New report reveals converged broadcast and streaming services to become mainstream

Intertrust, a global leader in media security and anti-piracy services, today announced the release of a new report titled “2022 Secure Streaming & Broadcast Workflows.” The report reveals broadcast TV will continue to be viable for the foreseeable future, despite the growth of streaming, and suggests the video industry will evolve to a hybrid approach, where linear broadcasting coexists alongside video-on-demand (VOD) content and live streaming.

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, a converged security solution with layered protection will become the industry norm.

“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 survey 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 2022 Secure Streaming & Broadcast Workflows Report found that, despite dire industry warnings, respondents — 63% of whom work in the streaming industry — indicated live-linear and broadcast TV isn’t going away anytime soon. 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.

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.

“Our latest collaboration with Intertrust shows that as these two transmission methods merge, content security is still vital,” said Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Vice President and Editor of Streaming Media. “The industry recognizes that using strong anti-piracy services is essential to both stop piracy and attract new subscribers.”

The following are the key trends from the Report:

• Broadcast TV will evolve to a hybrid approach, in which linear broadcasts coexist alongside VOD and live streaming services.
• User interfaces, most likely refined electronic program guides (EPGs) and operator apps (OpApps) on Connected TVs, will be key to this hybrid approach.
• Converged media consumption (broadcast and streaming) requires converged security solutions.
• Rights management solutions remain fragmented, highlighting the need for a multi-DRM approach.
• A complementary, layered security approach should include geo-blocking and DRM, as well as proactive application shielding and content monitoring.

“We conducted the survey alongside Streaming Media to uncover secure streaming and broadcast trends and their role within the anti-piracy workflow. 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,” said Manas Mati, Managing Director, Intertrust ExpressPlay.

Intertrust’s ExpressPlay Media Security Suite provides converged security solutions for broadcast TV and streaming services. Based on Marlin DRM, ExpressPlay XCA enables secure, direct-to-TV delivery of broadcast content. ExpressPlay DRM offers a scalable and low-latency multi-DRM service for streaming platforms of any size and scale. ExpressPlay Anti-Piracy is another layer providing a wide range of security and anti-piracy tools, such as forensic watermarking, content and web monitoring, and application protection, that enable a complementary and layered security approach to complement a strong multi-DRM offering.

The Report was conducted in Q4 2021 by Streaming Media, Intertrust, and the Help Me Stream Research Foundation, and surveyed 227 leading content creators, broadcasters and distributors within the media and entertainment industry.  PR Newswire