Byron Allen’s quickly expanding Allen Media Group has made a multi-platform deal with digital giant Google to use the Google Cloud as its data infrastructure and carry The Weather Channel and other networks on Google’s YouTube TV.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Allen has described Allen Media Group as a “digital first company.”

Using the Google Cloud, with its data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, will give Allen Media Group better connections and relationships with its audiences and enable it to build apps faster and make smarter business decisions, the companies said.

Also: Byron Allen’s New Digital Division Launches Streaming Sports.TV

Allen’s The Weather Channel is expected to be the first of Allen’s networks to added to YouTube TV. Other networks are also expected to be added in 2022. Google will also work with Allen to bring Allen’s streaming offerings to more devices via Google Play, Google TV and Android TV, in addition to Android phones.

Also: Univision in Long-Term Cloud Deal with Google

“All of our Allen Media Group properties are growing at an unprecedented rate, and our partnership with Google is a key step in our continued global transformation," said Byron Allen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Allen Media Group. “By leveraging Google's technology, distribution, marketing, ad sales platforms, enormous capital support, and expertise, Allen Media Group will seamlessly build and enhance our reach and revenue worldwide."

The ability to handle, analyze and act on data is becoming increasingly important to media companies, especially as more viewers select digital options to consume content. 

Also: MadHive To Spend $100 Million To Expand Google Cloud Usage

“Allen Media Group’s vast portfolio of properties represents a tremendous opportunity to engage audiences worldwide,” said Don Harrison, president of global partnerships, Google. “We’re thrilled to partner with Allen Media Group to offer Google’s secure technology solutions, data analytics and distribution platforms as it continues to transform its business digitally and connect with more viewers globally.” ■

Ad-tech company MadHive said it is committed to spending $100 million over the next six years on Google Cloud storage, data science and data processing because business is booming.

Last year, MadHive made a commitment to spend $50 million on Google Cloud based infrastructure. Madhive works with Google implementation partner SADA to utilize the cloud technology.

MadHive’s original business, helping local TV stations extend the reach of broadcast ad campaigns with targeted over-the top ads. Station owners have signed on, including Fox, Hearst Television, E.W. Scripps and Tegna’s Premion advanced advertising unit.

The company said that it is also working for direct-to-consumer brands like Macafee that are moving marketing dollars from digital and social media into TV. Revenue is growing 100% year over year, the company said.,

Also Read: MadHive First To License Panel Data from HyphaMetrics

“Over the past year, MadHive has been in a period of hyper-growth as broadcasters and brands adopt our technology to power their cross-channel advertising efforts,” said Adam Helfgott, CEO at MadHive. “This increased investment in SADA and Google Cloud will allow MadHive to create an even stronger infrastructure that allows for lightning-speed insights and campaign optimizations, while solving widespread industry problems like fraud, transparency, privacy and interoperability for our clients.”

Also Read: Talon, MadHive Connect OTT and Digital Outdoor Advertising

In addition to storage, Google and SADA provide Madhive with sophisticated data science and off-the-shelf machine-learning capabilities, Christiana Cacciapuoti, senior VP for marketing & innovation at Madhive.

“We can leverage those off-the-shelf products to build proprietary offerings on top of them,” Cacciapuoti said. Those products include systems that automatically optimize campaign and allocate ad dollars toward higher-performing publishers.

It’s not enough to be able to store a lake’s worth of data Sophisticated data science is needed to be able to pull up that data and process it so it can show up in client dashboards in milliseconds, she said. “The data needs to be at our customers’ fingertips. They need to be able to slice and dice their data however they want to see it. And that actually gets really hard when you have billions and billions of rows of data,” Cacciapuoti said.

MadHive said that working with SADA has helped it save 60% on Google Cloud service by building more efficient systems.

“Our extensive expertise in scaling Google Cloud operations will allow MadHive to spend its time more effectively researching, iterating and deploying technology that is revolutionizing the advertising industry,” said Tony Safoian, CEO of SADA. “Our team of cloud experts support MadHive with everything from implementation and scaling to cost optimization, security and problem solving with Google Cloud engineers.”

From the explosion of new programming to the launch of high-profile streaming services, 2020 was on track to be a transformational year in media and entertainment. 

But at the same time, the industry fully expected many of its foundational elements—windowing strategies, live events, production standards—to remain unchanged.

All that shifted with COVID-19. Suddenly, the future came early, with many media companies facing difficult challenges like accelerating and evolving direct-to-consumer business models while at the same time keeping workers and productions physically distanced.

As companies transition from short-term response to long-term planning, many are contemplating how differently the industry might look in the months and years to come. To navigate this change, organizations must keep new audience behaviors top of mind as well as embrace cloud computing to drive changes in three key areas:

1. Scale new monetization channels and engage audiences through data 

As audiences remained stuck at home during the pandemic’s early stages, linear viewing saw a temporary increase in consumption—driven by specific formats such as news. But that consumption returned to pre-lockdown levels as restrictions were lifted in certain regions.

By contrast, many streaming subscription services saw consistent increased adoption. In fact, nine percent of U.S. households took up a new SVOD service in Q2 2020. The surge in streaming consumption seems to be more resilient than its linear counterpart, as U.S. time spent with streaming services in June 2020 was roughly 50 percent above its 2019 level. 

In contrast to the Pay TV bundle, today’s streaming audiences have access to much more choice and freedom in their entertainment options. These viewers have shown both a preference to stack multiple services—and a higher propensity to churn. As the pandemic affects discretionary spending across the world, audiences will look to save on entertainment costs, making SVOD services more attractive than traditional Pay TV bundles, as well as driving an increased adoption of AVOD services. 

As a result, media organizations must reassess how to streamline existing broadcast operations and costs. They must invest in building technology platforms that can handle unpredictable streaming demand seamlessly, while also deriving deeper audience insights from their data in order to drive audience engagement, retention, and monetization. For example, leading British broadcaster ITV  built a video analytics solution on cloud infrastructure to better monitor events on their VOD service, ITV Hub.

2. Produce new content remotely and maximize the value of library content

While distribution channels may change, content still remains the industry’s crown jewel. Content breadth, exclusivity, and original content are some of the top reasons that audiences adopt streaming services. That’s why maximizing the value of both library and new content has never been more critical.

Content production has also been disrupted by the pandemic. Physical productions have paused across the world, only slowly starting to resume once again. And for content that has made it through the complex post-production process, the global shuttering of theatrical exhibition has forced many blockbuster titles to debut on streaming services—radically altering windowing strategies and the economic models that come with it. 

Media companies have resorted to boundless creative strategies to keep content production lines open. Formats that can be created remotely such as animation are experiencing a boom, and live events such as news and sports have established new remote working processes in record time.

Content production has been on the rise for years, but the temporary halt in production has been a silver lining for media companies; this pause has presented an opportunity to step back and implement more digital, collaborative, streamlined, and global production and management processes, supported by the cloud. Whether it’s streaming old sports games or enticing new users with hundreds of hours of free programming, the pandemic has accelerated the digitization and enrichment of extensive back catalogs and archives, to help fill the content gap. 

3. Reimagine the workplace for the future of productivity

Finally, the biggest challenge many companies and industries face has been the shift to remote work. Yahoo Finance utilized video conferencing solutions to keep its broadcast team’s content flowing and audiences engaged. 150 of Yahoo Finance’s editors, reporters, and anchors used Google Meet to deliver news and video streams on air from locations across the U.S. and London to tens of millions of viewers live, transitioning to a 100 percent remote broadcast model overnight.

As the industry navigates a new working norm, many media company offices will require thoughtful consideration of which tasks can be automated or done remotely, and exactly how much real estate is required to maintain operations.

Decisions are likely to be different by functions. Post-production staff, visual effects artists, and video editors can utilize virtual workstations and editing applications to complete their work remotely, while central teams such as finance, sales, and marketing can utilize video conferencing services to stay connected no matter where they are. But some essential personnel—lightweight studio production teams and on- prem playout teams—will need to still come into the office.

Continued innovation in the face of unprecedented change

This year has been one of unexpected and accelerated change for all, but the ingenuity, innovation, and determination of media companies to continue delivering critical news, information, and entertainment to audiences across the world has been extraordinary. Cloud technologies can help the media industry continue to innovate in the face of unprecedented challenges. 

Ad tech company MadHive said it will spend $50 million with SADA to expand Madhive’s use of the Google Cloud as a platform for its over-the-top advertising solutions.

SADA, a Google Cloud Premier Partner, is providing technology management and support for MadHive, which said using the Google Cloud is less costly and easier to use for clients.

MadHive uses cryptography, blockchain and artificial intelligence for its media platform and needed a platform that could handle big data while supporting low latency, multiple interactions and a short go-to-market timeline.

“This made Google Cloud the perfect -- and only -- environment for MadHive to deploy our unique streaming data pipeline. It’s provided our media buyers and publishers the platform to discover optimizations and targeting within a time window and scale of data that is not possible from other vendors,” said Aaron Brown, chief scientist at MadHive. “SADA has been instrumental in helping us through even our most nuanced and sophisticated technical needs. With their help, we move from research to deployment, sometimes within the very same day.”

MadHive’s advertising solution was first deployed on the Google Cloud platform in 2017 with help from SADA. MadHive said that deployment is responding well to traffic surges, while maintaining low latency and high availability for users.

The company said it is saving 60% on cloud services working with the Google Cloud because of more efficient scaling and optimized reads and writes.

“MadHive is building a foundation for the future on Google Cloud,” said Carolee Gearhart, VP, Worldwide Channel Sales at Google Cloud. “We’re delighted that SADA will support MadHive’s migration to Google Cloud and help them leverage Google Cloud’s capabilities in AI, ML, analytics, and infrastructure.”

With its focus on OTT for major network groups, MadHIve is seeing increased uses of its platform, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Given the current economic challenges, advertisers are eager to stretch every dollar,” said Adam Helfgott, CEO of MadHive. “Tools like sophisticated cross-screen planning and precision targeting will be a critical part of that effort.”

SADA offers services including enterprise consulting, cloud platform migration, custom application development, workplace migration, cloud managed services and change management.

“MadHive’s decision to standardize on Google Cloud demonstrates why Google Cloud is the perfect platform for forward-thinking companies,” said Tony Safoian, CEO of SADA. “The company has incredibly aggressive technology, compute power and system performance needs, and a mandate to become the world’s leading ad-tech firm. They’ve spent the past three years pushing the limits on Google Cloud and having seen a clear ROI, they’re doubling down. We’re excited to support MadHive and like-minded digital-first companies in their mission to make Google Cloud the foundation of their business.”

Video software-as-a-service provider Synamedia has announced a new partnership with Google Cloud that it says will improve video streaming latency for clients to levels seen in broadcast television.

London-based Synamedia will leverage Google Kubernetes Engine, an enterprise-grade platform for containerized applications, to enable customers to scale as they grow with an end-to-end automation pipeline that can ramp up media processing workflows in minutes and recover from disasters more quickly. This video network “as-a-service” offering unifies previously siloed workflows on one platform, making operations more seamless and deployment faster.

Visit Next TV to read more stories like this one. 

Synamedia said its solution for live linear video delivery, combined with Google Cloud’s best-low latency network, can achieve times for content ingest to OTT device delivery in the range of five to seven seconds, roughly equivalent to what broadcast delivers.

Related: Synamedia CEO Yves Padrines on Password Sharing, Targeted Linear Advertising and the ‘New Bundle’

“As the live TV landscape shifts toward OTT delivery, the industry needs technology that matches what viewers have become accustomed to with premium digital TV services,” said Julien Signes, senior VP and GM of video network for Synamedia, in a statement. “Thanks to our partnership with Google Cloud, we are enabling the Infinite Entertainment viewers expect, without delay and with the highest quality.”

Added Anil Jain, managing director of media and entertainment industry solutions at Google Cloud: “By delivering Synamedia’s portfolio of OTT solutions, running as a service on Google Cloud, we can deliver high-uptime, low-latency, and scalable video services to businesses around the world.”

Video software-as-a-service provider Synamedia has announced a new partnership with Google Cloud that it says will improve video streaming latency for clients to levels seen in broadcast television.

London-based Synamedia will leverage Google Kubernetes Engine, an enterprise-grade platform for containerized applications, to enable customers to scale as they grow with an end-to-end automation pipeline that can ramp up media processing workflows in minutes and recover from disasters more quickly. This video network “as-a-service” offering unifies previously siloed workflows on one platform, making operations more seamless and deployment faster.

Also read: Synamedia CEO Yves Padrines on Password Sharing, Targeted Linear Advertising and the ‘New Bundle’

Synamedia said its solution for live linear video delivery, combined with Google Cloud’s best-low latency network, can achieve times for content ingest to OTT device delivery in the range of five to seven seconds, roughly equivalent to what broadcast delivers. 

“As the live TV landscape shifts toward OTT delivery, the industry needs technology that matches what viewers have become accustomed to with premium digital TV services,” said Julien Signes, senior VP and GM of video network for Synamedia, in a statement. “Thanks to our partnership with Google Cloud, we are enabling the Infinite Entertainment viewers expect, without delay and with the highest quality.”

Added Anil Jain, managing director of media and entertainment industry solutions at Google Cloud: “By delivering Synamedia’s portfolio of OTT solutions, running as a service on Google Cloud, we can deliver high-uptime, low-latency, and scalable video services to businesses around the world.”