Cue the Sunset: The Rise and Fall of Reality TV

Though Emily Nussbaum's Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV reads more like a biography than like an obituary, the book lands as reality TV appears to be shrinking along with the scripted side of the business. More than one pundit has proclaimed its demise at the hands of TikTok, the "now everyone grows up on video" platform that reality TV prefigured.

Streaming Is Easy, Until It’s Not

When it comes to electronics, it's easy to look at advertised features and believe that tech will provide everything you need. But no matter how powerful and integrated it is—perhaps even because of how integrated and powerful it is—you need professionals to run it to ensure you look your best. Streaming may seem easy, but as with any business role, only expertise will make it look easy, even when it's not.

The Monetization Story of 2024 and Beyond

For the longest time, people I've interviewed have complained about how much of the video advertising budget went to social. Now the tide is turning.

Casual Streaming Piracy and the Cost of Chasing it

At Streaming Media NYC, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel around stream security. It's probably the fifth or sixth time that I've done so in the last decade, but an interesting dichotomy popped up during the prep meeting with panelists, and again while we were on stage during the live session. The concept was "casual piracy" and how it differed from "professional piracy" in both intent and scale.

The Lure of New Gear

As the march of new tech accelerates, it begs the question: Do we wait a bit to see what new gear can offer, or do we go with what's available now, even if might seem a bit older

Data, Personalization, and Practical Magic

Discussions of data acquisition, application, and monetization that would have seemed like the most mind-blowing magic to denizens of other eras proved ever-present at Streaming Media NYC, the reimagined and rebooted Streaming Media event that made its raucously well-received return to Manhattan in May.

Radically Reforming Public Education--and How Video Can Help

By the time stu­dents finish their sophomore year of high school, they should know how much they have yet to learn about financial literacy and maybe even have a good idea of what they want to do in life. This is where streaming media comes in: Online video and books can provide for rich, specialized independent study to any community with motivated students.

Why You Should Embrace Sustainability (But Not For The Reason You May Think)

To really make an impact, we have to put sustainability within a context we can understand. It's hard, whether as individuals or businesses, sometimes to grasp the very huge concept of climate change and then commit to "sustainability efforts" as a way to have an impact. But when there is context, sustainability efforts can be achieved without actually trying to focus on them in particular. Within the streaming industry, that context is power.

Post-Peak Performance in the M&E Universe

The recent Subscription Wars report commissioned by U.K.-based digital payments tech company Bango points to consumer dissatisfaction with the fractured state of subscription services in general and the increasing appeal of indirect subscription options and super-bundles of aggregated services sold through telcos like Optus in Australia. Perhaps it's another sign of less-than-inspiring times that the best thing consumers say streaming services can do for them is to stop standing out from the crowd and start disappearing into it.

All-in-One Streaming Tools Let You Do It All—But Should You?

Today, we are seeing a similar conglomeration of features and abilities in today's production hardware, enabling one person to "do it all!" This begs the question: Should you do it all?

Live Sports Streaming and the Edison Tone Test

There can be little doubt that live sports streaming has a lucrative and dazzling future. But first, it needs to get past the Tone Test stage.

Effective K–12 Video Strategies

The revolutionary change over the past 10 years has made production technologies accessible to teachers and even students. And 4 years ago, of course, almost everyone was forced to rely on educational video to keep schools asfunctional as possible. Today, we can identify several use cases of teacher-produced educational video that are particularly effective.

Should We Trust Nielsen Math?

After reviewing Nielsen/Gracenote's 2023 State of Play report, Data-Driven Per­sonalization: The Future of Streaming Content Discovery, I found the numbers they cited to be very much on the creative side. I don't get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I think about their research.

Is 2024 the Year of WebRTC?

With large sports-streaming operators, WebRTC provides a real opportunity for ultra-low-latency streaming. But those same operators, which spend billions on licensing rights, can't afford to just swap the ability to stream content in real time for basic OTT functionality like SSAI and DRM.

For Live Streaming Producers, Tables of Gear Are Still a Good Idea

While the All-In-One live production and streaming tools grow and mature, let's make sure we keep backup solutions in mind to ensure a successful production—even if it still means a table full of gear.

Dances with Wolves

Most of those following the Hollywood strikes of 2023 found reason to cheer on Nov. 8 when SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP reached a tentative agreement that reportedly resolved the AI-related disputes that largely motivated the strike (alongside the impasse over stream­ing residuals). But that resolution came with a significant compromise.

WCAG 2.2, Web Content Accessibility Standards, and You

Instead of a patchwork of accessibility standards for California, Illinois, Europe, and everywhere else, the current standard is set by a broad cross-section of experts from the industry and published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The State of CTV Advertising

Ad buying is changing. For example, now you can buy from an agency that has deep knowledge of data around local viewing, or you can go to a TV manufacturer that has deep knowledge of all of the viewing on its hardware.

With Social Video Sizing, Serve Your Viewers What They’re Hungry For

The customer wanting to watch your stream on Insta does not want a horizontal video shoehorned into a vertical frame. The customer watching the horizontal version doesn't want the vertical slice with the same thing blurred out behind it to fill the frame. Each of those customers is hungry for that particular experience. It's your job to give your customers what they are hungry for.

8 Lessons Surfing Can Teach Live Streaming Producers

I had the opportunity to try and learn to surf earlier this year. I'm very glad that I took the lessons because I soon found out how hard surfing really is. While trying, failing, getting hurt, watching, and learning, I saw some parallels between my lessons on the water and the streaming business—which isn't quite as easy as it looks either.