Author: Tegan Valeny

We love hearing from people within our industry. Recently on Episode 4 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast we spoke to Rowan de Pomerai, who is CTO of the DPP and has an impressive 15+ years of experience in the industry. We talked to him about what got him into the industry and asked his advice for people who want to do the same.

How did you first get into the content and media industry?

It’s something I wanted to do for a long time. As a kid at school, I didn’t have a fixed idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I had a sense from pretty early on that TV and theatre and those sorts of disciplines were interesting to me. When I went to university, I ended up doing a degree in electronics and media engineering, but I got really into student TV, that’s what got me really enthused. When I left uni a possibility came up to join the graduate trainee scheme at BBC Research & Development that was right up my street, and I went for it. 

Is there a particular area of technology that you are interested in at the moment?

Cloud has been huge for the last few years. It became very tangible over the last three or four years, and is very much in the mainstream. At the DPP We’ve done a lot of thinking about integration and how different tools and technologies work together. I think data driven decision making and machine-learning AI are exciting too. Our members seem interested in it and tell us that they want to know about it, and I’m personally very interested in that space.

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone entering the industry?

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. A number of times in my career, I’ve had conversations with the company or manager I’m working for about what I would like to achieve, work on and deliver, and the types of roles I’d like to work towards. 

I’d like to be very clear that a number of times the answer is no, but a remarkably frequent answer has been yes. I’ve literally sat in an organisation that’s going through a reorganisation, looked at the new structure, phoned up the manager of the team that I think looks most interesting and said, ‘I’d really be interested in coming and working in your team’. Following a coffee and a bit of chat, I was able to go and work in that team on things that I was really passionate about, just because I’d asked. 

You’ve got to have realistic expectations and a bit of humility, but also be thoughtful and be open and honest about what you want to achieve. It’s amazing how often you can take steps towards what you want when you ask. People won’t come and hand things to you on a plate if you don’t ask for it, so just see what happens.

To hear more about Rowan’s insights into the the Content & Media industry, listen to our fantastic conversation in Episode 4 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

On Episode 3 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast, we were delighted to be joined by Jerónimo Macanás Candilejo, the CEO, CTO and co-founder of JUMP Data-Driven Video. He has had more than 20 years of impressive experience in the industry, having worked all the way all the way up from product engineer to CEO, Jerónimo is a hands-on startup leader, who is helping businesses in the media and entertainment space utilise Big Data and artificial intelligence technologies. 

We asked him about how data will affect the future of video in the content and media industry. Read on for the highlights of that conversation!

What do you think is the most exciting thing happening at the moment within the broadcast media industry?

I would say that the most exciting thing is that the disruptors are being disrupted. Netflix, Amazon and all these people that pushed hard to change things for the better in terms of initial experience and how people want to be entertained are making things very competitive. The disruptors now need to defend against that. I think that’s the most interesting thing that is happening now. 

There is a second factor that everybody’s talking about, which is that the world is slowing down. There is some fear about the new model. Both the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine have created these new trends that we are living in with the socio political and geopolitical space, which have been accelerating a lot of consumption and waste of entertainment at a level that was probably something that we weren’t expecting until five years from now.  I’m a believer that the industry is very healthy. What is probably not healthy is the expectations companies had when they saw a pandemic and thought ‘We are gonna get a lot of revenues, money, growth, everything, very fast’. Changing people takes time, they need time to really assimilate new habits and all of that. The market is trying to balance again after all of those changes. Seeing how the industry handles those two factors is what I’m really excited about. 

What is it that makes data a differentiating factor for successful players in the industry? 

Data has been there for decades, so it’s nothing new for companies. What is new is that now they need to use it as a competitive advantage. In this increasingly competitive environment, you need to differentiate yourself. It doesn’t matter if it’s because of content or experience or verticals or whatever, you need to fully understand your audience. You can only do that if you use data. You need to make things very personal to your audience, otherwise they feel that they are another one in the basket, and people tend to go away and find another place where they can be treated more personally. We’re all different and we need to be treated differently, not just in consumption, but also in messaging and in channels. In many different aspects, that’s something you can only do with data. Data is going to become more of a key element in the centre of the strategy for media and entertainment. We’re seeing that customers and companies are thinking that data-driven strategies are optional or later stage activity, but they’re becoming more and more central in their strategies from day zero.

What do you think of players like Netflix going full circle in terms of subscriptions?

I think it’s a good movement, despite what everybody’s saying. There are target audiences for all these different tiers. We work in especially good freemium models as a starting point for this land-and-expand strategy. Once people are engaged and they really see the value of your service, they’ll move to a subscription model. You can monetise this content in your service for these people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to subscribe through ads. There will always be a percentage of people that are paying subscriptions now who will move to the freemium one, so you could lose certain people. At the same time, as you are acquiring a lot of other customers that you cannot sell to otherwise. There are not enough people in the world that can pay for six subscriptions, so giving people a taste of why yours is better is a good strategy. I think it’s a natural movement after all these different years, and people will move along tiers and services towards your premium ones. 

Do you think that the focus has shifted from trying to attract people to the platforms to trying to retain the people they’ve already got, and does that change what people want out of data analytics services like yours?

There are two angles on that. First of all, that decision needs to be linked with retention. If you attract the right audience to your service, the people that have the highest customer lifetime value, you’ll churn lower percentages. Retention starts with acquisition. Everybody has a limited budget for acquisition, so you need to use it in the right way. There are data-driven ways to really focus your budget in the right acquisition channels with the right segmentation and the right audience. Apart from really optimising the acquisition cost of your decision strategies, do make sure that you’re moving forward in the funnel, so you’ll have people less likely to churn and more likely to have a higher customer lifetime value. These two concepts need to be linked. 

Now more and more it’s not just about the first churn, because the consumption habits are going to be more about churning re-subscriptions. You need to manage that process as well. You need to really focus on reacquisition because more than ever there is an opportunity for these people to come back to your service. In the middle is the more traditional retention strategy; put people in front of the content they want to watch. That’s the bliss-maker, right? If you have the content they want to watch, and it’s enough content for you to sustain and maintain their entertainment expectations, people will keep it for the right price. Otherwise, you don’t need any strategy or retention study, you need to fix that price point. If you have all these checks, everything is about content and how you present it. The trick is in how you make people feel that there is always something for them to watch. 

To hear the rest of Jerónimo Macanás Candilejo’s opinions on the future of the industry, tune into the full episode of The Content & Media Matters Podcast here. 

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

On  Episode 2 of The Content & Media Matters Podcast we sat down with Jill Porubovic, the Global Operations Leader for Take-Two Interactive Software. While some of her peers are winding down, Jill is still ramping up. Alongside her current role at Take-Two, Jill is also a board member for Tential Solutions and Rise, a group promoting gender diversity in media technology. Plus she has her own consulting business which enables people to work through times of change. 

With such an impressive professional history we were keen to hear her insights on how to enter the industry and thrive within it. Read on for the highlights of our conversation with her!

How have you seen attitudes towards diversity and inclusion change throughout your career?

I mean, I’m old! I’ve had 30 years in the industry, and I’ve seen some things. I would say I’m grateful for how things were in the past, because it taught me a lot about the need to be very loud and outspoken. I’m really more of an introvert than an extrovert. But you can’t be quiet, especially as a leader, so I’ve learned a lot about my own ability to be loud. From the companies’ side though, being more engaged and thinking about how to expand their workforce has changed. At Discovery we have a couple of programmes that really helped us leverage that. We partner with two-year schools locally to get students in who weren’t going to a four-year university, which allows us to get a more diverse workforce. We also partnered with a company called Broad Futures who support the neurodiverse workforce, and together we build internship programmes specifically for them. What was so amazing about that experience was my team’s desire to really dig in and understand where they were coming from and build a programme that was supportive of them. I sort of just handed it to them and said, ‘If you need me, I’m here, but I need you to build this programme so that they could learn’. It’s wonderful. Helping people access our industry is so important.

Why do you think mentorship is so important when it comes to encouraging a diverse workforce?

Because I didn’t have that growing up, at home as a young person or through my career. I always say you have the chalkboard of life, so as you’re going through your career and you’re learning, I really think it’s up to you to figure out what those key lessons are. The US has a lot of rules and regulations about compliance from a physical disability standpoint, but I always feel that we need to go above and beyond those things to really support people with diverse needs. 

We had an internet discovery person who was wheelchair bound and she was amazing. She actually graduated college and is a lawyer now, but when she started with us she was fully dependent on everybody else for support and assistance. We met with her and went through the entire building to talk about the things that weren’t easy for her, which was eye opening. Talking to those individuals who fall into those categories of need is so important. Getting our employee’s perspectives is amazing, because we were able to make some changes from that, and enable incredible people to perform to their full potential. 

What areas do you think we still need to change and improve when it comes to diversity and inclusion?

I think we just can’t stop. It’s always changing. It’s like an onion, right, you keep peeling back the layers, so you find more and more and more and more of the people that need to be supported. I supported the disabilities employee resource group, which I think are super smart. I also feel like they need to be supported by external resources that really know that area, so that you’re not limited by your internal knowledge base, you’re also getting that rich external knowledge that helps you grow.

How does impostor syndrome affect people today, and what can we do about it?

I don’t know many people that don’t have that. For the bulk of my career, probably until I was in my mid 40s, I had that. There’s a lot of personal things that you have to go through and do. If people externally are saying or doing things and you aren’t, it’s easy to be beaten down and put up that barrier and not allow all that external pressure to get to you. A lot of impostor syndrome is what you allow to get in your head. It really is ‘fake it till you make it’. Especially as a woman, a lot of it is your tone and your like your prep work – don’t go into any meeting without that prep and understanding. Act like you own the place. This is your money. This is your reputation. You have a seat at the table, you have something to say, even if you’re pretending. Eventually you’ll get to the other side and realise ‘Okay, I actually do know some things. I have a point of view that’s worthwhile’. Everybody has to go through their own personal journey.

What would you say to somebody who wanted to enter the industry, but felt that they didn’t fit in?

Fight for it. You really have to be tenacious and ambitious and not give up and not let any rejections stop you. Try to be positive about it. I know it can get really negative and feel like the world is against you, though. Whatever is against you, set that aside for a minute and instead turn it into ‘What do I need to do? What do I want to do in order to get this done?’ Go after it that way. Anything that you can’t change or is already in the past, put it on the shelf. You can’t reread that chapter, so move on to the next thing. Forgive yourself for whatever happened and don’t stop. Don’t let your mind just continue to think about it. You really do have to just keep moving.

To hear more from Jill’s incredible interview, listen to the full episode of The Content & Media Matters Podcast here.

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

On the first episode of our brand-new Content & Media Matters Podcast, we were joined by Neale Foster, the CEO of 24i. Growing up, Neil always wanted to work in technology. As a child, he loved computers and electricity and found it incredible that something he couldn’t see was so powerful. Neil began his career working for British Aerospace as an engineer and is now the CEO of 24i, a role which he took on in March 2022. We talked about his experience of the industry and his insights into what might be coming next. 

How do you see the current state of the content and media industry?

I think it’s wonderful that Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Hulu, all of those companies have made it so that you can tell people what you do now. Before that, you’d say, ‘I work in the video space’ and they would look blankly at you. You could say ‘Sky stuff, or Virgin stuff’, but that would be the limit of the conversation. But now when you say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m in the world of video streaming where Netflix and Amazon are, they’re all ‘Well, I use Netflix or Amazon!’ We’ve got all these different devices like mobiles, TV, etc, so now it’s relevant. The really fascinating thing for me is that people now talk about operating systems, whether you’ve got Android or Apple iOS, whereas 20 years ago, if you mentioned the word operating system, people would look at you blankly. Yeah, I’m really happy that the general words that we use are actually relevant to people’s lives. 

Do you think that streaming will replace traditional broadcast and cable? And if so, when do you think that might happen?

That’s always an interesting question. There’s always a migration or transition, and people always kind of misunderstand that the Skys and Virgins and Comcasts and all the other cable and satellite and telcos are iterating their models all the time. The good news for the consumer is that there are a lot of different possibilities, and companies are fitting whatever kind of personal circumstances or cost point or niche you might be in. I think the biggest growth is that there are niche and genre specific services. Now you can actually decide how you’re going to get what you want delivered, rather than just saying, I’m going to have the cable operator, and I’ve just got what they offer me. You can now customise effectively. There’s lots of different interesting words for this, but you can choose what you want to watch and pay for what you want to watch, so I quite like that choice factor in the industry now.

What do you think some of the challenges are going to be for the industry over the next 12 months?

There’s quite a few challenges. I mean, obviously, the cost of living crisis is going to be happening with all the energy costs, and there’s clearly going to be some sort of recession. In many ways, the irony is that people watch more TV when they don’t go out. But this is still gonna show the value; it’s all about the value base. There’s a graph chart that came out – many people are saying there’s an enormous number of services that people were paying for, and how mind blowing it is. It’s a classic, you’ve got to show value for your service. In fact, one of the reasons we’ve done 24iQ is that data analytics works to give people recommendations and make sure people can find content, which is absolutely critical. It’s not just about having a big library. If you walked into a conventional library and just saw all the books there, and didn’t know where to go, you’d be lost. Content discovery is a huge problem.

We’re anticipating the hot topics to be around engagement and analytics and fast networks, and really how to cope with this rise in demand for streaming. What’s your take on some of these topics?

We’re quite unusual at 24i in that we’ve got both the new generation of video director that goes direct to consumer, people like Pure Flix that do a friends-and-family version of Netflix effectively and Sony Entertainment, who have done quite a clever thing with Crunchyroll and and others, creating this niche that’s genre specific to quite large subscriber bases. Alongside that we’ve also got the classic pay TV,  and cable satellite operators. It’s quite fascinating to see the competitive elements that are all going into the ecosystem. 

How do you get video streaming simple and easy for the consumer and for the operator? One of them is discovery. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got rails of content, and as we’ve just discussed, getting content easily discovered is a major problem, in fact there’s too much content usually. It’s either got to be done by discovery, or it’s got to be recommended to you that you should watch that. It reinforces that you’re paying for this service so you want to know that the content that you’re probably going to watch next is on there. Otherwise, you’re going to switch to a different service to give you that content. We’re showing all sorts of really quite clever algorithms that cluster and connect all the different types of consumers to content so that platforms can recommend the right stuff. It’s highly mathematical, which I personally enjoy, but from a consumer point of view you want to be simple. So it’s how you translate what’s actually complicated into a simple, fun and enjoyable user experience. It’s very visual. 

Who do you think is doing some exciting things in the industry at the moment?

I think Amagi are really quite fascinating. They’ve been identified as a unicorn. It’s not surprising that they have a true cloud. So much of it is about the cloud. Whoever’s got stuff going on at the cloud, clearly, if they’ve written code properly for the cloud, not just put their code on the servers, will be one to watch. I think it’s fascinating. Verimatrix is always fascinating too. Datto and other content protection companies are emerging now. Some of the content protection has a lot of security issues, so I’m interested to see how security develops. Whilst all these apps and devices seem great there’s a lot of data protection that needs to happen, because you’re dealing with consumer data. So I’m particularly interested to see how the security implications and content protection develops, alongside the pure models of how you connect the consumer to that content. 

To hear more of Neale Foster’s insights into the future of the content and media industry, listen to the full episode of The Content and Media Matters Podcast here.

We sit down regularly with some of the biggest names in our industry, we dedicate our podcast to the stories of leaders in the technologies industries that bring us closer together. Follow the link here to see some of our latest episodes and don’t forget to subscribe.     

If you are wondering which companies to keep your eye on within the Content & Media industries, then look no further!  

We have taken a look at the Analytics & Measurement, Broadcasters, Content Distribution/Production/Protection, Front End, Multi-Platform, OVP & TV Platforms, System integrators and Video Processing categories and collated the exciting companies trailblazing the industry right now. 

Analytics & Measurement 

We have found that companies are no longer looking for new users, but putting effort into retaining the users they already have an understanding how end users are engaging with content is more important than ever.  

Measuring end user engagement throughout the streaming media ecosystem is becoming front and centre for many organisations. Analytics are the cornerstone for success as video intelligence becomes a vital part of what broadcasters, OTT Platforms and Content Creators require for success. 

Broadcasters 

Broadcasters are constantly reformulating their work and relaunching to try and get it right. More and more broadcasters are adding OTT platforms, continuing to diversify to try and make it in the OTT world.  

These household names are seeking to recreate themselves, continue to push boundaries and bring high-quality entertainment to our homes. 

Content Distribution  

Content would be meaningless if we couldn’t transport it!  

We searched for the top companies in the Content Distribution space working hard on getting content from A to B in the most efficient, affordable and reliable way possible. Working hard, these companies are providing continuous innovations with Edge Content Delivery, promising faster and more efficient, agile and reliable delivery.  

These are the companies that empower the largest media brands in the world to be successful. 

Content Production 

With production being more remote and flexible than ever, we’ve hunted down the top companies within the Content Production space who are proving themselves.  

Covid-19 had a huge impact on many industries but gave the Content Production industry a shove out of necessity however, many companies are finding more flexible solutions integral to their continued growth. 

Video Production Solutions, MAM, Graphics, Virtual Solutions, Playout tools, Video Editing and much more, are all playing their part to bring sports and entertainment experiences to life.  

Take a look at the companies making strides in this area.  

Content Protection 

We believe your content is worthless if it is not secure.  

With security being at the height of importance due to video content needing to be stored and delivered across the globe, every innovation in security is met with innovation in piracy. 

These companies are proving they deserve their spot as a company to watch. 

Front End 

All your hard work is going to waste if your content does not have good discovery. In addition, users are not going to continue to interact with bad interfaces in this day and age!  

Your users being able to find and engage with your content across multiple devices is what every streaming and VoD provider aims for.  

Meet the companies working to provide the best interfaces and solutions to help your users engage with your content.  

Multi Platform 

Fibre and 5G are transforming our video, broadband and mobile connectivity and there are many companies thriving in this part of the ecosystem. 

These are some of the most ubiquitous companies around, providing TV, internet and communication services for almost every one of us. 

OVP & TV Platforms 

The industry is transforming from legacy and On-Prem to cloud and SaaS models, giving opportunity for these companies to grow and develop but, SaaS and cloud-based solutions are no longer the innovation – they are the standard! 

With more and more video experiences being powered by the Cloud, with FAST and SaaS here to stay, this part of the industry is dynamic and growing fast, with these companies being at the top of their game.  

System integrators 

With so many great solutions out there, sometimes you just need someone to bring it all together for you. Systems integrators provide you with the best-of-breed solutions to solve your problems. 

More and more systems integrators and vendors can be the same people and are providing a mixture of first and third-part solutions. With such a complex technical landscape, a trusted partner that provides technical solutions and advice is key. 

Powering sports streaming platforms, MPUs, Newsrooms and media centres around the globe, and enabling service providers to deliver live content to the end user, these companies are pushing this industry forward.  

Video Processing 

Efficient, high-quality video encoding may not be the most exciting of topics, but it is a fundamental pillar of the ecosystem. 

There will always be capacity limitations, so moving video data more efficiently is often the way. 

Production and distribution workflows, monetisation of content, growing audiences and putting video workflows onto the cloud, these companies are innovative and changing the way the ecosystem operates. 

Do you think we have missed any out? Or are you thinking that your business should be on our list? Then get in touch!