overcomes the file transfer challenges of the hybrid cloud by allowing media companies to securely and reliably move their content across on-premises and multi-cloud environments at unrivalled speed.

Internal and external users can collaborate in a secure environment that tightly controls access to content and application functionality. Major film studios, post-production companies and broadcasters rely on Aspera on Cloud to reduce their production cycles while securely delivering high-resolution media worldwide with high Quality of Service.

Harmonic – End-to-end UHD HDR solution for live sports streaming

Received Bronze Award

Consumers spend more time on OTT video services, and live sports streaming is a growth market. Harmonic offers an end-to-end solution for the delivery of live sports in super high-quality UHD-HDR format, while keeping bandwidth requirements low and latency (time behind true-live) comparable to broadcast – something that is considered very important for the fan experience.

The solution includes the EyeQ content-aware encoding that can reduce bit rates by up to half, and real-time packaging. The system uses the CMAF small chunk packaging format for HLS and DASH delivery of UHD content to keep latency as low as five seconds for OTT delivery, compared to an industry norm of 30-35 seconds where CMAF is not used.

The VOS360 media processing SaaS (software-as-a-service) is one of many deployment options. Leveraging the cloud, VOS360 allows OTT services to be scaled up and down based on actual needs, avoiding significant capital and operational costs. This is very useful when managing ad-hoc events but also a way for new sports OTT platforms to get into the business, and then launch channels quickly.

Verimatrix – StreamMark server-side watermarking for premium OTT video

Received Silver Award

Forensic watermarking means media owners can identify illegitimate streaming of video, trace the source of piracy and shut streams down – and do so rapidly during live events. The use of watermarking opens the way to offering UHD/4K and other high-value content. It also tackles content/revenue leakage during B2B content distribution.

StreamMark is notable partly because it is a server-side technology. Unlike solutions that use client-side watermark embedding, there is no need to integrate with client devices, and devices do not have to be modified.

StreamMark inserts an identifiable but invisible mark into content that is robust against watermarking attacks like recompression and transcoding. The process is easily integrated into existing encoding, encryption and CDN workflows, with negligible performance impact.

StreamMark Live supports real-time marking and fast extraction of watermarks during live events, using tight integration with live encoders. Real-time monitoring is performed by Verimatrix partner TMG to enable illicit stream identification and shutdown/blocking of the live content leaks.

As a cloud-based service, StreamMark means watermarking becomes an automated process for both content providers and video service operators.

== The ‘Premium TV’ Award (International Category)  ==

This international category recognises an outstanding achievement in the delivery of a premium TV service and/or premium TV programming to consumers. In an Oscars-style process, Videonet magazine and our international category judges nominated a long-list of entrants before narrowing the field to the shortlist you see below.

Discovery Winter Olympics

Discovery’s all-screen coverage of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics of 2018 updated what it means to cover major sports in the 21^st century, post-digital, post-social. They used digital as the means to reach out to more people, hit a younger demographic, provide more total coverage, and localise content to a greater degree for each individual country.

The PyeongChang Olympics was delivered to 48 markets in Europe, covering 22 languages. Every minute was made available live on digital. Local stories were created for every market. 1,000 social-first, short-form videos were generated each day across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Snap Inc. in Europe offered user-generated and behind-the-scenes content.

Eurosport partnered with 20 digital influencers from seven European markets who were embedded into editorial teams to co-create unique content for social media.

The new measurement methodology, endorsed by the International Olympic Committee, provided a picture of total reach/engagement across free-to-air plus Pay TV plus online plus social (covering owned-and-operated platforms and those of partners). This was co-devised and implemented by French marketing and advertising giant Publicis.

There was a record breaking 76 million reach for the Games through Discovery owned-and-operated digital or social properties, and a 386 million cumulative total of people that viewed Olympics content.

Amazon (as a vertical media company)

Amazon was shortlisted for its total TV strategy, which is both broad and noteworthy. The company is often chosen as ‘the media company to watch’ at thought-leadership events – creating more interest even than Netflix.

Amazon now includes Amazon Studios as a source of content creation and is helping to grow its SVOD offering on the back of its Originals. There is a growing collection of sports rights and the 20-game package for the English Premier League presents a brilliant precedent: the first time anyone will televise every game in a fixture list ‘round’ (and they are doing it twice).

Amazon Prime Video is one of the major SVOD offerings in multiple markets. Amazon-owned IMDB recently introduced Freedive, which gives the company an AVOD offering. Amazon Channels has pioneered the concept of aggregating third-party subscription streaming services.

Amazon provides its own hardware devices (Fire TV streaming media players), providing a gateway to its own and other content in a growing number of homes. Fire TV is also provided as an operating system on some smart TVs, like the Fire TV Edition models made by Toshiba and sold by the U.S. retailer Best Buy.

Amazon is fully expected to become a key mover in digital advertising, which fits well with a growing content distribution role.

Sling TV

Received Bronze prize

U.S. based Sling TV, owned by satellite Pay TV provider DISH, has trail-blazed the concept of the virtual Pay TV operator (often known as Pay Lite), giving consumers the option to access premium TV content from some of the best-known brands, aggregated and available in one place, without the long-term subscription commitments of traditional Pay TV and with more flexibility when selecting content.

Sling TV provides basic bundles of streamed channels, the ability to purchase thematic bundles or additional standalone channels on top of those basic packages, and most recently the provision of ‘a la carte’ services that can be purchased without any basic package. The service therefore caters for cord-cutters and cord-nevers with a range of budgets and flexibility demands.

Sling TV was the first virtual Pay TV provider in the U.S. to offer pay-per-view events, starting in 2017. Technology innovations include a cloud DVR feature and availability on the Oculus Go VR headset.

Sling TV has enjoyed consistent growth, countering the market-wide (U.S.) pressure on full-flavour Pay TV subscription numbers and revenues. Year-end 2018 results show that Sling TV had 2.42 million subscribers, which compares to 9.9 million for the classic DISH Pay TV offer.

Amazon Channels

Winner (received Gold prize)

Amazon Channels represents a new type of content aggregator, providing a collection of streaming/OTT services in one place with an umbrella user experience, unified content discovery and subscription fees taken care of via common billing. It suits consumers looking to create their own combination of subscription TV services, mixing an ‘a la carte’ mentality with curated convenience.

Amazon Channels is credited with making it easier for consumers to ‘stack’ multiple SVOD/D2C (direct-to-consumer) services at a time when this behaviour has become commonplace. It is helping content owners to reach and sign-up consumers to their subscription offers and it provides a shop window for special interest streaming services.

Amazon Channels is an important digital distribution option for content owners and contains some major names including ITV Hub+, Discovery and Eurosport Player. Multiple genres are covered, from MGM (movies) through Hayu (reality) to Shudder (horror/thriller) and Funimation (anime).

BBC R&D UHD-HDR

Received Silver prize

The BBC R&D public pilot of UHD-HDR live streaming during the 2018 World Cup and Wimbledon tournaments helped bring the benefits of this advanced format to the public. They were part of ongoing efforts to prove the model for ‘free-to-air’ UHD-HDR over the Internet.

The trial Ultra HD coverage received over 1.6 million live requests. Along with the standard coverage, they contributed to streaming records at the BBC. UHD streams for both tournaments peaked at around 60,000. This was the first time the BBC had shown major tournaments live in UHD on BBC iPlayer. All 29 of BBC One’s World Cup matches were available in Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range on the streaming service.

The BBC used the Hybrid Log-Gamma version of HDR it has standardised with Japanese broadcaster NHK. This provides improved picture quality not only to HDR Ultra HD devices, but to the vast majority of Standard Dynamic Range Ultra HD devices too. At the lowest end of its bitrate options, HEVC encoding delivered 1280x720p50 resolution at 7Mbit/s (50 frames per second).

== Excellence in Analytics & AI for TV & Video ==

This category rewards technology/solution providers, video service providers (e.g. content producers, curators, aggregators or distributors), network operators and device/app developers for the use of data analytics, artificial intelligence or machine learning to improve television (as a form of entertainment, as an operations process or as a business).

ThinkAnalytics – Personalised recommendations across BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds

ThinkAnalytics works with media owners to build closer relationships with their audiences using a blend of metadata enhancement, personalised content discovery and real-time viewer insights. Companies can model and measure behaviours related to content engagement. These capabilities are increasingly relevant to broadcasters now users sign-in to streaming services. Insights can be used to offer a superior content discovery journey and improve the viewer experience.

For subscription services, AI/machine learning algorithms and best practice techniques help reduce churn, attract new subscribers and optimise revenue opportunities via subscriptions, ad-hoc purchases, promotions and advertising. Real-time analytics let customers measure the effectiveness of editorial, promotions and advertising, and fine-tune their marketing efforts to maximise their investment in valuable content.

The BBC is focused on ‘reinventing’ iPlayer to provide an individual, personalised service – and doing the same for its radio services. ThinkAnalytics won the tender to supply the BBC with a personalised recommendations engine as part of the BBC Personalisation programme. It now helps support the presentation and delivery of the BBC’s extensive catalogue across BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.

NAGRA – NAGRA Insight

NAGRA Insight leverages AI to predict individual TV viewer behaviour such as propensity to churn from a Pay TV service, to purchase a package or to consume specific content. It generates intelligent operational actions that increase both an operator’s bottom line and subscriber satisfaction. It addresses four critical areas: subscriber value, operations, content and advertising.

This set of tools helps the marketing, operations and business intelligence teams. NAGRA Insight is deployed with four Tier 1 Pay TV operators.

NAGRA Insight enables Pay TV operators to quantify the behaviour and tastes of every subscriber as the basis for further actions, including automated, personalised marketing. It enables increased upselling by call centre agents by recommending the best TV product to offer each subscriber and the content within it that they will like.

A recommendation engine predicts the VOD content you will enjoy based on linear TV and VOD consumption. This can drive VOD usage and so reduce churn or revenue loss to OTT competitors. NAGRA Insight helps operators identify the cause of video quality problems, measure their business impact and recommend customer retention actions that are personalised to each user.

Synamedia – Synamedia Credentials Sharing Insight

Category winner

Credentials Sharing Insight is considered an anti-piracy world-first, using AI, behavioural analytics and machine learning to help streaming video providers combat the rise in casual account sharing and turn it into a revenue-generating opportunity. It can also be used to detect and shut down large-scale sharing fraud. The solution is in trials with several providers.

Casual account sharing does not only cost media owners revenue – it increases infrastructure costs to support non-paying streamers. Since content rights owners often limit how many devices can view their content, OTT players may keep the device limit lower for legitimate customers to avoid breaching contracts.

Until now, most OTT providers have treated casual password sharing as an easy way to market their service to new audiences. However, recent studies show that younger generations, used to accessing services for free, rarely become paying customers.

Synamedia Credentials Sharing Insight identifies, monitors and analyses credentials sharing activity. By integrating the sharing policy engine with their campaign management/CRM system, streaming providers can apply specific policies – like upselling to an account that allows more concurrent users – to anyone whose sharing score exceeds a pre-defined threshold. The security process and marketing cycle can be entirely automated.

SoftAtHome – AI Addressable TV

SoftAtHome is using AI for an addressable TV technology that maintains user privacy by profiling his/her data within the set-top box, instead of doing this via the cloud. This eases GDPR considerations. Subscriber profiles are only stored locally inside the STB and are encrypted to ensure nobody can access the private information.

The AI algorithms can work out which household member is watching a television, an inherent challenge for a shared screen. The system uses combinations of time split (e.g. when the TV is watched, the time patterns), usage (e.g. what content is watched, for how long) and remote control usage to help determine which household member is in front of the TV. Within three clicks of the remote control, the system can differentiate which of two people living in a house are watching.

Bluetooth-based proximity detection and voice signatures (when voice-based TV control is used) are other data points that can be harnessed. Different profiles are then activated and used to target the right ad to the right user at the right time. This solution includes audience measurement algorithms and frame-accurate ad insertion. It can be used with multiscreen devices in the home.

== Best User Experience – All Channels & Platforms ==

This award recognises innovation and best practice in the user experience, accepting entries from across the media industry including TV/video. It showcases experiences that bring content providers closer to consumers.

KT (Korea Telecom) – Voice UI system for KT Olleh TV

In August 2018, KT (Korea Telecom) deployed a new voice user interface (VUI) system for its Olleh TV Pay TV service, initially targeting 1.6 million of its GiGA Genie STBs. This allows users to navigate TV without a remote control, using voice commands – which can be faster and more convenient. You can jump to a menu option that does not currently display on the screen, for example.

A key innovation is the use of real-time contextual data to help improve the accuracy and speed of the voice recognition and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) processes. The underlying GUI (graphical user interface) sends information about what is showing on screen to the VUI and this is used to help interpret a voice command.

In another innovation, the VUI system recognises it is being given a voice command without having to wait for the user to finish speaking. This means the voice-to-text translation that sends data to the NLU system can happen sooner. The VUI copes with short and frequent voice commands. There is no need for a ‘wake-up word’ with the Olleh TV voice solution.

OnePlace from Canal Digital, supported by 3SS

Highly Commended by the judges

Canal Digital is a leading Pay TV provider in the Nordics. In February 2018 the company launched OnePlace, a next-generation service based on the Android N version of the Android TV operating system. This is available on UHD set-top boxes and PVRs to customers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

A key feature is the provision of broadcast TV, VOD and popular streaming services in one place, with users able to move seamlessly between these content sources – making Canal Digital a ‘super-aggregator’ of content. Netflix is deeply integrated: one option is to select the service within the EPG while viewing your current TV programme. Search and recommendations consider all content, including from third-party apps offered via Android.

The Canal Digital branded custom launcher and UI were developed by 3SS, whose design, development and integration expertise helps underpin the service. The UI allows subscribers to get the most from key OnePlace features including the integrated Google Play Store, Google Cast and Google Assistant (which includes voice search). Conax provides content protection and Technicolor middleware supplements the Android TV OS.

Since its launch, OnePlace has migrated to the Operator Tier version of Android TV.

Com Hem – Com Hem Tv Hub

Category winner

Com Hem provides Pay TV, broadband and telephone services in Sweden and its Com Hem Tv Hub platform acknowledges the growing popularity of both on-demand viewing and streaming services in Pay TV homes but the enduring importance of linear TV. This modern UI introduces a ‘flow’ content experience that takes users easily from VOD to apps of their choice and to live content – in any order.

The focus is on discovering what you want quickly and engaging the modern viewer for longer. Recommendations offer more relevant content and various options encourage continued viewing.

Com Hem Tv Hub is one of the first TV products in the world to harness Android TV Operator Tier – the version of Android TV that gives operators great control over the user experience with a custom-developed ‘launcher’.

This service gives viewers access to ultra-high-quality 4K and HDR (High Dynamic Range) content formats, includes popular streaming services like Netflix, TV4 Play and SVT Play, and includes Google Cast, Google Play Store and Google Assistant (enabling voice interaction).

Chair of judges for the Connies is Mark Cross, Director at Chartroom. The judging panel for the international categories above was:

• William Cooper, Founder and Chief Executive, informitv
• Steven Hawley, Principal Analyst and Consultant, tvstrategies
• Ian Nock, Managing Director and Founder, Fairmile West
• Benjamin Schwarz, Consultant, CToic Consulting
• David Price Principal, Scala Advisors
• John Moulding, Editor-in-Chief, Videonet.

Com Hem won the ‘Best User Experience’ category and then the International Grand Prix that is contested between the international category winners. Awards judge Steven Hawley, Principal Analyst and Consultant at tvstrategies, described Com Hem Tv Hub as “a great example of an Android TV Operator Tier implementation done well”, while judge Benjamin Schwarz, Consultant at CToic Consulting, added: “Com Hem has set the bar high, finding a difficult compromise between simplicity and the power of the UI.”

Com Hem beat off competition from KT (Korea Telecom) with its Voice UI system for KT Olleh TV and OnePlace from Canal Digital, supported by 3SS, to win the Best User Experience prize. Canal Digital/3SS were Highly Commended in this category by the judges.

Amazon Channels won the Premium TV Award. This provides a collection of streaming/OTT services in one place with an umbrella user experience, unified content discovery and subscription fees taken care of via common billing. Amazon Channels is credited with making it easier for consumers to ‘stack’ multiple SVOD/D2C (direct-to-consumer) services at a time when this behaviour has become commonplace, while it is also an important digital distribution option for content owners.

The judges felt this service represents a new type of content aggregator. Connies judge William Cooper, Founder and Chief Executive at informitv, says: “This service represents a benefit to programming providers and a convenience for viewers. Amazon has significant scale and reach, making it a credible contender in a strongly contested market.”

BBC R&D received the Silver Award in this category for its UHD HDR live streaming public pilot during the summer 2018 World Cup football finals and Wimbledon tennis tournament. Sling TV took the Bronze award, having trail-blazed the concept of the virtual Pay TV operator.

Sling TV gives consumers the option to access premium TV content from some of the best-known brands, aggregated and available in one place, without the long-term subscription commitments of traditional Pay TV. Consumers also have more flexibility when selecting content.

IBM Aspera was named this year’s Video Technology Hero for its IBM Aspera on Cloud, which overcomes the challenges associated with file exchange across increasingly hybrid workflows that use a combination of public cloud, private cloud and on-premises storage and compute resources. This solution is used by major film studios, post-production companies and broadcasters.

David Price, Principal at Scala Advisors and one of the Connies judges on the international categories, says: “Ever since the migration from physical media, the way that video content is distributed securely, reliably and quickly around the world has been a key part of that transition. IBM Aspera has brought scale to this key function.”

Verimatrix took the Silver award in this category with its StreamMark Server-side Watermarking for Premium OTT Video, and Harmonic received Bronze for its end-to-end UHD HDR solution for live sports streaming.

In the ‘Excellence in Analytics & AI’ category, Synamedia was awarded first prize for its Synamedia Credentials Sharing Insight, which uses AI, behavioural analytics and machine learning to help streaming video providers combat the rise in casual account sharing and turn it into a revenue-generating opportunity. This solution can also be used to detect and shut down large-scale sharing fraud.

“Synamedia is bringing to bear AI techniques to allow operators to identify password sharers and to offer different approaches to dealing with them,” notes Connies judge Ian Nock, Managing Director and Founder at Fairmile West. “We felt this was just the sort of solution needed today, and it rightly earned our votes as the winner of this category.”

The Connies are organised by Mediatel and are the most comprehensive awards covering the full media ecosystem. They showcase innovation and best practice across a range of functions from media research and media planning to publishing and distribution. They also seek key technology developments to support the media industry. The winners were announced during an awards lunch at The Banking Hall in central London on Wednesday.

We have profiled all the shortlisted entries from the categories mentioned above, if you want to see whether you agree with the judges. Check that out here.

Channel 4 was a big winner this year. The broadcaster was named Connected Media Owner of the Year for its success story as a truly connected media owner. “Working with connectivity at its heart, Channel 4 has demonstrated how this has made things better for viewers, better for clients and better for Channel 4’s overall business success,” said judge Anne Tucker, Head of Research & AV at Mediatel.

Channel 4 also won the ‘Best Use of Connected Data’ category for ‘Contextual Moments’, which finds scenes in programming that matches the sentiment and messages within advertising. This solution was acknowledged for automating what has historically been a manual and intuitive task.

In the ‘Best Research Project/Initiative’, Thinkbox took Bronze for a project in which it gave camera glasses to members of the public to show how people are using video across multiple screens. The Silver prize went to Newsworks for its work demonstrating the incremental benefit of advertising placed in quality online environments. The Gold winner was PAMCo – applauded for its delivery of a world-first, cross media measurement system for publishers.

Awards judge Richard Marks, Director at Research the Media said: “The successful launch of PAMCo was the end product of an ambitious desire to reboot the newsbrand and magazine currency as a truly platform neutral measure of readership in a connected world. The new survey skilfully balances the need for innovation, whilst preserving the credibility and authority of a currency used to trade billions of pounds of advertising.”

In the ‘Best Use of Connected Technology’ category, the judges awarded the prize to 3SS for its New 3Ready Assistant with Cloud-2-Cloud Integration. This demonstrated innovative use of voice commands in a multiscreen user interface and was held up by judges as an excellent example of how connected technology can deliver a seamless, engaging user experience across broadcast, VOD and OTT services.

Meanwhile, Posterscope was named ‘Connected Agency of the Year’. Global won the ‘Connected Campaign of the Year’ award for The Media and Entertainment Group – Department for Education, “Get Into Teaching”.

Don’t forget that you can see a profile of every shortlisted entry in the international categories here.

And here is the full list of the shortlisted companies and everyone who received a prize at the Connies 2019…

International categories…

International Grand Prix (selected from the international category winners)

Com Hem – Com Hem Tv Hub

Video Technology Hero

Gold (winner) – IBM Aspera – IBM Aspera on Cloud

Silver – Verimatrix – StreamMark Server-side Watermarking for Premium OTT Video

Bronze – Harmonic – End-to-end UHD HDR Solution for Live Sports Streaming

Also shortlisted: Avid – Avid MediaCentral

The ‘Premium TV’ Award

Gold (winner) – Amazon Channels

Silver – BBC R&D, UHD HDR

Bronze– Sling TV

Also shortlisted: Discovery Winter Olympics; Amazon as a vertical media company.

Excellence in Analytics & AI for TV and video

Winner –Synamedia – Synamedia Credentials Sharing Insight

Also shortlisted: ThinkAnalytics – Personalised recommendations across BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds; NAGRA – NAGRA Insight; SoftAtHome – AI Addressable TV.

Best User Experience

Winner – Com Hem – Com Hem Tv Hub

Highly Commended – OnePlace from Canal Digital, supported by 3SS

Also shortlisted: KT (Korea Telecom) – Voice UI System for KT Olleh TV.

UK categories…

Best Research Project/Initiative

Gold (winner) – PAMCo Ltd – PAMCo Audience Measurement for Publishers: The new Joint Industry Currency for Published Media

Silver –Newsworks – The Value of Quality

Bronze – Thinkbox – The Age of Television

Also shortlisted: Inskin – Amplify: Planning for Attention; Kinetic – The more you see it, the more you like it.

Best Use of Connected Data

Winner – Channel 4 – Contextual Moments

Also shortlisted: Spotify – NCS: Unstoppable Me (National Citizen Service); Manning Gottlieb OMD – Creating a custom algorithm for Clinique – Moisture Surge; Sky & Tesco Finest – Delicious nights in with Sky On Demand.

Best Use of Connected Technology

Winner – 3SS – New 3Ready Assistant with Cloud-2-Cloud Integration

Also shortlisted: ADYOULIKE – Native Advertising Technology Platform; Accedo – Generating artwork using AI with AWS and ITV.

Connected Campaign of the Year

Winner – Global, The Media and Entertainment Group – Department for Education, “Get Into Teaching”

Highly Commended – Grey LDN, WPP & Facebook – UN: The People’s Seat

Also shortlisted: Facebook – EE’s Real-time red carpet on Instagram; Sky & Differentology – Emotionally connecting SkyBet with audiences through the power of Social Branded Content.

Connected Agency of the Year

Winner – Posterscope

Also shortlisted: Manning Gottlieb OMD; Total Media.

Connected Media Owner of the Year

Winner – Channel 4

Also shortlisted: Spotify

 UK Grand Prix (selected from the UK category winners)

Global

Mediatel CEO, Derek Jones, says of the Connies 2019: “The level of creativity and innovation was truly remarkable. The work on display acts as a barometer for the health of the connected ecosystem, and we’re proud to reward it with these unique awards. My sincere gratitude goes to everyone for taking part, and I look forward to seeing more great work next year.”

The Connies 2019 judges were:

Chair of judges

Mark Cross, Director, Chartroom

International category judges

• William Cooper, Founder and Chief Executive, informitv
• Steven Hawley, Principal Analyst and Consultant, tvstrategies
• Ian Nock, Managing Director and Founder, Fairmile West
• Benjamin Schwarz, Consultant, CToic Consulting
• David Price Principal, Scala Advisors
• John Moulding, Editor-in-Chief, Videonet.

All other categories

• Mark Cross, Director, Chartroom
• Richard Marks, Director, Research the Media
• Stacey Anklam, COO, autograph
• Anne Tucker, Head of Research and AV, Mediatel
• Tracey Follows, Founder, Futuremade.
• Zehra Chatoo, Head of Strategy Development, Manning Gottlieb OMD
• Rob Ellison, Senior Comms Planning Manager UK&I, Unilever.

The EUR 3-10 figure is based on real deployments that use the self-optimising, adaptive Wi-Fi solution from U.S. vendor Plume. The firm claims Comcast has raised ARPU by $8 a month in homes taking the technology while Bell Canada went to market with a $5 per month charge. Tele2 in the Netherlands is another Plume customer, charging EUR 5 for an improved Wi-Fi offer. In the UK, subscribers are paying TalkTalk £9 a month in a limited roll-out to invited consumers.

With Plume, consumers can install tri-band or dual-band adaptive Wi-Fi access points, called SuperPods and PowerPods respectively, which can be spread around the home. These make intelligent use of the wireless bandwidth available, moving devices from one channel to another to find the frequencies with least congestion. The system understands client device needs and can therefore optimise performance for everything from smartphones to connected televisions.

Smart services are layered onto the resulting high-performance Wi-Fi network. The new HomePass feature means the home owner can give guests their own individual Wi-Fi passwords that can be timed-out after an hour or at the end of the day, or never. Plume believes this is an important security step as we move from using Wi-Fi primarily to access the Internet and watch multiscreen video to enabling our smart thermostats, home security cameras, door entry systems and other smart home functions.

Thus, the babysitter can have their own password and the double-glazing salesman that you never see again gets a one-off access code to your LAN. People who let their home for a week via Airbnb would be obvious beneficiaries.

Fahri Diner, CEO at Plume, says some people look to protect their wireless home by creating a second Wi-Fi network, but as more SSIDs are used you create what is called ‘beaconing’ traffic, and when that is combined with the likely growth of multi access point homes (i.e. where Wi-Fi is powered through more than one device) you start eating into wireless capacity. This is a problem in multi-dwelling buildings. HomePass is considered a much more elegant solution. Different people can be given access to different devices, too – thus a guest might have access to the wireless printer but not to the wider IoT device ecosystem.

Another key service layer is AI-enabled cybersecurity for the smart home/IoT world. Plume enables service providers to complement their dynamic Wi-Fi networks with a fully managed security service that understands normal device connections and behaviours and recognises and investigates any unusual activity. So, if your in-home intruder camera connects to a completely new server on the Internet, or starts uploading or downloading more than normal, this is flagged.

Hackers are not going to start streaming your home affairs onto Twitch, the company promises. The Palo Alto (California) headquartered vendor provided a demonstration recently of someone hacking a home webcam when Plume security was not enabled, then being prevented from doing this when the cybersecurity was turned on. The device under attack was also quarantined within the LAN – with the Plume app highlighting the security actions that were taken.

Even if you strip away the advanced ‘cognitive services’, this technology looks compelling. According to Diner, service providers using Plume’s dynamic Wi-Fi solution have seen their incoming customer service calls halve. “In the U.S., each call costs the operator $7-10. They are also seeing a 67% reduction in truck-rolls in the U.S. [i.e. service visits to homes to fix problems]. It costs $75-300 per visit and we are reducing them by two-thirds.”

Net promoter scores (NPS) – one of the main measures of whether customers are happy – are averaging more than 60 at Plume customers, Diner reports. “Most carriers have a rating near zero. Our customers are ecstatic about those scores,” he says.

One of the Wi-Fi performance advantages accredited to Plume technology is its consistent use of Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) wireless channels. These are channels that are available for domestic use but shared with radar, and they must be vacated if needed for radar.

Plume says using DFS frequencies can double wireless capacity, and in some network configurations you could quadruple capacity to some parts of the home. Plume routers are not the only ones that can use DFS, but the company claims a key differentiator for its own technology: after the Plume routers are kicked off DFS frequencies, they are quickly put back onto them. The Plume platform manages the wireless network, and so every night it checks if you still have DFS access.

“The chances that a router will stay on DFS are very low,” one Plume spokesman said recently. “At one ISP we know, only 1-1.5% of its routers stayed on DFS because they could only return there if there was manual intervention.” Fahri Diner claims that in most cases where Plume is not used, a router that gives up DFS channels stays off them permanently.

A typical 3-4 bedroom European home needs three Plume pods for best effect – and the retail cost for three of the tri-band devices is £199. These offer the fastest speeds. A 4/5 bedroom home needs four (at a retail price of £259). The dual-band PowerPods cost less.

Plume says the ROI works for a service provider even if the new access points are used primarily as Wi-Fi extenders, without advanced features like cybersecurity. Service providers can obviously choose to absorb the hardware costs into monthly charge increases.

Plume does have a direct-to-consumer business, selling its devices and service (as a membership) online, but the company is firmly focused on the service provider market. Diner believes that with Amazon and Google taking a greater physical presence in consumer homes, what he calls cognitive services is a way for operators to cement their own position. And the incumbents will no longer be competing primarily on access speeds. “The battleground is in the home and it is about who can provide these [intelligent] services fast and at scale. The fight is no longer about whose pipe is bigger or faster, or more reliable,” Diner says.

The Plume technology will work for any service provider. The self-install set-up is simple. You download the Plume app, then connect your existing router to the first Plume pod (e.g. via Ethernet), so this first pod can take over the wireless gateway function. You then plug additional pods into wall sockets around the house. Using the associated smartphone app, you discover the extra sockets and name them as they join the network. An operator can also integrate the Plume software into their own router, if they want. The Plume pods can be operator-branded, if desired.

The Plume app emphasises the fact that this is a managed Wi-Fi home service, showing you the network configuration of pods. When you click on a pod, it shows you the connection status (e.g. excellent or good, etc.) and lists the devices attached to that access point, with a separate list showing the most active devices on an access point (and the proportion of bandwidth they have used). You can see the broadband provider speeds coming into the home, broken down across 24 hours, seven days and 30 days.

You can select each device to see how much of the total bandwidth it has consumed over the last 24 hours, seven days or 30 days, and the actual data downloaded and uploaded over that period (by the device). You can see the connection speed available to the device you are currently using.

There is an option to activate ad-blocking, which is in beta. For each device, there is an option to limit what content can be streamed to it. ‘No limits’, ‘Kids appropriate’, ‘Teenager friendly’ or ‘No adult content’ are the options. Security events, like instances where content was blocked, are logged. You can schedule a freeze on Internet access on a per-device basis – e.g. to create a homework window. Both Tele2 and TalkTalk provide the HomePass custom guest password and the parental control features.

Plume guarantees privacy to consumers: device data collection is only to optimise performance or feed the app, and device activity is monitored only by machines unless it is used by customer support, with the user’s permission. You can opt out entirely from data collection (at the expense of performance).

In an example of how more ‘cognitive services’ will follow, Plume recently revealed plans for a ‘perimeter security’ feature. External security cameras can harness cloud intelligence to recognise faces, learn who the dog walkers and delivery drivers are, and perhaps their routines, then flag suspicious occurrences that do not fit usual patterns. Multiple homes using the technology could create a shared network to make this more effective on a neighbourhood level. Motion sensors and face recognition are two of the foundational technologies behind this upcoming feature.

Speaking at the Connected TV World Summit in London last week, Dan Fahy, Viacom International Media Networks’ VP of Commercial and Content Distribution, said that the company is “fundamentally investing in pay TV” and that its move into over-the-top distribution is not a departure from this.

“We’re a partnership-focused company,” said Fahy. “Anything we do in this space needs to not only benefit our audience, but it needs to unlock further value of some sort for our partners.”

For Viacom, Fahy said the case for going direct-to-consumer must fit three criteria: there is a brand need for it; there are core partner benefits; and that the final proposition balances the needs of both audiences and partners.

MTV Play launched in the UK earlier this year as a £3.99 per-month mobile app, offering catch-up programming from MTV, the linear MTV channel, boxsets and digital original series in a “heavily curated experience”.

Fahy explained the service is targeted squarely at an audience that is watching less broadcast TV and broadcast video-on-demand than in the past – particularly the younger end of the channel’s 16-34 age demographic who are “almost consuming no linear”.

“We’ve got an audience that’s watching less broadcast VOD, we’ve got an audience that’s heavily mobile, and an audience that’s being driven by social media,” he said.

“We suddenly realise that MTV’s future audience are doing things that may not lead into MTV, so the question for us was: if we don’t do this, where is our audience in the next five years or 10 years or 15 years?”

MTV Play is mobile-first, accessibly priced and offers the full MTV content experience – though Fahy stressed that “we very deliberately designed MTV Play to fit within our pay TV ecosystem,” with the service available via operator partner EE and MTV’s full content offering still also available via traditional pay providers and Sky’s OTT service Now TV.

“The whole driver for MTV Play is for our audiences and our partners,” said Fahy. “For Viacom, pay TV and with [it] the health of the bundle is paramount and we’re big believers in it. This is not a pivot away. That’s really what drives us – our partnerships and our audiences.”

“We’re not taking on Netflix with this,” he added. “This was one of the trade press headlines when we launched [MTV Play] in January, that we were ‘taking on Netflix’. We’re not.”

Fahy described MTV Play as the latest in a number of OTT and direct-to-consumer products that have grown out of Viacom’s core brands in recent years.

The company has distribution deals in place all over the world for kids service Nick Play, while Viacom-owned UK terrestrial broadcaster Channel 5 moved into subscription video-on-demand last year by taking its preschool programming brand Milkshake! to Amazon Channels with the launch of More Milkshake!

Fahy said that Viacom is also transitioning Channel 5’s on-demand service, My5, to a “partnership model” by opening up the platform to partners like A+E, PBS America and Little Dot Studios.

“The reason why this is a direction that really excites us is because we’ve invested in this distribution platform, it has enormous reach already, but we want to partner with other broadcasters in the market so that they can benefit from our distribution investment and our reach. As we do that, we benefit from the new audience reach that they bring in as well.”

This weekend’s FA Cup semi-final between Manchester City and Brighton and next month’s FA Cup Final will both be offered live in UHD and HDR for the first time, with the footage to be played at 50 frames per-second.

Viewers with compatible Ultra HD TVs and an Internet connection of at least 40Mbit per-second will be able to watch the UHD livestream via the BBC iPlayer app, or by pressing the red button on their remote control to access the iPlayer.

The BBC said that it will implement a cap of “tens of thousands of people” watching live at a time, due to the high bandwidth required and the experimental nature of the trial. It ran a similar ‘first-come, first-served’ UHD trial during last summer’s World Cup.

The broadcaster counted roughly 1.6 million live requests for its Ultra HD coverage of the World Cup and last summer’s Wimbledon tennis tournament combined. It also received roughly 1.4 million UHD requests for its nature series Dynasties on the iPlayer last year.

“Our Ultra HD and HDR programmes have been streamed millions of times on BBC iPlayer, making them some of the most popular Ultra HD programmes in the world, and BBC iPlayer is one of the only streaming services to offer them live in such high quality,” said Head of BBC iPlayer, Dan Taylor-Watt.

“It’s an excellent example of how we’re reinventing BBC iPlayer, making it an even better place for watching live events, and giving people the best programmes to enjoy in the best possible quality.”

The BBC’s UHD trials are designed to improve the quality of Ultra HD streaming, especially live streaming, to meet future demand. The broadcaster said that as the UK Internet evolves, it believes this will be the main way people watch Ultra HD programmes in the future.

BBC R&D’s Head of Broadcast and Connected Systems, Phil Layton, said: “Our research has already provided a highly effective way for free-to-air broadcasters to put HDR into their Ultra HD programmes, and we’re working on a range of projects to make Ultra HD even better for audiences and the industry.”

Speaking at the Connected TV World Summit in London, Deutsche Telekom’s Vice-President of Business Development and Strategy for TV, Joerg Richartz, referred to the company’s TV offering as the ‘Deutschland platform’ that is “open for all partners”.

Deutsche Telekom rebranded its EntertainTV service to MagentaTV in October 2018, at the same time introducing new features like a refreshed user interface and its Megathek (‘mega library’) of content, which is available at no extra cost and is a central element to the offering.

Richartz said the company’s TV strategy is now built around three pillars: best user experience; best partner portfolio; and exclusive content.

“We have the broadest linear line-up of stations on the platform, be it free or be it paid, we have all the big SVOD partners on the platform and we also are investing into our own content,” said Richartz.

“In the fight between the engagement platforms our competitors are not Netflix and Amazon but the cable competition in Germany. These guys are also aggregating so we decided to go into exclusive content because we think that makes the difference in the end and is not repeatable for our competitors. Exclusive content for us is especially fiction and sports.”

Deutsche Telekom started co-producing series last year with German-French series Deutsch-Les-Landes, and has a number of new exclusives coming to the platform, including Italian mafia drama Il Cacciatore – The Hunter and the third season of Canadian detective series Cardinal. Both are due to launch on Megathek on April 4.

“The good message is we won’t stop, we want to further invest in the Megathek,” said Richartz. “The libraries need exclusives and also originals.”

Megathek launched with more than 10,000 titles, including content from major German broadcasters ARD and ZDF, creating what Richartz described as an “exclusive configuration” of long-tail content.

By February this year, Deutsche Telekon announced that Megathek had grown to around 15,000 titles after adding some 900 episodes of Nickelodeon series – including SpongeBob Squarepants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and PAW Patrol.

While Richartz wouldn’t reveal user numbers, he said the company is seeing growth and that by stacking international licensed content with German long-tail it is addressing a “completely new customer group”.

“For us, it’s not so important if you have two, five or 10 million views on the platform. What we want to achieve is to bring our subscribers from linear to non-linear, so to open up the world for them, and that’s what we are seeing.”

Deutsche Telekom is also looking to marry its data with recommendation engine technology to help content find viewers, rather than the other way around. By doing so, it aims to bring the platform “to the next-level feature-wise”.

“In the end, we think that we are the ‘Deutschland Platform’ as we call it, so the leading German platform, because we are an independent platform. We are open for all the partners. Everyone can come to our platform, we enable every business model. We have free, we have pay, AVOD, TVOD, SVOD – everything is possible,” said Richartz.

“Our ambition is always to really integrate the partners as deep as we can. Not because of taking over the customer data, but from a customer or user-experience perspective. The deeper the content is integrated into your platform, into your UI, the easier it is for the customer to enjoy the content and that’s our ambition.”

Delivering a keynote titled ‘How established media owners will maintain audiences in the age of hyper-competition’, the head of Channel 4’s All 4 on-demand service ran through an A-Z of ideas.

Stressing the importance of curation, Davidson-Houston said that familiarity, rather than new content, is both the biggest driver of viewers’ intention to watch and an enormous challenge, noting that boxsets are important for driving retention as viewers become invested in completing series.

He also claimed that linear scheduling remains “the most important recommendation engine in all of media” and is something that has a huge impact on the consumption of on-demand video.

“Partnering with niche verticals can bring new audiences to platforms that wouldn’t otherwise have come,” he said, citing Channel 4’s international-focused drama service Walter Presents and its content partnership with Adult Swim.

However, he criticised the industry for being “incredibly bad at reaching out and finding other people around the world” to forge partnerships with.

“I can’t go global, I work for a state-owned commercially-funded broadcaster,” he said. “But we can all go global if we buddy up with other people in other markets.”

In terms of brand building and aggregation, he described the latter as battle between the economic or strategic compulsion of being aggregated by a big tech platform and the difficulty of making a brand cut through in that environment.

For smaller brands to continue to have meaning in an online world populated by tech giants, he said they must be “amphibious,” able to be at home in linear, over-the-top, social and even areas like podcasting.

YouTube is a marketing platform and a “means to an end” for broadcasters, according to Davidson-Houston. “It’s a confusing means to an end because often that marketing takes the form of publishing content and sometimes we monetise the content.”

Elsewhere, Davidson-Houston was critical of paying too much credence to ‘HiIPPOS’, an acronym that means the “highest paid person’s opinion,” or people that base their strategic thinking on their own children’s media consumption.

Experimentation was deemed important, with companies encouraged to “play like a jazz band” by innovating and taking risks. However, virtual reality was dismissed as “basically a distraction” and “nothing to do with broadcasting”.

The US tech giant ended months of speculation by confirming that its video subscription service will feature a new slate of programming and will appear in a new Apple TV app alongside channels from partners like HBO, Showtime and Starz.

The Apple TV+ streaming service will be available from this autumn, with Apple promising exclusive original shows, movies and documentaries from “the wold’s most creative storytellers.” Pricing is due to be announced closer to launch.

The new Apple TV App will be available on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV in more than 100 countries from May. The app will also launch on Samsung smart TVs this spring, will be available on Mac from the autumn and is due to roll out on Amazon Fire TV, LG, Roku, Sony and VIZIO platforms “in the future”.

Channels partners also include CBS All Access, Smithsonian Channel, EPIX, Tastemade and Noggin with Apple promising more will be added over time around the world. Viewers will be able to pay for the partner channels they want on an a la carte basis, and will also be able to use the app to access iTunes movies and TV shows.

The new app is built to offer a personalised experience based on viewing across existing apps and services. It will offer suggestions for shows and movies from more than 150 streaming apps, including Amazon Prime and Hulu and pay TV services like Canal+, Charter Spectrum, DirecTV Now, and Playstation Vue. Netflix previously ruled itself out of being part of the offering.

On the Apple TV+ content front, programming will appear from talent including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan and Jon M. Chu

“We’re honoured that the absolute best line-up of storytellers in the world – both in front of and behind the camera – are coming to Apple TV+,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services.

“We’re thrilled to give viewers a sneak peek of Apple TV+ and cannot wait for them to tune in starting this fall. Apple TV+ will be home to some of the highest quality original storytelling that TV and movie lovers have seen yet.”

In a research note ahead of the launch, Futuresource Consulting predicted that Apple’s SVOD service would play a key role in the evolution of the market in 2019, particularly in the US. However it added: “We don’t expect the service to impact the growth of the leading players, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video”.

Connected TV World Summit is in London on March 27-28 and we kick off with Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, revealing who wins and who loses during the four years of dramatic growth in Western European TV revenues that we are about to enjoy. Richard Davidson-Houston, Head of All 4 at Channel 4 will share his strategy for how established media owners maintain audiences in the age of hyper-competition.

Industry leaders then explore the dynamics that will shape the TV ecosystem for a generation. Is ‘local’ VOD content the battle that will decide the fate of European broadcasters – and will the EU’s 30% content quota bring forward the showdown? How much premium streaming can survive on subscriptions alone, and will we need more AVOD and more hybrid ‘subs+ads’ business models? These are some of the subjects senior media executives will be discussing. You can see full details on ‘The emerging TV ecosystems’ session here.

This year’s event explores the mega-trend that is direct-to-consumer – both the opportunities and the profound ecosystem implications. Dan Fahy, VP Commercial and Content Distribution at Viacom International Media Networks will explain how Viacom is combining OTT, DTC and traditional distribution. A panel explores whether low-cost direct-to-consumer apps will become the modern equivalent of a magazine rack, bought by teenagers each month with their pocket money.

We want to know how the industry makes the DTC economics work if every content owner needs its own subs management, customer care, billing, data scientists, ad-tech, sales, etc. And executives will be predicting the end-game. Does every channel go DTC? Does a la carte finally trump bundling? Do consumers tire of self-serve? Will we see the end of aggregation or the rise of the re-aggregator? Full details on the ‘Direct-to-consumer broadcasting’ session are here.

Europe’s major media owners will be sharing their strategies over two days. Rhys Noelke, Senior Vice President Strategy at RTL Group, will discuss the development of a joint tech platform that all RTL’s streaming platforms and broadcaster VOD services will ultimately migrate to. Joerg Richartz, Vice President Business Development & Strategy TV at Deutsche Telekom explores the personalisation of TV as one building block for a market-leading Pay TV service.

Connected TV World Summit delegates will hear how aggregators, especially incumbent Pay TV providers, can become hero brands in their own market. What are the priority consumer-facing innovations for content aggregators who want hero status? How do Pay TV operators make themselves indispensable to channel partners in the age of direct-to-consumer? Where can Pay TV and free-to-air platform owners establish a technology lead in future? You can see more details on ‘How aggregators become hero brands’ here.

Everyone must now live with FAANG – either competing against them or collaborating with them successfully. This thought-leadership summit explores the opportunities for both. You will hear predictions on the impact for European producers and broadcasters if 30% of Netflix and Amazon VOD is made locally, as now required by the EU. You will hear how broadcasters maintain their lead in local and non-scripted content, and if they can afford to stop licensing back-catalogues to international SVODs. Find out more about the ‘Living with FAANG’ session via this link.

Alptug Copuroglu, CFO and MD of Business Development at the leading Turkish SVOD provider, BluTV, explains how his company is competing with Amazon and Netflix using a focus on local content. Richard Broughton, Research Director at Ampere Analysis, provides a razor-sharp analysis of the media companies and the content investment strategies that are moving the needle today.

There is also a session dedicated to ‘Generating new advertising revenue’. Despite the growing power of Google and Facebook, it is possible for commercial TV to grow and our speakers, including Paola Colombo, General Manager, Adtech and Business Development at Publitalia ’80, will show you how. You can hear from world experts in TV advertising like Bob Ivins, Chief Data Officer at NCC Media and Clive Page, Head of Product, Data and Analytics at Finecast.

During Connected TV World Summit, Google’s Android TV team is hosting a 90 minute workshop, supported by 3SS and TiVo. This will provide an update on the latest developments in the open source CPE software initiative and feature several partner presentations and case studies. The focus will be on the Operator Tier programme, Google Assistant on TV, recommendation and monetisation opportunities.

You can find more details about Connected TV World Summit here.

Check the full agenda here.

You can register for the event here.