48 ROUND TABLE Linear Playout
ERIC BOLTEN: With the advent of streaming and OTT platforms, it has become much easier to deliver file-based content, but the ‘VOD world’ can be overwhelming. Consumers have a hard time deciding what entertainment to choose. Decision fatigue makes live linear appealing. Linear TV offers lean-back programming. OTT platforms and service providers can use cloud-based delivery to maintain engagement with live linear – through sports, concerts, events such as news, and entertainment – offering a bouquet of channels that can hold viewer engagement and allow audiences to be reprogrammed to the traditional television model. PAUL MARTIN: Linear TV needs to specialise in ‘time-sensitive events’ – the events that simply cannot be missed or rescheduled. TV on a schedule is well suited to delivering new content first. It is also convenient for people who are not seeking out specific content and are happy to watch what is on. There is certainly a place for linear TV in the next ten years, but it has to stand out from the crowd. STEVE REYNOLDS: The answer to that question is, absolutely yes! There is a lot of content that still lends itself well to a linear format – live sports is the obvious
one. People want to watch the game as it is happening. Replays of live sports have never really taken off from a consumer demand point of view. Yes, there are people who want to watch classic football or boxing matches, but in general, replay rates are low. So, we know there is a good market around linear broadcasting. News is another use case that lends itself well to that live format. If you are looking to get live reporting when something is happening, you need the ability to do a live stream. A lot of the national broadcasters in the UK and on the continent are spending more money to do live origination, specifically because of news and live reporting. And it’s important to realise that for both of these use cases – sports and news – the VOD assets are usually just a repackaged version of the live airing. That’s important because it means the production and origination infrastructure is actually the same for use cases like sports and news. That points towards a topic further down the list of questions concerning innovation. It is surprising how few of these linear channel originations have actually moved towards a platform that can support unified origination. There is no reason why you need to run separate playout or separate origination, or separate master control for a linear TV platform vs. a digital platform.
FEED: VOD HAS BECOME THE DEFINING TERM FOR TV AS WE KNOW IT. WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR LINEAR TV IN A VOD WORLD?
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