"Television streaming" grew sharply in the second quarter of 2018, according to the latest report from media research analyst Conviva. While growth in streaming is not a surprise for any media business with decent reporting and analysis software, the quick rise in the time period, coupled with such a huge bump in apps vs browsers, might raise more than a few eyebrows.
Sports appeared to be a significant factor, given that Word Cup and NBA Western Finals viewing hours rose 115% to 5.52 billion and the number of plays rose 102% to 17.2 billion. Peak concurrent plays were up 118% to 8 million during the World Cup. Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals had 5.3 million concurrent plays.
Convivia’s quarterly report pointed out that “these spikes demonstrate that sports continue to drive ‘appointment TV’ – even in the streaming TV space. They create opportunities, but they also create massive load on the video delivery ecosystem, which much continue to improve in order to meet growing demand."
Zixi’s media customers are some of the biggest broadcast businesses in the world, and they are seeing the kind of streaming growth Convivia’s research is finding across the marketplace. It has been clear for some time that IP-based networks are becoming a primary source of video contribution and distribution.
It is vital that media businesses take advantage of Zixi’s decade-long dedication to optimizing IP-networks for video – especially when that video content is a live stream event. Zixi’s recent uptick from five to six-nines of QoS service may sound like splitting hairs, but if you’re streaming hundreds of channels around the world with millions of dollars in revenue at stake, you know how important 99.9999% of uptime becomes during the world’s most high demand events.
The Zixi Platform has excelled in live transcoding, hitless failover, adaptive bitrates, and best-in-class security for more than a decade. With more than 250 media businesses depending on our software, rest assured Zixi dedicated R&D engineers will continue to push past today’s limits in IP-networks to provide the best live linear and live event streaming experiences for viewers around the world.
If you’re not 100% sure of the quality of streaming platform you depend on in your growing IP-based business,
check out Zixi’s ZEN Master software to experience the confidence of comprehensive live and live linear reporting and monitoring
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We look forward to exceeding your expectations.
