IBC Unveils Lineup for 2024 Show, Promises Tweaks to Familiar Formula

Streaming Media

Trade Show is back on track to almost pre-COVID levels, according to organisers, in an update given three months before the show on September 13-16 opens in its usual Amsterdam home. 

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There are some tweaks to the familiar formula but perhaps not enough to galvanise anyone’s attention outside of the broadcast industry. That is IBC’s goal, though, with CEO Mike Crimp saying that the fastest growing area of the show were audiences working outside of traditional broadcasting.

“IBC is such a broad church and covers so much more than core broadcasting,” he said in a briefing to press. “IBC originated as International Broadcasting Convention but it’s been clear to us for some time that content is being consumed and delivered in a number of ways. Going back 15 years we decided to be agnostic about that. The idea of content everywhere was to pull in people who maybe didn't see their home immediately as broadcast, but certainly had an offering for the media and entertainment business  This is actually still the biggest growing area of the show.”

Content Everywhere Returns

To cater to this audience, IBC is bringing back a hall dedicated to Content Everywhere. This is the Pavilion erected outside of the RAI which last housed exhibitors in 2019. In here, and in line with other exhibitions, there’s a specific AI Zone grouping together AI solutions providers and a demo/presentation theatre. This is being curated by the EBU and sponsored by Wasabi.

“AI is one of the biggest expanding areas of the industry, and I feel we will see it grow up a bit at IBC with real world examples moving on from the machine learning seen in the past,” Crimp said. Elsewhere at the show there will be a conference panel devoted to tackling fake news and fact checking and in the IBC Accelerator section, a kickstarter for tech ideas, there’s a proposal by Paramount Global and the BBC titled "Design Your Weapons in the Fight Against Disinformation."

AV/Broadcast Convergence

The convergence of AV with broadcast was noted, and for the first time IBC seems to have gone out of its way to court giant corporate AV users. It has invited executives from the likes of AstraZeneca, UPS, Barclays Bank, Bank of England, Deliveroo, and Schroeders to a “speed pitch event” with IBC exhibitors.

“Exhibitors have the opportunity to promote their products and events directly to those major AV purchasers,” Crimp explained. “What's different about them is they're not the typical broadcast or media entertainment companies you'd see at IBC. We’re seeing more buyers coming into IBC who are looking at, what we would consider standard broadcast technologies being used in innovative ways across the corporate sector.”

He said the development reflects the growing professional audio visual presence in M&E. So-called AV Broadcast is being used by enterprise-level customers to produce and stream at broadcast quality for live and virtual and corporate events. Other content plus tech trends dominating the industry are Free Ad Supporting TV (FAST) channels and summer of live sports so it’s not a surprise that both of these also feature prominently.

For instance, there will be a look back the Olympics and the technology used to deliver it, provided we are not all fed up with Olympic content by then.

eSports (which will be an official Olympic event in LA 2028) makes another appearance in the form of a Hall 8 showcase in partnership with specialists Unlocked.

Steven Connolly, IBC’s head of sales and show director, claimed “exceptional demand” for show space and reported that 45,000 sq ft had already been taken – surpassing the total for the whole 2023 show. That’s from 1,100 exhibitors across 14 halls, which is one more than 2023. There are 150 new exhibitors signed so far including 5G Broadcast Collective, CDN Alliance, Datacamp, Eosos, Frequency Networks, Medianet Berlin, Strada, SwXch IO, and Vubiquity. Others including Insta360, Robe, The Weather Company, Vecima, and Yamaha return to the RAI for the first time since before the pandemic.

All other regular exhibitors are present including Avid, AWS, Comcast, Google, Grass Valley, Harmonic, Huawei. Imagine Communications, LG, Lawo, Mediakind, Microsoft, Nagra, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Tata Communications, Telestream, and ZTE.

Conference speakers include Chem Assayag, Senior VP Home Services Innovation, Orange; Kerry Ball, Chief Commercial & Strategy Officer, BritBox International; Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder of AI platform Builder.ai, Huma Lodhi, Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Sky UK, and Andy Hood, VP Emerging Technologies at WPP with more to be announced.

If you have to pay for the conference than it will cost over EUR1000 (USD1074) if you pay now. Since IBC2023 attracted 43,065, no bookie will take odds on this year surpassing that, though they might take your bet of 50,000 visitors. By contrast, the US-based equivalent NAB Show counted 61,000 people through its doors in April and the AV-centric ISE show in February this year scored 73,891 visitors and had a keynote from a Star Wars director.

Connolly noted, "There is already a very positive buzz around the exhibition this year — visitors to IBC2024 will see exciting demos and get the chance to meet an increasingly wide array of innovative brands from across the media technology landscape. With the introduction of the AV User Group event, IBC continues to broaden its scope and provide more opportunities for both exhibitors and visitors."

Daily Mail unveils expanded video strategy

Stream TV Insider

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British media conglomerate Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is expanding the reach of its leading news brand Daily Mail with a long form video strategy intended to make it the “world’s most popular video publisher”.

The strategy includes production of original content produced through the company’s Global Video Studio and builds on an established social media presence. Daily Mail claims to be the largest news publisher on TikTok with more than 13 million total followers and more than 8 billion views in the past year.

The news was announced at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, where in 2015, Daily Mail hailed launch of its new daily news show as a “game-changer” for the international entertainment business.

DailyMailTV was syndicated across the U.S. from 2017, winning a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Entertainment News Program in 2019 before shuttering in 2022.

According to a spokesperson for Daily Mail, the focus of the new initiative will be YouTube but video content will also publish on the Daily Mail site and other distributed platforms.

“More and more consumers are watching YouTube on their TVs so this strategy is about meeting audiences where they are,” the spokesperson told StreamTV Insider.

The initiative is aimed at tapping more of the growing audience watching on connected TVs, which are in around three quarters of UK households and on which ad spend will likely double in the UK between now and 2028 to £2.94bn ($3.67bn), according to the IAB.

In the U.S. the potential is far larger with advertising investment on CTV expected to grow to reach $24.4 billion in 2025.

Dominic Williams, chief revenue officer of Mail Metro Media, said in a statement: “We’ve already seen huge audience growth across social platforms and have the media ecosystem to support this brand-new proposition, engaging younger and more diverse, as well as existing loyal audiences, with the Daily Mail brand.”

Also announced are the first in a slate of 20 original titles ranging from 15 to 30 minutes and spanning the brand’s mix of politics, showbiz, sports, true crime and update on the British royal family.

The shows include Price of Fame, which reveals how expensive life becomes when you’re famous, Your Body on Sport that delves into the physiology of pro athletes and Expert by Decade, where three people who held the same job at three different times in history explain how that profession has changed, and more.

These series will amplify the publisher’s current video output, which helps deliver over 125 million monthly views on YouTube.

Tony Manfred, global head of video at Daily Mail, said in a statement, “People are obsessed with video, and publishers are extremely well positioned to create and distribute that video across phones, computers and connected TV, on a global scale. We’ve built a team to produce a huge variety of repeatable, identifiable and premium quality shows, to engage millions of views on YouTube and across our distributed platforms.”

Additionally, Daily Mail also says it will offer premium sponsorships, native integrations, commerce focused ‘playlists’ with Q&A and live experiences across its video portfolio.

The Daily Mail Online claims to be the most-read English language newspaper website in the world with approximately 243 million unique visitors.

The Daily Mail newspaper was first published in Britain in 1896.

‘It’s Vegas baby!’ Where AV is big, bold and out of the box

AV Magazine

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Las Vegas is ‘Mecca’ when it comes to pro audio, video and lighting equipment, and applications. Live entertainment, sports and conventions drive the market, setting the global standard for others to follow.

“Very few other regions around the world have the budgets or scale of Las Vegas to support the investment in new technology, and continuous upgrades of pro AV kit are constant,” says Eric Loader, global vice-president, sales and marketing, Elation Professional. “The forecast indicates sustained growth, fuelled by technology advancements and continued investment.“It’s Vegas baby! Everything is big, bold, and out of the box!” exclaims Doug Fundator, sales director, SNA Display who lives in town. “The pro AV market can thrive because everyone is trying to re-invent the Vegas experience. Designers, builders, and end users embrace the latest and greatest technologies to provide an AV experience for visitors they can’t get anywhere else.”

“The difference with Vegas, explains Matt Morgan, business development manager, Ross Video is that (clients) are sometimes more willing to invest dollars in the best tech and content they can in order to acquire the business. In Vegas you are truly experiencing immersive AV technology as you explore.”

A-Vegas laboratory
Sean Sheridan, General Manager – Americas, Brompton Technology calls the place “exceptionally important as a hotbed for AV experimentation and hosting high-profile events.”

The city’s “vibrant atmosphere, state-of-the-art facilities and constant influx of visitors provide a space for innovation,” says Levi Lavrinyuk, director of marketing, Lightware.

Meyer Sound specialist, Jonathan Deans points out that the city is funded by huge crowds attracted by light, projection, and sound-driven attractions.

“The market has to be unique and cutting-edge for all pro AV,” he says. “The audience travels here for a one-off experience and expects this from every event, casino and performance venue. A bespoke experience is very important.”

The city remains one of the fastest growing in the States. “With the explosive residential growth comes new schools, entertainment, retail, and medical venues,” says Mikey Shaffer, senior director of sales at Listen Technologies. “The market is hopping!”

Travis Hull, Creston’s director of hospitality says: “There’s a staggering amount of opportunity in Vegas, and it goes beyond gaming. The growth of sportsbook facilities has been profound,” he adds. “These betting lounges are inspiring competitors throughout the States, where this kind of gaming has been legalised.

They’re all deploying very large LED screens with some level of personalised interactive display and advanced signage. Each resort needs to leverage other amenities to help keep customers on premises.”

Garrison Parkin, regional sales manager at Renkus-Heinz points to “the constant feeling of properties trying to ‘One Up’ each other with massive sports books, clubs and showroom upgrades. With continual hotel casino expansions and remodels the pro AV budgets are usually sizable.”

Dazzling direct-view LED canvases deliver ‘glitz and glamour’ says Datapath’s senior manager, Keven Yue but in Vegas videowall applications “are considered as ‘mission critical,’ as a control room.” That’s because videowalls are important to a casino’s operations and brand, he says,

It’s perhaps why the local systems integration market is unusual. “Most of the SIs in the US Top 50 have little or no presence here,” notes Yue. “Most AV integrators in Vegas are indigenous to Vegas and cater to the specific needs of the city.”

Others agree that Vegas is a bespoke and locally driven market. “Having good relationships within the casinos, local general contractors, and architectural groups is imperative to being successful,” says Fundator.

Lighting up town
Malls and entertainment venues have started making “really big investments” in DooH signage says Peerless-AV’s senior director, business development, Megan Zeller. “Businesses are finally ready to spend again after a period of project suspension or backlog.

In some cases we’ve been approached to come in and replace LED mounting structures or outdoor displays that weren’t suitable for the use case or environment - perhaps they hadn’t factored in seismic activity or intense heat and desert sand – and the product has failed earlier than anticipated.”

There’s big business in the luxury guest room market. Crestron is involved in lots of these at iconic Vegas properties. “Its clients want the resort experience to mirror their residential amenities, so they’re looking for ultra-high-end AV spaces that feel like home,” says Hull. “We’ve seen tremendous demand for control systems, especially lighting control. This goes well beyond AV, and it goes well beyond a single vertical in the region.

There’s demand too among outdoor pool nightclubs, indoor-outdoor lounges and restaurants for lighting product built for heavy-duty use and minimal maintenance – “essential for outdoor and challenging environments, where reliability is paramount,” says Loader.

Venues prioritise well-integrated systems to deliver immersive and multi-event experiences. “What’s interesting about Las Vegas is the need for a high level of production across many diverse forms of entertainment all within one facility,” says Brian Grahn, regional sales manager, Clear-Com.

“The Director of Production at a property might be tasked with supervising a large performance venue which may host a major artist residency, a nightclub with constant special events and artist collaborations, meeting/special event spaces hosting high-end corporate events and award shows, plus the artists and bands performing every day on the casino floor at the piano bars and restaurants.”

The Michelob Ultra Arena, part of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Las Vegas, has hosted everything from headliners like Katy Perry, to the Latin Grammy Awards, and it’s the home of WNBA Championship team Las Vegas Aces.

“While much of the specialty production equipment is brought in on an event-by-event basis, the infrastructure of such a facility is important to remain flexible in how they can deploy their core AV production systems,” reports Grahn.

Poker broadcast
In the gaming industry, there are often production opportunities hiding in plain sight. Live poker streams have become popular as casinos have begun to create their own content. A celebrated example is Bally Live Poker, broadcast live from properties, including the Tropicana Casino, several times a week to thousands of online viewers.

According to Grahn, the production is managed entirely in-house, and features all the aspects of a high-end broadcast: “Players are individually mic’d with several cameras covering the action and reactions, sophisticated graphic overlays of players hands and win percentages, all with insightful commentary from industry pros, edited and streamed live.”

At the heart of the communications system for the poker stream is a Clear-Com Eclipse HX Delta matrix, with FreeSpeak II 1.9 GHz wireless beltpacks as the primary user interface. Production crew, camera operators, and even the dealers are connected via intercom to orchestrate the stream.

Sports and casino merge
Vegas sealed its international reputation in the 1960s with the Rat Pack but now sports take equal if not top billing to artists in residence.

“In recent years, major headliners have been the draw, whereas previously it was spectacular/production-based performances,” says Deans. “The past few years had a huge influx of sports stadiums, along with event-based experiences.”

The city has welcomed NHL (The Golden Knights), NFL (The Raiders), WNBA (The Aces), and Formula One has made Vegas its home for the next decade.
“Sports franchises not only bring the need for AV pros in the stadiums but also for the practice facilities and other applications, such as conference rooms for management,” says Hull.

A new baseball stadium built on the site of the former Tropicana on the Strip will be the new home of Major League Baseball team Oakland Athletics. Interactive experience Atomic Golf teed off in March boasting 102 golf bays, VIP suites, a nightclub, full-service bars, a taproom, and a chef-curated kitchen over four floors.

“The M Resort is Raiders-branded, and it’s very close to their practice facility, eight miles off the strip,” says Hull. “They’re currently building a second tower for that hotel to meet demand. Additionally, now we have an F1 race, hotels are looking for ways to add rooms and spaces that feature views of that street course.”

A Howard Hughes Holdings and Sony Entertainment-backed 500,000 sq ft film studio is planned. A ‘Symphony Park’ will be added to the city, as well as a large expansion of convention space downtown. The Brightline high-speed rail link from LA-Vegas due in 2028 will continue to drive growth.

“Recent openings of Resorts World, Fountain Bleu, and the Sphere have already raised the bar for entertainment venues, fuelling competition and the demand for more cutting-edge AVL solutions,” adds Loader.

Fountainebleu, the newest luxury hotel in the heart of the strip, features multiple dvLED video walls installed by Peerless AV in its conference centre.

The Worre Studios is a 25,000 sq ft production facility which “redefines events by seamlessly merging virtual and traditional formats,” says Lavrinyuk. A stage-in-the-round design is enveloped by a 360-degree, 1.9mm, 4K LED interactive screen system, powered by Lightware’s UBEX.

“Vegas thrives on spectacle, innovation, and larger-than-life experiences,” he says. “The approach here is not just about providing technical solutions - it’s about creating immersive, unforgettable experiences.”

Above and below: Illuminarium at Area 51, Las Vegas, is a visitor attraction giving guests an immersive experience of Space or an African safari using 4K interactive projection, 360° audio, in-floor vibrations and scent systems.

Part of the experience
Las Vegas is a key hub for festivals and concerts that constantly push the boundaries of AV technology. Sheridan picks out Vegas’ Electric Daisy Carnival for its “mammoth stage setups incorporating massive LED screens and complex light shows that elevate the audience experience.”

When the Sphere opened last autumn at the Venetian, another eye-opening yet distinctly intimate entertainment venue made its debut at the same resort. Voltaire features architectural and theatrical lighting by design studio, Lightswitch.

“It’s interesting to compare and contrast those two ways of thinking about entertainment,” says Lightswitch principal, John Featherstone. “Both venues offer experiences pushed to the extremes - one a massive edifice of technology that immerses you in a grand experience, and the other a beautiful, intimate space that offers a remarkably personal experience.”

Local competition compels venues to provide the most compelling immersive and experiential show in town. “Now the game or the band you’ve booked to see isn’t everything like it used to be,” says Zeller. “They’re just part of the overall experience. Screens are supplementing what’s going on in the field or on stage.

“The Sphere is mind-blowing inside and outside,” she adds. “Such major tech activations wouldn’t have happened if designers and architects hadn’t witnessed what happened there. It made people up their game!”
Another example, during Super Bowl LVIII played at Allegiant Stadium in February, the STRAT hotel was turned into a 1,149 ft tall bottle of 1942 Don Julio tequila with projection mapping.

“It’s literally a laboratory for this kind of thing,” says Hull. “Vegas is known for gaming and entertainment, and by its nature, the city must innovate to remain the top destination as other locales try to mimic what Las Vegas is accomplishing.” Visitors are familiar with neon signs advertising the latest act around town. “Now, you become part of the show before you sit down,” says Morgan. “We see more immersive technologies highlighting what’s happening around town broadcast on the Sphere, to AI triggers changing the signage and lights as you walk through a resort. No longer do we just passively take in information, we’re part of an experience.”

The Paintings and Polaroids That Propel the Cinematography for “Griselda”

NAB

Cinematographer Armando Salas, ASC built the look of Netflix series Griselda from Polaroids and classical painting.

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“What the Polaroids were doing visually was distilling the real world because they’re not an accurate representation,” Armando Salas explained in a video interview alongside the show’s director, Andrés Baiz, for camera manufacturer RED Digital Cinema. “They’re a very painterly representation of our world because it doesn’t accurately capture color. It captures certain frequencies of color.”

Baiz started out taking Polaroids while scouting for locations, but once Salas saw them he wanted to use the same color palette in the shots.

“I started stealing some from Andy and putting them on my wall in the office,” Salas said, even going so far as to alter production designs based on the colors.

The Polaroids also started to pique Salas’ interest in pushing the style of the show towards the photography of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Based on true events, Griselda dramatizes Griselda Blanco’s remarkable rise from the streets of Medellín to her reign as “The Godmother” of Miami’s notorious drug empire during the 70s and 80s.

“I thought if take more of this Polaroid approach we could kind of create our own [digital] film stock with extreme pockets of saturation and very specific tones,” Salas says.

Baiz comments, “I thought it was wonderful that Armando saw an opportunity in my photographs. It wasn’t my intention to do so. It was it was just a hobby. And I think that’s ultimately cinema is about finding that opportunity.”

The filmmakers also took inspiration from classical painting, less in terms of color — although, the use of gold and green in one painting dovetailed with the colors of the Polaroids — and more about a feeling of the story’s themes.

“In the history of art women are always portrayed with a baby smiling, or in a neurotic pose, or very submissive. There’s very few paintings where we’re seeing a woman screaming and she’s there to shame everyone,” says Baiz.

That’s the one they drew upon. The filmmakers shot on a RED Raptor using Panavision Panaspeed lenses and chose an unconventional 1.66:1 aspect ratio. This format allowed for more intimate close-ups, emphasizing the character-driven nature of the series.

“The 1.66:1 allowed us to isolate Griselda without having to get too close to the camera. It’s a much more comfortable format and the closest to the golden ratio in nature,” Salas explains.

One sequence in which Griselda attempts to sell a kilo of cocaine at a Floridita nightclub starts with a dance before erupting into violence. The dance was shot at 30 frames-per-second, a subtly higher speed to enhance the dramatic tension and making the subsequent fight more impactful.

Let’s Just Consider the Practical Applications of AI in Broadcast for a Minute

NAB

Now more than ever, broadcasters are being asked to do more and more with the same or even fewer resources, but artificial intelligence could ride to the rescue. If used correctly — that is to say with caution to ethics and copyright — AI can create a production optimization opportunity for the industry, a panel of executives at NAB Show explained in a session titled “Using AI as a Creative Content Tool.” Watch the full conversation in the video below or read on for the highlights.

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Tegna operates 64 television stations in 51 US markets, reaching approximately 39% of all television households nationwide. It invited its journalists to suggest ways in which AI might improve their efficiency. From that the company has begun deploying AI.

Kurt Rao, Tegna SVP and CTO, explained, “Most newsrooms get thousands of emails a day but with limited number of reporters so the question we might ask ourselves is, how do you get signal from noise? So we’re using AI to really distil all of the input coming in.”

Another example is being able to create a recommendation engine that will target different lists of news stories to its audience, built from an AI scouring video and transcripts of its coverage of school board meetings and government meetings.

“The next step, which we’re working on right now, is you can literally highlight text in the transcript and it edits a video for you. These kinds of use cases will really expedite the production process. My hope is if this person is capable of doing two to three stories a day, we might be able to double their output.”

Tegna is wary of letting its staff loose on ChatGPT and similar public AI models, and even more wary of publishing anything on its platform without proper vetting.

“We’re having ethics policy training. We’re very careful about what actually makes it to platform. If they do use those tools there are disclaimers put in place, and we have additional reviews of content that may have come out of a AI like process,” Rao said.

Stringr combines original footage sourcing with video editing and management tools in a cloud-based solution — streamlining remote video news production. It is supported by a network of 120,000+ videographers who are stationed across the United States.

Brian McNeill, founder and CPO of Stringr, said, “If you think a typical news production package might cost you between $300 to $2,000, for your two minutes on air, using Stringr that might get down to $100 or $200 because of our cloud-based infrastructure. Using AI, they can get sub $1. This opens up a whole new world. It makes some of the FAST channels make economic sense that didn’t previously make sense.

And this is really just the tip of the iceberg to a whole new world of content that’s going to be either more targeted or even targeted to an audience of one.”

The Weather Company has a partnership with NVIDIA where it uses NVIDIA chips and data centers to power the weather on NVIDIA’s Earth-2 platform for climate change modelling.

But the company is not using GenAI just yet, “because we don’t trust it yet,” said Joe Fiveash, VP of Enterprise Media.

The Weather Company claims to be the world’s most accurate weather forecaster and won’t introduce anything that might dent that. However, AI could be used soon to tailor its licensed weather data packages to TV stations.

“All of the videos that we create are branded to the station where creating content that’s friendly for sponsors is really important,” Fiveash said. “It’s just hard to do when you have a staff of a couple of meteorologists. But now they can do the golf forecast and the regular forecast and the boating forecast in their own station voice [while saving resources on time and cost].”

One of the biggest challenges for news organizations in the age of AI is maintaining their brand integrity. They can’t just throw a story into ChatGPT and publish.

FOX is combatting this with Verify, a tool applied to all FOX content which declares both the source of information and any compensation for use of data.

Melody Hildebrandt, CTO at FOX, said, “We think in the future there’s going to be deliberate misinformation and taking information out of context that flood the zone.

“Where you just have so much to sort through that you really need to have the ability for a consumer to essentially rely on the broadcasters or publishers that they trust to help them navigate that information space.

“One of our core hypotheses is that broadcasters like us are going to be essential. Brands are going to be more important to help consumers navigate that information space. But we need to be able to bind digital content to that real world publisher.”

Hildebrandt added, “I think as a community of publishers, local news, producers, broadcasters should be opinionated about the architecture of how these large language models see our content.”

She described how Verify would work, saying it was essential for consumers to be able to validate that what they see online came from a source that they trust.

“As an industry we should be banding together against Big Tech,” she said. “Rather than have Big Tech impose on to us, we can actually all be at the table and say this is how content should be consumed by these models. We can all have more confidence in the use of those models if we have this transparency into how they were trained.”

Mike Palmer, AVP of Advanced Technology and Media Management at Sinclair, explained why the media conglomerate had joined the Coalition for Content Provenance, a similar content verification initiative.

Other members include Adobe, BBC, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and vendors like Telestream.

“There’s a string of signed certificates going back to the base URL that says this has not been faked,” said Palmer. “This is actually who you think it is. And you can look at the chain all the way up from the GPS coordinates baked in metadata into the camera in the field.”

ITV: Mix of ‘firework’ and ‘bonfire’ content needed to acquire, keep viewers

Stream TV Insider

Until recently there hasn’t been much transparency from major streamers about how most shows on their platforms perform. Now data out of the UK reveals small audiences for the bulk of content on SVODs. But broadcaster ITV explained how companies need a mix of so-called big audience “firework” and long-tail “bonfire” content to attract and keep viewers.

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For instance, when looking at highest-rated single episodes on Netflix over the course of a year, up to 80% of all episodes on Netflix are viewed by less than half a million people in the UK. That includes documentaries and factual programming but excludes children's content and feature film.

The stat is one of many revealed by ITV Insights Group, the analytics division for the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster ITV, and taken from Barb, the UK’s official and independent currency for measuring TV. 

The figures from Barb show that Netflix is the dominant SVOD in the UK by some margin, meaning that other episodic content on Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, AppleTV+, Paramount+ and more likely receive even lower per episode ratings than Netflix.

Netflix only agreed to join Barb in October 2022 just ahead of launch of its advertising supported tier. Previously, the streaming giant had released snapshots of its viewing data, highlighting the success of its most popular shows. In an effort for more transparency into performance, last December Netflix released the first of its twice-yearly Engagement Report disclosing hours viewed for titles (among those watched for more than 50,000 hours) over a six-month period. The first report spanned over 18,000 titles and Netflix said it represented 99% of viewing on the SVOD. And while a step forward after long shielding information for competitive purposes, some industry observers felt the Excel spreadsheet and data dump format left something to be desired in terms of ease for gleaning insights and comparisons.

Disney has been a Barb member since July 2021 and Amazon Prime Video signed on to Barb in March 2024 to coincide with its ad-supported subscription launch.

“Put simply, for the first time, we can measure streamers on a like for like basis,” said Neil Mortensen, Director of ITV Insights Group, speaking at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.

“UK viewers watch on average four hours of TV a day,” Mortensen said. “That holds as true today as it did a decade ago. What has changed is that viewing time is now split among the main broadcasters and international streamers.”

ITV itself is in the second year of a major transformation project to turn online catch-up service ITV Hub into “a real destination” for live and VOD content. ITVX launched in December 2022 fuelled by £160 million ($202m) of dedicated budget per year for shows alongside an annual budget of over £1 billion ($1.26bn) which ITV spends on content (original and licenced). It currently has 22,000 hours on its platform.

With the vast majority of revenue coming from advertising across ITVX and network channels Mortensen explained that it was in the company’s interest to understand how its content performed in comparison to streaming rivals.

“Overnight ratings don’t necessarily tell us that much about the success or otherwise of a new program anymore,” he said. “In an age of virtually unlimited choice there are very few shows that have big audiences.”

He also shared a number of slides based on Barb research over the period May 2023 to April 2024. Figures show that in the period The Book of Boba Fett launched on Disney+ with just under 1 million viewers, Reacher debuted on Prime Video with just under half a million, and the first episode of cooking show Is It Cake? landed on Netflix with 227,000 -  but after a month they were all exhibiting the same audience figures. 

Instant hit vs long-tail content 

Mortensen differentiated between ‘fireworks’ and ‘bonfires’. The former is a show like Britain’s Got Talent, the reality show with recorded and live elements that streams on ITVX and airs on ITV1.

“Every episode brings a huge spike of audiences into the service but there is no long tail for the show.”

A ‘bonfire’ is a different type of show in that it attracts far smaller audiences per episode but continues to draw viewers throughout the year.

“The very long tail of SVOD content means that very few episodes have big audiences,” he said.

Mortensen said that ITV wasn’t necessarily concerned whether a show was an instant but short-lived hit or exhibited slow burn on-demand since they could sell advertising around each.

“What the linear universe and the streamers really need are both fireworks and bonfires for the acquisition of viewers and for the retention of them.”

He noted that broadcasters with linear and streaming services can use recommendation engines to direct viewers tuning into a live ‘firework’ event (like a sports match) to watch another show on-demand.

The executive displayed a series of Top 10 charts measuring total viewing of the most popular episodes for shows cumulatively over the year May 2023 to April 2024 in the UK.

Scripted programming dominated the Netflix Top 10. In the UK, the best performing episode of any series across any genre (excluding children’s) in the period was British drama Fool Me Once (11.9 million viewers) with a David Beckham documentary in third (7.8m) and Baby Reindeer fourth at 7.1m. 

“Each episode has had a full year to accumulate and grow, so even in a year, there are very few big shows,” Mortensen observed. “Netflix is by far the biggest SVOD player in the UK, dwarfing the rest, but even up to 80% of Netflix shows don't deliver over half a million viewers in a year.”

Comparable figures for Disney+ in the UK showed Star Wars and Marvel universes sharing the top three spaces (episodes of Ahsoka, Loki and Secret Invasion totaling 4.1m views each over a year) with The Mandalorian in tenth (2.1m). An award-winner like The Bear managed 2.5m viewers over the year. 

The most popular episode of an Amazon Prime Video show in the year to April ’24 was Reacher (5.7m) followed by The Grand Tour (5.5m) and Fallout (4.7m). 

Shows broadcast on ITV and BBC TV by comparison tend to attract greater audiences than streaming services. 

Drama and entertainment made up the entirety of the Top 10 across ITV channels, with an equal mix of returning shows and new programs. Drama Mr. Bates Vs the Post Office which generated national headlines when it aired in January was the top show by some margin (14.5 million). Nearly 11 million watched the most popular episode of reality show I'm A Celebrity. 

The BBC’s Sir David Attenborough fronted nature doc Planet Earth was its top-rated episode across genres (11.2m). In second was live music contest Eurovision (10.9m) and it was still generating 8.5m viewers for tenth placed factual entertainment show Antiques Roadshow.

Mortensen acknowledged that audience size was just one metric to judge show performance. Streamers, including ITV via ITVX, are able to identify how people started a show, how many completed it, and when they exited a show, to drive commissioning and marketing decisions.

“It means commissioners and producer teams wanting to understand how a program is performing have to be patient because sometimes it is weeks if not months before we can make a standard judgment.”

 

The Subtle and Cinematic Visual Language Supporting Max's Hacks

interview and copy written for RED Cinema

Season 3 of Max’s award-winning Hacks echoes the original pilot with an audacious tracking shot following the sequinned back of a blonde coiffured performer as they make their way into the heart of Ceasars Palace before the vanity of the moment is deliciously undercut.

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Created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky for HBO Max, Hacks continues the odd couple dynamic between legendary Las Vegas comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder), the up-and-coming writer she takes under her wing.

“From our earliest conversations Lucia, Paul, Jen and I agreed that just because this is a half-hour comedy, it doesn’t have to look like a classic sitcom,” says Hacks’ Cinematographer Adam Bricker, ASC who has photographed the series from the beginning.

Bricker’s work has garnered two Emmy nominations (for Season 1 episode ‘Primm’ and Season 2’s ‘The Click’), and ASC Award nominations (for Season 1’s ‘There Is No Line’ and also the ‘The Click’).

“The script and the performances are so funny on their own that the visuals don't need to emphasize them any further. It freed Lucia and I to develop a look that's totally based on where the characters are emotionally."

For the first season, Bricker selected the Panavision DXL2 with the RED MONSTRO 8K VV sensor, but when the second instalment shifted its story from grandiose Vegas spaces to gritty bars and a tour bus, he needed a camera with a smaller footprint. The RED V-RAPTOR, a camera that had just been released, fit the bill because it deployed the same size sensor but in a body about a third the size of the DXL2.

"We were more than thrilled with the V-RAPTOR from just a size perspective, but then I was blown away with the camera itself," Bricker says. "It was so fun to shoot on and I knew it would be perfect for Season 3."

The show has a HDR finish, and Bricker works assiduously with his lighting team and DIT Tyler Goeckner-Zoeller to preserve detail in the highlights. 

"I found that the V-RAPTOR has impressive latitude and really nice roll off," he says. "Not only was I getting the small form factor, but I was also getting a camera that captured beautiful images, making my job easier."

Consistency of look continues with the reunion of V-RAPTOR and Primo 70 lenses.

"The idea was to find a look that would harken back to Deborah's heyday while staying grounded in the present. It's a story about a generational clash, so it was fun to pair the vintage qualities of the glass with a modern digital sensor."

The Primo 70s were heavily detuned at Panavision Hollywood to Bricker’s specifications in a collaborative process during which he was able to make minute adjustments, for instance to halation or flare.

“Rik DeLisle and Guy McVicker of Panavision Hollywood have been wonderful collaborators and really believed in the show from the start,” Bricker says.

With the show creators, Bricker had drawn on Steven Soderbergh films Oceans 11 and Behind the Candelabra for Hacks’ cinematic take on Sin City as well as Judy Garland biopic Judy and classic photos of Vegas for color palette and composition.

"For Season 1, we had a wide array of outside references as we tried to develop the show's visual language. But once that was in place, our references for Season 3 really became our own previous work on the first two seasons," Bricker explains.

Episode 6 of the latest season, ‘Par for the Course,’ is set on a golf course in Reno, where Vance is trying to curry favor with regional TV executives in a bid to host a late-night talk show.

“Having developed a look which was intended to convey the smoky atmosphere of Las Vegas comedy clubs I never imagined having to take that and make it applicable to a regional golf tournament,” Bricker grins. “It’s been a fun journey trying to figure out how we can keep the visuals cohesive as the world expands and goes in directions that we could never imagine when we started off.”

Hacks is shot with three to four cameras, but the cinematographic approach is closer to that of a single-camera show.

Having multiple camera bodies dates back to the first season which was produced under Covid conditions and provided some insurance for continuity of schedule should an operator test positive. Since then, Bricker’s access to multiple REDs has become integral to the whole visual language.

"We typically use our A and B cameras to cover a medium and a close-up shot, leaving our C camera operator Charlie Panian free to find interesting compositions, things that weren't shot listed or storyboarded. Charlie always comes back with wonderfully cinematic frames, many of which are among my favorite shots in the show."

The camera movement is also used to keep the show feeling grounded. "Lucia and I strive to keep it as naturalistic and real as possible, so we shoot a lot of handheld. Our operators do a great job of being restrained and motivated by the actors’ movement, just enough to feel some degree of spontaneity. The fun thing about shooting handheld is that when you switch it up and move away from it, the audience really feels the change."

Every episode has been graded by Shane Reed who runs color shop MOM&POP.

“He and I have been collaborating for over a decade now,” says Bricker, who supervises. “Shane has colored essentially everything that I have ever done. He is a key collaborator in my workflow, and I am so proud of his grade. It’s absolutely beautiful.”

The opening shot of Season 3 is a two-minute oner that glides over the Las Vegas Strip before plunging the viewer into the lively action of the casino floor.

The most challenging aspect of the shot was the transition from aerial drone to handheld gimbal.

Ben Ellingson piloted the drone down the Strip. Bricker recounts that as it descended toward the casino entrance, operator Daniel Perrier, who had been hiding off-camera behind a car in the valet, ran out and caught the drone in one fluid motion. Perrier continued the remainder of the shot through the casino floor using the drone as a gimbal.

"I'll be honest,” Bricker admits, "I wasn't sure it was going to work. But these guys were so elegant in their execution that the handoff was seamless.”

Coincidentally, the opening shot of the season was the last shot on the production schedule.

"It was five in the morning, and we'd done probably a dozen takes involving this complicated handoff, hundreds of extras, just so many moving parts. When we nailed it right before sunrise, everyone cheered, and that was a wrap on Season 3."