Everyone in media tech is now calling themselves an AI company. The label is everywhere, but it is increasingly meaningless. Instead of clarifying what a product does, it often obscures it, forcing buyers to work harder to understand basic value.
Breakfast at NAB - How Jiostar Reached 70M Concurrent Viewers at the Cricket World Cup
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CIMM Panel Ponders Programmatic TV Advertising in 2030
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10% Off StreamTV Europe Registration
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The Slow Death of Local News & Weather on ABC, CBS, FOX, & NBC Has Started
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Harry Potter Franchise Audience Viewing Journey
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Why Your Company Is Not an AI Company
Everyone in media tech is now calling themselves an AI company. The label is everywhere, but it is increasingly meaningless. Instead of clarifying what a product does, it often obscures it, forcing buyers to work harder to understand basic value.
The Take
AI is becoming table stakes. Positioning around it as an identity is already weakening. The companies that will win are the ones that clearly tie AI to workflow improvements such as speed, efficiency, and output. The market does not need more AI claims. It needs operational clarity.
Read the Full Analysis: The Streaming Wars
OpenAI Moves Into Media With Acquisition Of Streaming Series ‘TBPN’
OpenAI is increasingly moving into the world of entertainment.
The company has acquired streaming business series TBPN, which has been described as ‘What if SportsCenter and LinkedIn merged?’.
The acquisition was announced in a blog post by Fidji Simo, who is the products boss of the Sam Altman-led company.
“TBPN has built something pretty special. It’s one of the places where the conversation about AI and builders is actually happening day to day,” said. “As I’ve been thinking about the future of how we communicate at OpenAI, one thing that’s become clear is that the standard communications playbook just doesn’t apply to us. We’re not a typical company. We’re driving a really big technological shift. And with the mission of bringing AGI to the world comes a responsibility to help create a space for a real, constructive conversation about the changes AI creates—with builders and people using the technology at the center. That’s exactly what TBPN has built. So rather than trying to recreate that ourselves, it made a lot of sense to bring them in, support what they’re doing, and help them scale—while keeping what makes them special.”
The show is hosted by Jordi Hays and John Coogan and has featured interviews with the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and James Cameron.
Read the Story: Deadline
Breakfast at NAB - How Jiostar Reached 70M Concurrent Viewers at the Cricket World Cup
What does it take to deliver a seamless live stream to 70 million concurrent viewers?
At the OTT.X Breakfast at NAB on April 19, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and JioStar break down how this was achieved during the Cricket World Cup.
Chris Ziemer and Akash Saxena will share the architecture and cloud orchestration strategies behind this scale, including the use of AWS Elemental Media Services and Amazon CloudFront to handle massive demand while maintaining quality of service.
Gain insight into Jiostar’s video optimization journey and how performance is delivered consistently across geographies, networks, and devices.
Take part in the conversation and uncover what it takes to deliver streaming at true global scale.
CIMM Panel Ponders Programmatic TV Advertising in 2030
What might the state of adoption for programmatic TV advertising look like in 2030?
That was the jumping off point for an industry panel discussion at CIMM East Tuesday, where leaders from Dish, Disney and Google cited expectations for growth within the next four years but also see existing hurdles holding back greater adoption by advertisers today and discussed factors for realizing and unlocking programmatic value in the future.
CIMM Managing Director Jon Watts moderated the panel, which also included leaders from SSPs Magnite and FreeWheel, and asked speakers to forecast what proportion of the total U.S. TV ad market they expect will be transacted programmatically by 2030. To give some context, of the roughly $90 billion in U.S. TV ad spend in 2025 (across traditional linear and CTV), Watts cited a stat that programmatic transactions accounted for roughly one-third (or 33%), with connected TV representing the majority.
A couple of years ago Disney “put a stake in the ground” when it said that by 2024, 50% of its non-linear ads business would be automated, according to Matt Barnes, SVP of Automated Sales at Disney Advertising.
Here, he distinguished between “programmatic” and “automated,” as Barnes believes there will be automated TV ad buying through avenues or mechanisms other than programmatic channels – some not yet being discussed and others enabled by new technologies like agentic AI.
By 2030 he thinks “more like 75%...of our non-linear business will be automated,” again here not specifically programmatic, but for TV ad deals and buys that “will be automated first direct IO [insertion order].”
Read the Full Story: StreamTV Insider
10% Off StreamTV Europe Registration
OTT.X is delighted to continue its partnership with the StreamTV Show as a media partner for the StreamTV Europe Show, taking place April 13–15, 2026 in Lisbon. The event brings together senior leaders from streaming platforms, broadcasters, FAST operators, studios, advertisers, and technology providers to discuss the strategies shaping the future of streaming across Europe.
With focused tracks covering Content, Advertising, and Product & Technology, the conference delivers executive-level insights alongside curated networking opportunities with the companies driving the next phase of streaming innovation.
From platform strategy and monetization to evolving viewer experiences, StreamTV Europe provides a unique forum for executives shaping the global streaming ecosystem.
As part of this partnership, OTT.X is pleased to offer 10% off registration for the StreamTV Europe Show using code OTTX.
More Information & Registration: StreamTV Europe
The Slow Death of Local News & Weather on ABC, CBS, FOX, & NBC Has Started
Across the United States, the landscape of local television news is undergoing a profound transformation that signals the start of its decline. Regulatory shifts have opened the door for a single company to own major network affiliates—ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC—in the same market, a change that once seemed unthinkable under rules designed to preserve competition and diverse voices.
This policy evolution has accelerated a wave of mergers and acquisitions, prompting once-rival stations to merge their operations in ways that shrink the very coverage communities have long relied upon. Shared studios, combined newsrooms, and overlapping staffs now handle what used to be independent reporting teams, resulting in fewer unique stories, less on-the-ground investigation, and more because fewer people are covering the news now.
In Indianapolis, the move to consolidate news and weather on ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBD happened this week. Circle City Broadcasting, a regional media group, completed an $83 million purchase of WRTV, the market’s ABC affiliate, from E.W. Scripps Company at the end of March 2026. The deal, approved through a Federal Communications Commission waiver, allowed the buyer to control three stations in the area: WRTV, the CW affiliate WISH-TV, and MyNetworkTV outlet WINDY-TV. Within hours of the ownership transfer, widespread staff reductions took place across the news department. Meteorologists, anchors, and reporters who had built careers covering everything from severe weather to community events found their positions eliminated. The station’s midday newscast the following day featured reporting sourced directly from WISH-TV personnel, all presented under WRTV branding. Now the number of people covering local news in Indianapolis has severely dropped.
This Indianapolis case reflects a broader pattern now emerging in markets nationwide. Major broadcast groups have begun streamlining operations to cut costs amid declining advertising revenue and have resorted to mass layoffs. In some cities, ABC and FOX affiliates under the same corporate umbrella could share weather forecasters and assignment desks, while CBS and NBC stations in adjacent regions centralize their digital content production.
Read the Full Story: Cord Cutters News
Harry Potter Franchise Audience Viewing Journey
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The recent trailer for the new Harry Potter series has garnered significant attention, both positive and negative. We analyzed the current franchise's performance on HBO Max and considered how it would fit into a potential merged HBO Max/Paramount+ future.
Key Findings
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Parrot Analytics Audience Journeys data shows that nearly 1 in 4 Harry Potter franchise viewers stay on HBO Max for their next title. This large retention rate validates the platform’s decision to double down on the Wizarding World as an effective engine for keeping subscribers within the ecosystem.
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While Harry Potter is excellent at retaining fans on HBO Max, the data shows it is a poor "bridge" to Paramount+ in a potential merger scenario. With only an 8.1% audience affinity for Paramount+ content, the franchise creates a siloed loyalist group.
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Taylor Sheridan series on Paramount+ are an example of a franchise whose viewers are equally likely to watch content on Paramount+ or HBO Max. This franchise would be more likely to function as bridge content between audiences on the two platforms in a merger scenario.
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In Case You Missed It
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- Ask Skip: Can Cable News Really Copy Podcasts?. The Streaming Wars
- Bent Pixels Is Rewiring the Creator Economy Around Distribution Control. The Streaming Wars
- The NFL’s Streaming Strategy Has Entered a Regulatory Pressure Cycle. The Streaming Wars
- ESPN’s Arbitration Play Signals Who Controls the Rules of the Streaming Bundle. The Streaming Wars
- Netflix’s Warsaw Office Turns Regional Expansion Into an Integrated Operating Model. The Streaming Wars
- The $150bn Streaming Economy Is Built on Fewer Users Paying More. The Streaming Wars
- The Engagement Machine Is Now a Legal Liability. The Streaming Wars
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