copywritten for Zixi published p34/35 FEED
The technology and workflows underpinning the broadcast industry are about to undergo a seismic shift. A model that was built on bespoke equipment and manually intensive processes is unifying around a suite of common technologies which are highly interoperable, intelligent and automated.
The end state will be a fully autonomous broadcast system that is overseen by people to help ensure that the business is running.
It’s a transformation that other verticals have already been through. Nuclear power plants haven’t been run by humans in decades; our whole aviation system works with pilots in conjunction with automated air traffic control; autonomous vehicles will transform everyday transport. Similar developments are finally converging on the broadcast space.
It began with fixed infrastructures migrating to IP and then the cloud. The pandemic further accelerated adoption of software defined solutions running on virtual platforms. In turn, this opens the door to investment in machine learning and AI in broadcast operations.
At the same time the burgeoning 5G network will accelerate consumption of video at the edge. This will multiply pressure on media and entertainment providers who are already faced with the imperative to do more with less.
The number of touchpoints for content is exploding and, with the rise of the 3D internet (call it Web3.0 or the Metaverse if you like), exponentially more complex. Today’s consumers expect higher than broadcast quality content delivered instantly to their screen. Tomorrow’s will expect an overlay of AR and full VR too.
The brand experience needs to extend across a range of interactive touchpoints from a small mobile in a child’s hand in a car to audiences watching a giant screen to reaching people with the same content wearing different AR VR gear.
Media companies and their entire ecosystem of service and technology providers will have to be integrated and automated in order to cope. Dozens of vendors will unite to provide an automated end to end solution.
This is already happening and perhaps faster than you realise. The Zixi Intelligent Data Platform (IDP) uses advanced analytics, ML and AI, to intelligently alert users to problems before they happen. This type of automation is enabling broadcasters to move from prescriptive insights on an incident around QoS and QoE to predictive identification then proactive action to fix issues.
In a year or two such automated processes will become the mainstream way to manage legacy businesses and to launch new services and business models. End-to-end automated workflows will streamline workflows and allow broadcasters to be super-efficient in their use of resources.
That includes personnel too. The engineering talent in video, network and broadcast is expensive and scarce. You cannot linearly scale the number of bodies required to meet the soaring complexities in producing and delivering content. Since systems are going to interact at the API level, setting thresholds and arming triggers, all of that needs to be presented in front of operators in such a way that they can intuitively understand and manage.
Video of course is a very sensitive payload. Broadcast operations are mission critical and require 99.999% uptime. It is why the move to unified automated processes have taken time to penetrate this industry. But AI/ML is maturing fast and able to provide a force multiplier that permits fewer operators to manage very complex systems.
This transformation is essential for expanding the industry into new markets. End to end automation will enable broadcasters to scale up or down, to turn events on and off, to deliver experiences with different production values to different market segments. A broadcast of a tier 3 regional sport unique to certain states in the U.S needs to be handled differently to an Olympics or World Cup.
Factor in new immersive and personalised AR / VR experiences combined with granular monetization models like ad targeting and you can see how the complexities will overwhelm any broadcaster locked into inflexible systems.
Take the example of gamification. This ranges from free to play fantasy and casual games and ultimately to micro betting in the live game. Since deregulation in the U.S there’s been a huge spike in gambling revenues for sports which is already valued north of $200 billion worldwide.
If you are going to open a sportsbook you will need super low latency and it will have to be automatically run and automatically regulated to be deployed with the failsafe efficiency and safeguards it demands. This will be a form of robotic TV and it is where our industry is headed.
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