Connected TV World Summit: hear the biggest issues facing media owners and platforms

Some of the biggest strategic issues facing media owners and platform operators will be discussed at Connected TV World Summit on Wednesday and Thursday this week (October 21-22). This is a free digital event, and you can register here. The agenda includes:

• How platforms become successful super-aggregators, persuading content owners to be onboarded and creating a win-win relationship with them. How content owners can make onboarding work for them.

• How to successfully blend growing volumes of on-demand assets with broadcast television, with content owners ensuring their brands and content are easily found, while platform owners create a seamless user journey between the different content types (including streamed VOD).

• How to build a next-generation TV platform that includes provision of popular streaming apps and ensures the ongoing agility to bring new services and features to market quickly, and do all of this cos -effectively, including across multiple markets.

• How connected TV platform providers and the growing universe of CTV content providers (both incumbent media owners and born-digital challengers) can work together to maximise reach and monetisation, including among light broadcast viewers.

• The unique opportunities that connected TV (i.e. streaming to television sets) presents for advertisers and ad-funded content owners who wish to serve them, with consideration of connected TV audiences, population reach, the data-enablement that helps ad planning and targeting, and the opportunities for calls-to-action as well as general branding advertising campaigns.

• What the future of content distribution could look like, including the potential for direct-to-consumer services from studios, the volumes of content those studios will sell to their own services (and the implications that could have for the wider market).

You can see a full list of speakers here.

The future of content distribution

Jack Davison, Executive Vice President at the international content consulting company 3Vision, kicks off Day One with his assessment of ‘The future of content and its distribution’ before chairing a panel on the same subject that features Gary Woolf, EVP Strategic Development at all3media International, Kasia Jablonska, Former Head of Digital and Monetisation at Endemol Shine Group, Simon Hunt, Strategy and Business Development Director at Digital UK (the company responsible for the UK’s largest free-to-air platform Freeview/Freeview Play, plus Simon Brydon, Senior Director, Sports Rights Anti-Piracy at Synamedia.

You can also hear about an innovative service launch: the new Watch.Hockey app  from the International Hockey Federation (FIH), which is designed to become the digital ‘home of hockey’, carrying all the best hockey content from around the world in one place, including live matches, archive and replay video. Thierry Weil, CEO at FIH and Jean-Luc Jezouin, Senior Vice President Business Development at NAGRA (whose ‘sports-as-a-service’ platform powers the new service) explain the FIH’s motives for launching the service and its role providing a global aggregation point for content sourced from the national hockey associations (NA) and continental federations (CF).

Super-aggregation – maximising the benefits for everyone

The panel ‘Super-aggregation – maximising the benefits for everyone’ asks whether onboarding of popular streaming services on operator STBs is mission critical or nice-to have, how a platform owner differentiates its ‘super-aggregated’ UX, and what the foundations are for a successful and sustainable onboarding relationship between app provider and platform. The speakers are Brigita Brjuhhanov, TV Project Manager at Elisa Eesti AS, Paul Coster, Founder & CEO at Ketchup TV and Anthony Smith-Chaigneau, Senior Product Marketing Director at NAGRA.

Blending streaming and broadcast: app stores and beyond

Paul Clifford, Senior Manager, Content Partnerships at TalkTalk is among the speakers discussing ‘Blending streaming and broadcast: apps stores and beyond’ on a panel that asks whether we will see even more blurring of the lines between linear and on-demand in the modern UX. This discussion considers what more content owners and platforms can do, including at metadata or UX level, to ensure direct and seamless journeys between linear and on-demand content, in both directions. Other speakers are Niels Daalhuizen, Chief Product Officer at XITE, Natalie Gabathuler-Scully, SVP, Revenue Operations at Vevo, and Trent Wheeler, Senior Vice President, Product for Video at Gracenote.

Viewing trends, and how telcos monetise 5G networks

Maria Rua Aguete, Executive Director at the research/analyst firm Omdia takes a close look at viewing trends and indicates the market penetration of leading SVOD providers. Lars Larsson, CEO at Varnish Software, reflects on how telcos can monetise their 5G investments near-term with a focus on enhanced mobile video streaming, and why 5G requires a CDN transformation strategy including a move to virtualized and more local edges to cope with capacity and latency requirements.

The next stage in broadcaster digital transformation

There is a discussion with ITV (Tom Griffiths, Director of Technology – Content Supply & Distribution) and Comcast Technology Solutions (Martin Webb, Senior Product Manager, Cloud TV) about the next stage of digital transformation as broadcasters look to converge their operations and prepare for the  2020s.

Preparing for more on-demand viewing

The panel discussion ‘Preparing for more on-demand viewing’ features Dan Fahy, Vice President of Commercial and Content Distribution at ViacomCBS Networks International and Alejandro Casal Gómez, Manager TV Business Development at KPN together with Rose Adkins Hulse, Founder & CEO of ScreenHits TV and Roland Sars, CEO of Media Distillery. They consider what increasingly VOD-focused user interfaces mean for linear channel groups in terms of prominence and channel monetisation, and how content owners make it easier for consumers to find their content on-demand (and how platform operators can help them).

Delivering next-generation TV platforms and experiences

A leading user of RDK (Rui Manuel Silva, Head of CPE Product Management at Altice Labs), a company with a pre-integrated app store ready for RDK operators (Jeroen Ghijsen, CEO & Co- Founder at Metrological) and RDK Management (Steve Heeb, President) are represented on a panel that explores how the open source RDK platform enables innovation by standardising core functions used in broadband, video, and IoT connected devices for service providers. You will hear how RDK enables service providers to manage their devices and customise their apps, UIs and data analytics to improve the customer experience.

Meanwhile, Jernej Tovornik, Proposition and Value Team Leader at A1 Slovenia, part of A1 Group, is joined by Patrick Vos, CEO at Zappware to explain how A1 Group has deployed a multi-country, next-generation TV platform (currently in Bulgaria, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia) that combines a personalised content experience and seamless blending of operator content and popular streaming services.

Connected TV – a marriage made in heaven

Leading players in the connected TV ecosystem, including platforms, content owners and content curators/distributors are represented on the panel, ‘Connected TV – a marriage made in heaven’. They consider what drives a content owner to pick up the phone to a connected TV platform provider/device maker and what the deal makers and deal breakers are when they try to agree ‘carriage’. This panel also explores the value of a streaming content curator who delivers a ‘multi-channel’ bouquet to connected TV platforms. You will hear from Mehmet Eroglu, Chief Commercial Officer at Foxxum, Marion Ranchet, Director Content Distribution EMEA for Roku, Damian Pelliccione, CEO & Co-Founder at Revry, Sean Doherty Jr. Co-Founder & SVP of Operations at Wurl, Sander Saar, Strategy & Growth Consultant at Red Bull Media House, and Geir Bjørndal, VP Sales EMEA for Verimatrix.

The connected TV advertising opportunity, and challenges

The connected TV advertising opportunity, including the impact of lockdown on the use of this media ‘channel’ by advertisers, and the parallel personalisation of TV advertising is discussed by Richard Brant, AV Product Partner at Dentsu Aegis (a leading media agency group) and Patrick Morrell, Director, Inventory Partnerships at The Trade Desk.  Richard also joins a panel focused on ‘The connected TV data and advertising opportunity in Europe’, with a look at the growth and development of the connected TV ecosystem and the opportunities it creates for all stakeholders, with a special focus on ad-supported media.

Other speakers addressing this CTV data and advertising opportunity are Paola Colombo, General  Manager, Adtech and Business Development at Publitalia ’80 (the sales house for Mediaset), Guido Fambach, EVP, EMEA & APAC at Comscore, Jens Thenakara, Head of Platforms Media Consolidation – EMEA for Google, and Craig Berlingo, Product Lead, CTV & OTT for PubMatic. Separately, you can hear a discussion about ‘The economics of CTV’ with Austin Scott, Head of Video Market Development at Xandr, and a look at ‘Why CTV is the next advertising frontier’ with Stefanie Briec, Senior Manager, Demand Sales UK & EMEA at FreeWheel.

Find out more, and register free.

Connected TV World Summit spans two days (Wednesday October 21 and Thursday October 22) and starts each day at 0900 BST. The event is streamed as a linear session and you can check the precise timings for each presentation or discussion on the agenda here.

This event is free, and you can register here.

You can see all the speakers here.

Connected TV World Summit is organised by Mediatel Events, the publisher of Videonet.