The advent of online streaming platforms has introduced personalised media consumption where every viewer can choose what they want to watch and when, where video recommendations and advertisements are customised based on each viewer’s profile. This feature is one of the reasons behind the decline in linear TV watching where the same content stream is offered to all viewers.
A particular pain point for linear TV are ad breaks which do not cater to the specific interest of each viewer and cannot be skipped, often causing viewers to change the channel. Due to the lack of mechanisms to support personalised ads, advertisers are increasingly turning to online media companies, which in turn puts the economic stability of broadcasters at risk.
The provision of linear TV on the internet – either through broadcasters’ websites and apps or internet-TV services such as Zatto – makes it possible to take advantage of content personalisation. In ReTV, we believe that is an unexplored opportunity that could benefit both the broadcasters and the advertisers.
The Content sWitch allows broadcasters to designate areas of their programming for on-demand personalisation. It enhances the linear TV experience by replacing certain parts with alternatives tailored for each viewer. The possible applications are:
- Replacing ads with targeted ads
- Replacing ads with promos trailers for shows
- Replacing ads with other, relevant content like the weather forecast
Content sWitch tool uses Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) technology to recommend suitable content for each viewer based on their viewing history within a live TV stream. This is made possible through metadata in the live stream that indicates upcoming ads and their length – something that is often done by embedding SCTE-35 markers. Based on the length of the break and the interests of the user, Content sWitch can select the most relevant content to insert in real-time.
It should be noted that the wider adoption of this approach is currently constrained by technological limitations. Inserting an ad in a live TV stream requires tight integration with a performant video streaming engine.
In the demo video below, you can see how Content sWitch offers different content to different viewers. Each screen represents a view that different users would get based on their viewing history.
In the demo video below, you can see how Content sWitch offers different content to different viewers. Each screen represents a view that different users would get based on their viewing history.
When advertising other TV shows on their channel, broadcasters can either manually prepare short clips to be inserted (e.g. an expert from the news programme with today’s weather report) or use ReTV’s video summarisation technologies to automatically edit long-form content into a clip of the desired length.
Viewers can also interact with the ads – click on them to see more information about the upcoming programmes or be redirected to advertisers’ websites.
Such a personalised TV stream is much more attractive to advertisers as it offers targeted advertising opportunities with higher impact. For viewers, this means more compelling and engaging experiences.
