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Warner Bros. Discovery drop linear ballast to float HBO Max

Having trailed the move a year ago, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) chief David Zaslav has followed through on plans to split the company in half. The company is to separate into Streaming & Studios (HBO) and Global Networks (TNT Sports, CNN, B/R, Discovery) by mid-2026 effectively undoing the $43 billion merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2022.

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What drives streaming codec choices at Meta and Norsk

As debates over codec choices in the streaming world range from H.264 to AV1 and HEVC and beyond, what drives decision-making when it comes to codec choices for solution and service providers helping creators and customers get video online for live and VOD consumption? According to Meta's Hassene Tmar and Norsk's Steve Strong, key factors include software and hardware support and compatibility, bitrate reductions, latency constraints, and more, as the two explain in this discussion with Alchemy Creations' Andy Beach from May's Streaming Media Connect.

How does SGAI differ from SSAI and CSAI for live streaming monetisation?

As the buzz around server-guided ad insertion (SGAI) grows in the adtech and streaming worlds, what sets it apart from the more familiar server-side ad insertion (SSAI) and client-side ad insertion (CSAI), and what specifically can it do that SSAI and CSAI can't, particularly for live sports streams without period ad breaks? IAB Tech Lab's Katie Stroud, Paramount's  Jarred Wilichinsky, RealEyes Media's David Hassoun, and Google's Sourya Roy debate the differences and the potential of SGAI to enhance ad experiences in this clip from a panel at May's Streaming Media Connect.

How Biddable CTV Advertising Leverages AI and Boosts ROI

What are the key strategies, partnerships, and tech stack elements that make biddable advertising profitable in FAST and other ad-supported CTV platforms in 2025? Fremantle's Laura Florence, Future Today's Tim Ware, and Chris Pfaff Tech Media's Chris Pfaff break down how each of their companies approach biddable CTV sales in a conversation at the latest Streaming Media Connect 2025.

How Norsk approaches emerging streaming codecs and protocols

With its focus on helping customers build effective live-streaming workflows and meeting streamers where they are in terms of prevalent codecs and protocols—which, Norsk's Steve Strong acknowledged at the conference, usually still means H.264—how does it anticipate where users might be going when it comes to supporting new codecs like VVC, whatever the current or near-future playback challenges might be? Strong explains his company's considerations in conversation with Andy Beach in this clip from May's Streaming Media Connect.

Streaming Media Columns

The Long and Short of It: Measuring YouTube on TV

YouTube makes short-form viewing in­creasingly commonplace, measurable, and monetised on CTV, and other channels inevita­bly rush to adopt and repeat the formula, time will tell when "YouTube is the new television" gives way to "Television is the new YouTube."

Talking Localisation

Today, localisation remains a critical budgetary line item for content owners delivering shows to diverse and transnational audiences, and it is probably one whose typical costs have not, until recently, changed considerably in quite some time. The increasingly prevalent use of AI in content localisation, subtitling, and translation promises to change all of that—particularly through the controversial and ethically fraught use of imitative synthetic voices.

Post-Peak Performance in the M&E Universe

The recent Subscription Wars report commissioned by U.K.-based digital payments tech company Bango points to consumer dissatisfaction with the fractured state of subscription services in general and the increasing appeal of indirect subscription options and super-bundles of aggregated services sold through telcos like Optus in Australia. Perhaps it's another sign of less-than-inspiring times that the best thing consumers say streaming services can do for them is to stop standing out from the crowd and start disappearing into it.

Is 2024 the Year of WebRTC?

With large sports-streaming operators, WebRTC provides a real opportunity for ultra-low-latency streaming. But those same operators, which spend billions on licensing rights, can't afford to just swap the ability to stream content in real time for basic OTT functionality like SSAI and DRM.