S P EC I A L RE P O R T

Five Steps to Solving

the TV Everywhere
Dilemma for Operators
by Matt Smith

Sponsored by

Reprinted with revisions to format from BTR. Copyright 2015 by PennWell Corporation

Five Steps to Solving

the TV Everywhere
Dilemma for Operators
We are in the midst of a massive shift in
how and where television viewers access
their favorite shows and programming tiers.
Operators that deny this shift will be behind
the times and left out of position to deliver
this content on screens of all shapes and sizes.
Further, an entire generation of television
viewers is emerging, bringing with them new
requirements regarding what content they are
willing to pay for, how much they are willing
to pay, as well as an ever-expanding range of
devices on which they consume this content.
Make no mistake, this is a sea change in how,
where and when television is viewed.

Learn more about Anvato Watch, our

omplete TV Everywhere platform for
c
broadcasters, programmers, and providers.

Not every viewer fits into one bucket, one

use case, nor one model in which they watch
television. Far from it. For lack of a better term,
traditional television viewed mostly on the
largest television in the home, will continue
on that path and serve viewers as it has for
decades. What may change is the mechanism
that delivers the content: the factory behind the
curtain, if you will. A shift is beginning, and
will continue, in which the video infrastructure
used to deliver todays familiar channel lineups
transitions to more streamlined technology
approaches. Conversely, as new viewers, devices
and consumption modes emerge, so will the
backend infrastructure required to service this
new type of customer.
This is the new challenge: serving both
tomorrows viewer, those who will watch
television in dramatically different ways than
those who have come before them, as well
as accommodating todays TV experience.
Not only are those who create and originate
programming building direct bridges to their
viewers, but so are cable and telco operators
who package this programming in traditional
channel-driven tiers for subscribers to consume.
The eyeballs, ad revenue and programming
are moving requiring a parallel shift in

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architecture to support these new screens and

modes of viewing.
What can you do to best equip your organization
to meet these new requirements and prepare
your platform to effectively service viewers of all
ages who clamor for tomorrows TV Everywhere
experiences? Read on and lets explore.

Five Simple Steps to

TV Everywhere

1.

Exceed your viewers

expectations and delight
them with a killer experience

Todays experiences and tomorrows television

should both exemplify what I call better than
broadcast. This means that viewers expect a
viewing experience on their devices that exceeds
the one offered in the living room. And it should.
In todays universe of devices, the cloud knows
what type of device the viewer is connecting
with, where they are geographically, and whether
they have the rights to view that content or
channel, among many other attributes. That
means you can deliver individualized content,
hyper-targeted user advertisements and more...a
highly personalized and relevant, monetizable
content experience for the viewer.
Wouldnt it be great to deliver a highly relevant
advertisement for your viewer, so that the
Starbucks ad they see includes a virtual coupon
for $2 off their Tazo Tea at the store right around
the corner, or enable them to switch between
multiple camera angles and feeds of that
basketball game? Everyone wins in this scenario
viewers get a more personalized experience
and ads theyre interested in, while operators
benefit from higher engagement and loyalty, and

advertisers reach their target demographic. This

is the new normal and the bar has been raised.
So how does it all work? In a word,
comprehensively. Providing todays connected
television viewing experiences is most efficient
when you, the operator, have one pipeline that
contains all elements required to deliver the
content, end-to-end. That means a change in
the legacy approach of connecting a variety
of components, from encoder to player, video
clipping to ad insertion, from different vendors
to comprise a solution. The process of chaining
different component together means that
they must communicate through application
programming interfaces (APIs). While this is
standard practice in technology and operations,
it is also a pressure point where things can fail
and connections can break. When you have one
unified solution that performs all these tasks
without dependency on outside components, you
reduce risk, while improving efficiency and scale.

2.

Flatten your footprint and

reduce dependencies

Todays TV Everywhere platforms are more

powerful and mature than ever before, but how
many times have you had to cobble together a
multi-vendor, siloed solution offering to comprise

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Anvatos end-to-end TV Everywhere software platform

what you hopes resembles a platform to deliver
on a product promise? The challenge in aligning
several components using APIs as connective
tissue can cause all kinds of problems: insomnia
and an empty wallet to name just a couple.
One vendors SCTE ad trigger is anothers
mechanism for inserting a lower third graphical
banner. This is to say that not all vendors sing
from the same song sheet. There is another,
more integrated approach.
You can manage an end-to-end solution using
one software platform with one prevalent
streaming format that reaches every screen and
helps you quickly go to market with a multiscreen strategy that will help retain and delight
subscribers.

3.

Prepare to deliver
both a
uthenticated TV
Everywhere and also over the top
(OTT) flavors, depending on your
content and customer
Do you have a group of channels to deliver to
the viewer in an authenticated TV Everywhere
model? Are you a content creator who seeks to
deliver your content direct to the viewer? Both
models are emerging now and the good news
is that the architecture required to deliver both
is by and large the same. Who is your customer
and how would they like to consume your
channel/content?
Define on-network versus off-network. Can the
viewer watch your TV Everywhere lineup off
their home router, while on a device connected

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Anvato on-net and off-net infrastructure

to a mobile service provider? Are they able to
consume content directly from you where they
pay per episode or season? Againthe sausage
factory where you prepare and deliver the
content looks nearly identical in both scenarios,
but the transactional nature is up to you.

4.

Soup to nutscontrol
the experience,
end-to-end

No longer must you fear technology and think

this new TV Everywhere thing is newfangled
and confusing. As mentioned, this is now
table stakes for operators, and to quote Wayne
Gretzky, you should now Skate to where the
puck is going to be, not where it has been.
Youre probably asking yourself what Wayne
Gretsky has to do with your TV Everywhere
strategy. The answer is the future-looking
reference. Just as Gretsky had a sixth sense for
being where the play was going to happen, you
too should look to future-proof your architecture
when selecting a TV Everywhere solution. The
secret lies in the software. Avoid any solution
which requires you to adopt and embrace
purpose-built appliances through which you
operate. The best and brightest over-the-top

solutions today are all software based and can

be installed on the hardware of your choosing.
This means not worrying that you dont
understand streaming technology and on which
platform certain components work. Smooth
Streaming on Xbox? Flash in Firefox on Mac?
HLS on Android? These are questions you
can (and should) eliminate from your mind.
You should focus on owning the experience,
and the platform powering it means you
control the product offering, technology stack
and improvements in the experience. This

Are you skating to where the puck is going to be?

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Anvato dynamic ad insertion to connected devices

is powerful. You dont have to think about
outsourcing your product and extending your
infrastructure to a third party to make things
work. Leave the hard work to your solution
provider. In todays TV Everywhere universe,
weve figured this out and done all the hard
work for you. We enable you to deliver one format
HLS to screens everywhere. This means less
for you to stream, less to store and less reliance
on multiple technology silos.
And dont worry about renting that forklift to
pull out your existing infrastructure. From
an implementation perspective, this new
technology lives alongside your existing
broadcast and channel distribution investments
and complements them. Command and control
and system management are complementary too
your OTT platform interfaces with commercial
playout servers, broadcast switchers and other
automated components as well.

5.

Show me the moneyhave a

monetization strategy

You are in the business of providing channels to

subscribers old and new, and just as you have
done with your traditional channel delivery

layer in an commercial replacement component

to help you bolster your ad strategy already in
place on your traditional platform, and to help
offset the cost of any additive technology. In
simplified terms, use the power of these new
TV Everywhere workflows to perform digital
ad replacement (DAI) and replace broadcast
ads in your over-the-top output. Todays TV
Everywhere platforms are able to help deliver
additional ad availability and deliver hypertargeted advertisements as discussed above.

Conclusion
If there is one overarching message to deliver
here, it is that you have never been more
empowered as a delivery entity. It is a brave
new world out there with more screens, more
viewers, more demands and less complexity
than ever before. The solutions at your fingertips
are more powerful and enabling and this
is a good thing that will help you enable the
television experiences of tomorrow. Consider
yourselves armed. Game on.

Matt Smith,
Chief Evangelist, Anvato

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About Anvato
Anvato is the only complete TV Everywhere solution that can guarantee the
delivery and monetization of video on every connected device. From signal
origination through distribution and playback, each function in the digital media
supply chain is engineered by Anvato and managed in a powerful, streamlined
cloud-based platform.
 sing Anvatos software, broadcasters, media companies and service
U
providers can:
Enjoy a simpler, more-efficient solution with no dependencies on third-parties.
Provide a personalized, high-quality TV 2.0 experience on mobile, desktops, and
other connected devices.
Reduce total cost of operations through robust automation.
Maximize monetization opportunities.
Anvato invented hybrid video processing, which combines the flexibility and
elasticity of the cloud with the cost-effectiveness and security of on-premise
computing. Anvatos software modules include: live linear encoding, videoon-demand transcoding, live HD capture and cloud editing, syndication and
distribution, media and metadata management, server-side ad stitching, multidevice players, subscriptions, reporting, and social sharing.
Anvato powers TV Everywhere for leading brands including NBCUniversal,
Univision, FOX Sports, Hearst Television, LIN Media, EW Scripps, and Gray
Television. Anvatos award-winning engineering team is headquartered in
Mountain View, CA.
For more information, visit anvato.com and follow @anvato on Twitter.

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