OTT going live

Live-event streaming is not new. Companies like Ustream and Livestream have been at it since 2007 and major sports leagues have been offering live streaming of out-of-market games for nearly as long.

But at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas video streaming service providers were clearly preparing for a major expansion in the breadth and volume of content broadcast over-the-top.

“It’s the fastest growing part of our business,” thePlatform’s senior VP of sales and marketing Marty Roberts told me. “The Super Bowl and the Sochi Olympics were really proofs points for a lot of people. There’s also a lot of interest coming from regional sports networks who want to offer their games online.”

Microsoft’s newly rebranded Azure Media Services (formerly Windows Media Services) also touted its live-streaming capabilties at NAB. Microsoft also announced a series of strategic partnerships with streaming service providers including Ooyala and iStreamPlanet to support its live-streaming push.

Verizon Digital Media Services, now bolstered by the acquisitions in 2013 of EdgeCast and UpLynk, is also preparing for a major expansion in the volume of live content streamed online. “Being able to do it at scale is obviously the key piece of it because the demand [for over-the-top access to live events] is insatiable,” VDMS’ chief revenue office Ralf Jacob said. Like thePlatform’s Roberts, Jacob also pointed to ability to insert targeted, online-only ads dynamically as a critical capability.