6
NEWS & VIEWS
November 2018
Tap technology trends to secure
the future of your business
by stan moote
Smart business leaders regularly take
time away from day-to-day business
imperatives to look ahead and see what
is coming down the track. That way, they
are part of the next wave, rather than
victims of it. I have engaged with many
smart leaders over the past few months
and also taken some time myself to gaze
into the future, taking into account solid,
hard data from IABM’s Strategic Industry
Analysis report released at IBC2018.
What follows is the result — my future-
proofing technology trends checklist,
and while not all of the items will neces-
sarily apply directly to your business, it is
worth the time to evaluate the potential
impact in each of the areas I cover.
Broadcasting used to be a known
quantity — it delivered all your enter-
tainment, news and information. But
thanks to Networking Everywhere, we
now have multi-platform delivery. Also,
because of Networking Everywhere, we
ended up with social media, and social
media has become entertainment —
which is what is taking us away from the
norm of entertainment via TV.
We also get news and
weather — again, traditional
broadcast staples — via social
media today; I will leave the
discussion about fake news
to you though! What social
media does not do is docu-
mentaries, reality and game
shows — but we are never-
theless talking about them on
social media!
So my first technology trend is so-
cial media. In the US, adults watch an
average of around five hours of video
a day (content that is 20 minutes or
more in length), and spend one hour
and 15 minutes a day on social media.
Social media affects TV ratings — 85%
of Twitter users who are active dur-
ing prime-time say they are tweeting
about TV content they are watching;
tweets cause ratings, which help drive
more tweets. So you can use social
media to increase viewership, and by
understanding viewer interactions with
TV programmes and social media, you
have even more ways to use this data.
People most definitely want local
news and also world news with a local
point of view; this includes local sports,
events and weather too. The broadcast-
ers who are doing well are focusing on
making local content available — this is
keeping their brands and ratings strong.
The second technology trend is
advanced analytics, which has only
just started to be used in the broadcast
business. Using artificial intelligence
(AI), advanced analytics has the power
to look into extremely large data sets to
reveal patterns, trends and associations.
The insights gained can inform advertis-
❝Your ongoing
success relies
on examining
and re-inventing
everything
you do —
continuously.
That way, you
will be part of
the future, and
not a footnote in
history.❞
ing decisions and uncover viewer trends,
likes and dislikes way beyond the power
of the traditional focus group. Some 63%
of companies with well-established ana-
lytics strategies reported 15% or more
improvement in operating margins in
2016. Today, there is enough data that
can be easily mined to improve the
odds of programming bets and viewer
preferences.
AI itself is my next trend — also at
an early stage of adoption, but with an
increasing number of broadcast and
media companies planning to deploy it
over the next few years. Potential appli-
cations for AI range across the content
chain, from acquisition and editing to
content management and distribu-
tion. What areas of your operation are
laboriously manual or could not use an
efficiency boost? AI is one of the keys
to unlock this and free up your staff to
do more profitable ventures which lines
up directly with purchasing decisions to
“make us more efficient”.
Software-defined networking
(SDN) is the next trend to watch out
for. Dynamic, manageable, cost-effective
and adaptable, SDN is ideal for the high-
bandwidth, dynamic nature of today’s
applications. The premise behind SDN
is that signals no longer need to line up
with workflows; this will deliver a major
shift in how facilities and upgrades will
be designed, built and maintained.
IP is already on most people’s radar.
With SMPTE ST 2110 now established,
adoption of IP is already accelerating,
bringing clear benefits to facilities, most
notably in agility and efficiency. Be aware
of the point where you have amortised
your investment in SDI infrastructures
and plan accordingly — or move to a
hybrid IP/SDI approach to reduce lift-
and-shift shock on your Capex books.
Enabled by the move to IP, my next
trend is virtualisation, which replaces
dedicated hardware functions with
software running on COTS (commercial
off-the-shelf) technology. Virtualisation
has a number of benefits; in addition
to eliminating custom hardware, it
also enables new services to be added
quickly — and non-profitable ones to
be turned off quickly too — and deliv-
ers agility to meet rapidly changing
viewer demands.
And, of course, it works with the
cloud too, the adoption of which
is reaching an advanced stage in
broadcast and media. Most organisa-
tions are opting for a private or hybrid
cloud approach, with on-demand usage
providing great flexibility and potential
cost savings while delivering a much
faster time to market for new services.
4K/Ultra HD (UHD) may not have tak-
en off as a mainstream over-the-air ser-
vice as some predicted, but it has become
the preferred acquisition format for
future-proofing reasons — and also to
serve the requirements of over-the-top
(OTT) operators. But 4K/UHD is not
about more pixels — it is about better
pixels, enabled by high dynamic range
(HDR). There is great interest in HDR
because consumers can see the differ-
ence, and even if you are not planning
on going down the 4K/UHD road any
time soon, many others are looking at
the benefits of HDR used with just an
HD signal. That is why HDR will be part
of your future — and maybe sooner
than you thought.
5G is coming, with predicted sub-
scriptions rising from zero today to over
500 million in 2022, with 20 million of
these in the APAC region. Ten times
faster than 4G with a 90% reduction
in network energy usage, 5G opens up
a whole new world from smart cities
and self-driving cars to the Internet
of Things (IoT), and might even take
the place of the wired Internet entirely
in countries that have yet to develop
widespread broadband infrastructure.
Virtual reality (VR) may yet be in
its infancy and struggling for moneti-
sation models, but it is finding deploy-
ments in our industry — for the present,
mostly in sports, with 5G making mo-
bile distribution possible in the coming
years — and who knows where it will
go with social media then!
Blockchain will certainly change
the dynamics of how programming
gets paid for. Investment so far has
been focused on advertising, but other
potential use cases include conditional
access, rights management and content
monetisation. It may take a while to re-
ally get a hold, but it is coming, so do
not ignore it.
And finally, as with every aspect of
your business, cybersecurity is a must-
have point to be examined.
Your ongoing success relies on ex-
amining and re-inventing everything
you do — continuously. That way, you
will be part of the future, and not a
footnote in history. I urge you to use
the above trends as a checklist for
every aspect of your planning. To get
your planning started be sure to look
at IABM’s IBC2018 Broadcast & Media
Strategic Analysis interactive report at
www.theiabm.org/ibcreport.
Stan Moote has worked worldwide in the
industry for more than three decades
and is the CTO for IABM, www.theIABM.
org. IABM is the international trade
association for suppliers of broadcast
and media technology. Stan has a clear
understanding of technology combined
with a solid business twist, and he is also
an APB panellist.
APB PANELLISTS
Graham Stephens
CTO
Media City
Development, Malaysia
Goh Kim Soon
Senior Vice-President
Broadcast Engineering
Mediacorp
Shad Hashmi
Vice-President,
Digital Development,
Global Markets & Operations,
BBC Worldwide Asia