Converged broadcast, streaming services to become mainstream

The 2022 Secure Streaming & Broadcast Workflows Report from the media security and anti-piracy services provider was conducted in Q4 2021 and surveyed 227 leading content creators, broadcasters and distributors within the media and entertainment industry.

The fundamental was that live-linear and broadcast TV wasn’t going away anytime soon and broadcast TV would evolve to a hybrid approach, in which linear broadcasts coexist alongside VOD and live streaming services. Responding to a question about their vision of TV’s future, 42% of respondents see significant value in converged services that use both streaming and broadcast delivery via standards such as HbbTV and ATSC 3.0.

“Broadcast TV executives and streaming media professionals share a common goal of attracting and retaining subscribers to drive ROI,” said Tim Siglin, founding executive director of the Help Me Stream Research Foundation and the 2022 Secure Streaming & Broadcast Workflows Report report’s author. “Our research shows that the convergence of streaming and linear broadcast media delivery has evolved to the point that consumers primarily care about what and where they watch, not whose OTT or pay-TV service that they are using.”

The study also noted that broadcasting and streaming are increasingly blending into a single, unified user experience to support this hybrid approach. User interfaces based on connected TV (CTV) and operator apps will be key, replacing traditional electronic program guides for content discovery and navigation. As a result, the report says, a converged security solution with layered protection will become the industry norm.

While almost half of respondents consider anti-piracy services as a means to retain revenue, digital rights management (DRM) was selected as the primary approach (22%) to combat piracy, followed by geo-blocking (18%), content monitoring (16%), forensic watermarking (10%), and application shielding (10%). The results indicate that a layered approach including these methods will best address market needs.

“We conducted the survey…to uncover secure streaming and broadcast trends and their role within the anti-piracy workflow,” added Manas Mati, managing director, Intertrust ExpressPlay commenting . The report indicates not only the need for a multi-DRM approach to protect premium content, but that a comprehensive, layered anti-piracy solution is also vital to protect service providers’ revenue.” Rapid TV News