StreamTV Europe’s Takeaways

Lessons from Lisbon

It was heartening to see so many streaming industry experts gather at the StreamTV Show in Lisbon during these geopolitically unstable times to discuss current smart TV priorities and challenges. Out of the many sessions during the 3-day event, two overarching industry hurdles stood out to me: fragmentation in various forms and client-side data measurement .

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Kicking things off on day 1, Alan Wolk used the analogy of the Roman Empire turning into the Middle Ages in his keynote to describe the current streaming industry. Back when Broadcast came, saw and conquered, there was a monoculture: a common language, clear monetization models, and far less fragmented content rights. As he put it, we now have entered an age of “Feudal Media”, where streaming services carve small kingdoms out of the Broadcast empire’s remains. Each of these feudal streaming services must figure out the optimal infrastructure, content mix, device coverage, and ad/sub structure for itself, as there is no longer a Broadcaster-shaped template to mimic.

No Universal Plug

Zooming in on hardware fragmentation, the industry resembles the sprawl of electrical plugs and sockets in use today. The jungle of smart TV OSs is causing QoE issues, client-side errors, quality drops, and feature regressions, impacting viewer satisfaction and engagement. For streaming services, it is a nightmare to develop, upgrade and maintain software stacks on all widely used smart TV platforms. Moreover, it complicates the measurements used to analyze viewer behavior, determine subscription pricing, and sell advertisements, which are critical elements in the workflow of any streaming business. Nielsen’s postponed February Gauge report fueled speculation and doubts about the dependability of current viewing measurements, leaving streaming services in a state of limbo.

While there was general agreement over the need for a common cross-OS measurement standard on the show floor, I felt that there were few representatives from OEMs present, their buy-in will be key in solving this issue. And even if hardware and firmware companies internalize the complaints about the scattered set of systems, sorting out differences and implementing a ‘universal plug’ will take time.

Enlightened Streaming

For me the task ahead is clear: support streaming services through the Feudal Age towards a streaming Renaissance by improving QoE, and measuring accurate, granular and cross-platform data. Fortunately, Tiledmedia has built a bespoke codebase powering our Player SDK, without platform- or open source player dependencies, providing consistent and cross-platform insights that our customers can act on. Me and my colleagues will attend more trade shows this year to stay up-to-date, and exciting news regarding smart TVs is in the works, so stay tuned and see you around!