Key Trends from NAB 2023

1. Media and Entertainment WHITEPAPER Lean and tailored broadcast value chain Key NAB 2023 Trends › › value chain › SME-focused offerings surge Low-code technologies witness adoption across downstream Tailored deployment configurations gain momentum

2. Pre-NAB 2023 Survey findings: Trends and vendor roadmaps Overview In April 2023, SG Analytics’ media and broadcast research & consulting team attended the NAB Show in Las Vegas. On the conference stage and in discussions with close to 40 technology vendors in the connected media space, we observed the following major trends. SME-focused offerings surge In today’s multi-screen TV & video era, audiences are consuming multi-dimensional content repositories (e.g., news, TV & film, music, sports, short form, etc.) anywhere and everywhere. The changing audience preference toward local and regional assets has further accelerated diversification of content ownership across multiple engagement hubs. For example, Tier-II and Tier-III media enterprises own niche but pivotal media asset catalogs as compared to Tier-I dominating the ownership structure a few years ago. As customer acquisition pressure mounts for both Tier-I and SMEs, leveraging the best-of-breed technology stack lies at the epicenter of growth strategy for these organizations in the long run. Historically, a majority of small to medium media enterprises have been leveraging lightweight solutions to meet their changing business requirements. As complexities centric to priorities surge for SMEs’ content owners and aggregators globally, this approach of leveraging lightweight solutions is insufficient, attributed to lack of next-generation functionalities and y-o-y increase of third-party consulting and development costs across the software lifecycle management (SLM). Some of the next-generation business priorities as highlighted by 26–33% of SME media enterprises are as follows: Unification of linear and non- linear content supply chain ecosystem, and finally Safeguarding profitability, Converged data management to enhance time to market (TTM), Supporting newer video formats (4K/8K) at scale. Exploitation of hybrid monetization avenues, 2

3. Lean and tailored broadcast value chain At NAB 2023, a few vendors extended their product offering primarily focused around small to medium media enterprises. For example, 1 2 One of the largest rights, contracts, and royalty management software providers in the US launched a multi-tenant SaaS “Rights” module for small to medium sports franchises, film studios, and content owners focusing on building newer monetization avenues across legacy (linear and non-linear TV & video) and new-age engagement touch points (AR/VR merchandise, metaverse, etc.) One of the fastest emerging streaming analytics software providers with a strong presence in Spain, Germany, and the US introduced SME-based unified analytics (content, platform, users, etc.), enabling these enterprises to generate content supply chain- centric actionable insights at negligible overhead costs (no data engineering resource). Low-code technologies witness adoption across downstream value chain In 2023, producing volumetric interactive content repositories, promoting multi-platform distribution at scale, and accelerating newer monetization avenues are fast becoming the leading business priorities for most content aggregators and digital-born enterprises (including Tier-I, Tier-II, and Tier-III enterprises), globally. Furthermore, these changing business priorities are enhancing technology fragmentation across media production (short form, news, etc.), media distribution (cost effective multi-screen delivery at scale), and media monetization (emergence of FAST platforms) workflows. As the fragmentation of these multi- generation technology stacks continues to rise, this will increase the demand for media enterprises to invest into resource capabilities for real-time upgradation and development of newer functionalities on the long-term basis. Global media & broadcast technology space is not immune to the macro-economic human capital disruptions enhancing the technical debt. As per Reveal’s Annual Software Developer Survey findings, almost one-third of respondents highlighted that shortage of resources (DevOps Engineer, Data Analytics, etc.) and inefficient workgroup collaboration (remote, centralized, hybrid, etc.) are the flagship challenges within the software development industry. The same survey further revealed that almost three-fourths of these enterprises plan to resolve the challenge via leveraged low-code technologies across their content supply chain. The global media & broadcast technology segment is still at a nascent stage with respect to adoption of low- code technologies across their product offerings but are steadily embarking on this journey to lower their technical debt. At NAB 2023, two of the leading vendors highlighted the following: 1 2 One of the leading broadcast management systems (BMS) providers in the US with horizontally integrated offering across traffic & scheduling, playout services, and advertising technology has embraced the low-code technology framework across its monetization value chain. One of the fast-emerging low-code-centric pre-configured templates for version creation, packaging, and multi-platform distribution via its Connect and Discovery modules, enabling content owners, aggregators, and D2C platform owners to not only accelerate operational efficiencies but also TTM. 3

4. Lean and tailored broadcast value chain Tailored deployment configurations gain momentum Historically, the broadcast TV & video segment has followed a highly conservative “in-house” technology development approach, i.e., internal technology & services spend was roughly 50% of total ICT expenditure within the broadcast space worldwide between 2014 and 2016. This eventually shifted aggressively toward the off-the-shelf (Out-of-the-Box) technology stack procurement strategy, attributed to the pressure of extending reach and faster TTM to build a competitive edge within the OTT TV & video services 1.0 era (2016– 2019). In the past 12–18 months, niche content owners and aggregators are re-shifting their focus toward: 1 3 Owning the data and technology value chain to enhance real-time actionable intelligence anytime, everywhere Customizing monetization and engagement touch points to differentiate their D2C offering on long-tail basis Adopting an end-to-end enterprise-wide security model with a closed-loop ecosystem, i.e., reducing leakages via loosely coupled third-party off- the-shelf product integrations. 2 4

5. Lean and tailored broadcast value chain Furthermore, media enterprises have traditionally built islands of automation, i.e., parallel OTT, IPTV, and mobile TV workflows to their legacy linear business activities. This legacy approach has eventually resulted into increased demand toward tailored automation and orchestration overlays along with in-house development to improve centralization of the media value chain to meet next-generation customer engagement needs (FAST, metaverse, NFT, etc.). Finally, as technology becomes the key strategic tool in conjunction with content repositories, these enterprises are slowly but gradually moving toward owning these assets like content rights to enhance premium QoE (quality of engagement). At NAB 2023, three media technology vendors highlighted the following: 1 One of the emerging cognitive services (AI/ML)-embedded closed captioning vendor has witnessed a strong surge in on-premise customized deployments in the past 12 months. It is aggressively expanding its automated speech to engagement conversion algorithm in the enterprise video space in 2023. Western Europe, Brazil, and Singapore remain the core markets. 2 Sony’s spun-off media archiving business entity with a strong strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a highly customized and orchestrated tape to file conversion solution. Its core target customer base are government agencies (National Archive USA), education institutions (Indian University), and hyper content owners (such as broadcasters, publishers, etc.). 3 A leading cloud-based synthetic audio (media) solution provider with strong presence in the US, the UK, and Israel provides highly customized technology overlay for media and enterprise video customers to: Build a single lake of structured and unstructured data enabling enterprises to create multi-faceted content repositories at scale. It’s pre-configured cognitive services (AI/ML) also enable media enterprises to accelerate their hybrid monetization avenues and customer engagement rates (via automated metadata indexing, etc.). The increase in customization of technology deployments will have a positive impact on growth across both consulting services and system integration (SI) within the broadcast TV & video segment in the long term. As per SG Analytics estimates, consulting services will account for 19% of total media transformation ICT services by 2026 (US$7.5bn). SI will be the second-largest segment, contributing 16% of the total spend by 2026. 5

6. Lean and tailored broadcast value chain About the Author Kedar Mohite • Vice President (Media & Entertainment ICT research & consulting practice) Kedar Mohite heads Media & Entertainment ICT research & consulting practice at SG Analytics. He has been Principal Consultant with Omdia (Ovum) focusing on media & broadcast technology arena for over a decade. His area of focus includes media technology and ICT service developments across broadcasters, digital service providers, sports franchises, OTT, publishing, and enterprise video segments. Kedar is a regular speaker at IBC, NAB, and vendor-sponsored industry conferences, and his work has been cited by the BBC, Wired UK, IBC.org, and Business Wire. He holds a Master of Science in Business Administration degree from the Norwegian School of Management BI. Disclaimer This document makes descriptive reference to trademarks that may be owned by others. The use of such trademarks herein is not an assertion of ownership of such trademarks by SG Analytics (SGA) and is not intended to represent or get commercially benefited from it or imply the existence of an association between SGA and the lawful owners of such trademarks. Information regarding third-party products, services, and organizations was obtained from publicly available sources, and SGA cannot confirm the accuracy or reliability of such sources or information. Its inclusion does not imply an endorsement by or of any third party. Copyright © 2023 SG Analytics Pvt. Ltd. www.sganalytics.com GET IN TOUCH Pune | Hyderabad | Bengaluru | London | Zurich | New York | San Francisco | Amsterdam | Toronto