Ad Break Distillery in demonstration.
Amsterdam, March 14, 2023 – Media Distillery, a leading provider of AI-powered video analysis solutions to optimise the user experience (UX) of video entertainment platforms, has released a new solution: Ad Break Distillery™. The solution identifies the exact start and stop times of ad breaks in broadcast video, enabling video platform operators, service providers and broadcasters to enhance monetisation opportunities for on-demand viewing while also improving user engagement.
With a gradual shift of viewership from linear viewing towards on-demand streaming services, and ever-intensifying competition for audience attention, providers of live TV and/or on-demand content need to differentiate and engender loyalty by personalising experiences according to viewers’ preferences.
The explosion of OTT and VOD has raised the bar for video services, with advertisers expecting to be able to target and create personalised ad experiences, as well as setting consumers’ UX expectations regarding the presence and duration of ad breaks. Many broadcast channels have ad breaks that can last up to 5 to 8 minutes. These long periods of advertising have several drawbacks, however.
Research undertaken in Switzerland by TV marketing specialist Admeira shows that the length of the ad break influences the recall of ads. Shorter ad breaks generate more attention, with recall decreasing almost linearly as ad break length increases. When the ad break is too long, viewers may even tune out completely.
Furthermore, these linear ad breaks often don’t translate well, and/or are less effective, in the context of catch-up and replay. One reason is because viewers have grown accustomed to the shorter ad break formats typical of today’s popular OTT services.
The main technical cause preventing a good UX for linear TV ads in replay lies in the general lack of time markers, a prominent issue in the video industry. This not only hinders service providers’ and broadcasters’ ability to generate additional revenue from advertisements, it also limits their ability to personalise and otherwise enhance the viewing experience.
Guided by these needs, Media Distillery has launched Ad Break Distillery. This solution automatically detects the beginning and end of ad breaks in live broadcast video and delivers time markers as actionable metadata.
With Ad Break Distillery, broadcasters and operators of video entertainment platforms can:
Every use case depends on the agreements between content owners and distributors, which may vary in different markets, regions and/or per content type.
Ad Break Distillery builds on the same core technology as EPG Correction Distillery™, Media Distillery’s market-leading product that detects a program’s true start and stop times, so that viewers have a VOD-like experience for catch-up and replay. EPG Correction Distillery today improves catch-up and replay experiences for over 1,000 channels across the globe.
“In today’s competitive media landscape every video platform can benefit from granular metadata to enhance the user experience and the potential for monetisation. However, our research shows that creating good metadata can be an expensive and lengthy process especially for super-aggregators attempting to create a more immersive and visual user experience,” says Ed Barton, Research Director, Caretta Research.
“We're seeing operators adopting Media Distillery's technology to ensure catch-up and replay time markers are correct, the right key frame images are extracted and time markers for ad breaks are accurate, creating ad replacement revenue potential for video distributors and improving the viewing experience for audiences,” Barton added.
Video service providers that carry many channels from different broadcasters and content owners face a particular challenge in delivering a consistent UX across all content when some broadcasters provide ad markers but others do not. Media Distillery invented Ad Break Distillery to enable providers to overcome this challenge, and give them the ability to provide a harmonious experience across all content.
“With the ad break markers we provide, video service providers are now enabled to do dynamic ad replacement, enforce trick play restrictions during ad breaks only, and deliver novel viewing experiences,” commented Roland Sars, CEO of Media Distillery.
Ad Break Distillery offers flexible integration options. Through AI-powered video analysis, Ad Break Distillery generates ad break markers that can be integrated directly into the video platform or delivered via integration with a video service’s existing EPG metadata provider.
March 14, 2023
