Exclusives

The spring edition of the “M&E Journal,” published by MESA and geared toward senior media and entertainment executives who oversee their companies’ digital futures, is now available online.

The 118-page publication features insights from nearly two dozen MESA members, from Atos to ZOO Digital, with the issue’s main focus centered on media and entertainment’s future with the metaverse and virtual production.

Along with the cover section — “Charting the Metaverse” — the issue offers industry insights for several crucial industry areas, including “Workflows and the Cloud,” “Smart Content,” and “Security Solutions.” Additionally, the “M&E Journal” also features columns from MESA’s executive leadership.

Here’s a quick look at what’s included in the “Smart Content” section:

• “Advanced Analytics: Unlocking Data’s Full Potential” by Trent Wheeler, SVP of product for Gracenote. For M&E enterprises today, data abounds. From the “what” captured in descriptive metadata around content to the “who” characterized in audience profile data down to the “how many” quantified by viewership data, this asset is more than plentiful. But data abundance begs a natural question: Are players pulling together data effectively to meet lofty business goals? This piece examines the role of data as fuel for advanced analytics and the next generation of offerings which unlock data’s full potential to help inform decision-making.

• “AI in Broadcast News” by Ed Hauber, business development for Digital Nirvana. The typical large broadcast news operation ingests an avalanche of content every day. All of it must be filtered and evaluated to determine which news items, illustrated by which video clips, will be presented to viewers. It’s a costly and time-consuming job performed by large and dedicated teams who spend their days manually reviewing entire video clips and describing the content, which producers and editors must access later to cut into finished news segments. Here we examine the challenges and describe the role of leading-edge solutions that use AI and machine learning to automatically create accurate transcripts and intelligent metadata in real time.

• “Looking to Old Ways to Unlock New Value” by Nihaar Sinha, business development for RSG Media. Cost-plus streaming deals seemed to render ultimates models obsolete. But for streaming to match legacy distribution’s profitability, studios may again rely on ancillary revenues. And in today’s hyper-paced digital merch world of the metaverse and NFTs, it will take machine learning to unlock the full potential of what studios own.

• “The Only Constant in the Content Industry is Change” by James Maysonet, VP of global media and entertainment, and Alli Onni, MSC, organizational change management practice director, with invenioLSI. “No data system will ever be perfect with human behavior presenting the biggest security risk,” said Dr. Eric Haseltine, chairman of the board for the U.S. Technology Leadership Council. This comment has a deeper meaning when you look across the technology landscape at any film studio, production house, or streamer. Between all the AI, technology engineering, and ERPs it is the human involvement that will make a break a company’s ability to transform, innovate, and scale. Implementing, upgrading, or enhancing an ERP system all starts with Organizational Change management assessment if you want adoption.

Beginning Monday, June 27, look for stories from the spring edition of the “M+E Journal” every week in the “M+E Daily” newsletter.