Industry execs push for standardisation to achieve “effective programming” across FAST

Industry execs have called for more standardisation to see more “effective programming” across FAST platforms, speaking at the OTT Question Time event this week in London. 

Source: Vod Professional

Anthony Layser, executive director, content acquisitions & programming strategy at Xumo, said,  “I think one of the things we’re going to have to figure out in the next few years is how to standardise,The biggest pain point is everybody has a different usage dashboard and all of them define metrics. ”

The Xumo exec explained a main technical challenge FAST operators face is limited access to important data via HLS feeds across various different CDNs. He urged “creating a new quality across data” will be integral in the upcoming years.

“Its a struggle for both the content partners and also for the platforms, in terms of knowing what actually people are watching at any point in the day in that feed,” explained Layser.

Paul Hastings, SVP, global sales at Whip Media, added fragmentation is a growing issue amongst the industry which has driven platforms integrate with tech providers and leveraging more innovative technology so channel providers can have a wider pool of data to pull from.

“Where there is more standardisation, where there’s greater willingness for the platforms to share more granular detail, so that the channels can create more effective programming that will benefit the platforms themselves because people will spend more time on it,” Hasting said.

He goes on to say Whip Media and other similar companies are using different methods to obtain data but noted for the long term “there has to be more standardisation and there has to be more collaboration between the supplier and the buyer on the two parts of the business.”

Personalisation

Layser also said FAST platforms are investing and focusing on new ways to better implement personalisation which can be a harder task to carry out for FAST operators where they don’t have access to user data.

“While we’re all used to personalisation in SVOD, where you have a paywall, you sign into your platform, and then there’s a profile. There is none of that for FAST platforms,” he highlighted.

The industry expert said FAST operators are instead leaning on other factors such as “IP to figure out who is watching this, and then starting to recommend to them when they return, more of the same and adjacent content.”

He added personalisation for advertising on FAST platforms should also be prioritised to grow the FAST business, pointing to personalised ads across social media such as Instagram.

“Personalisation for the ad experience is just as important as it is for the content recommendation engine,” Layser said.