Questions about the free ad-supported streaming TV services (FAST) model and concerns about AI will take the foreground at the many conference panel sessions and keynotes organized for this year’s MipTV.
If both are familiar subjects at the audiovisual market – as last year’s MipTV held a standing-room only FAST summit while the Mipcom “Unlocking AI” summit drew similar attention this past October – the interest they provoke reflects their topicality.
Held on Monday, this year’s Global FAST & AVOD Summit will accent the “Global” to explore ad-supported models from a more international perspective. Whereas 2023’s inaugural version focused primarily on the U.S. market, the returning focus now looks further afield with a focus on growth sectors overseas.
TVREV analyst (and coiner of the FAST acronym) Alan Wolk will moderate a cosmopolitan panel bringing together David Salmon (Tubi), Kasia Kieli (Warner Bros. Discovery Poland and TVN), Natalie Gabathuler-Scully (Vevo), Peyton Lombardo (3Vision), Robert Andrae (Google), Jennifer Batty (Samsung TVPlus EMEA) and Jordan Warkol (OTTera).
On the tech front, Google TV’s Faz Aftab and Vitrina AI CEO Atul Phadnis will present a content business strategies AI & Data session on Tuesday, ahead of the following day’s Tech and AI Innovation Summit, set to spotlight analysts Peter Robinson (Gone With) and Guy Bisson (Ampere Analysis), alongside media execs Tom Bowers (Hypothesis Media), Arash Pendari (Vionlabs AB) and Craig Peters (Getty Images).
“[AI will be] an important theme and motif of everything that happens in Cannes,” says AlixPartners managing director Mark Endemaño.
A Disney exec turned industry transformation expert, Endemaño will express concerns about AI in his MipTV opening keynote on Wednesday. “There’s no doubt that AI will take people’s jobs,” he says. “We’re seeing that already. The disruptive effect on the creative industries will be enormous.”
OpenAI’s recent introduction of the Sora text-to-video model – and CEO Sam Altman’s promise of a $7 trillion chipset investment – might account for change in tone between last October’s more genteelly-labeled summit and Endemaño’s upcoming address.
“Broadcasters and pay-TV platforms are already using machine learning for subtitling, audio descriptions, metadata, continuity announcements, multi channel content distribution, ingesting and output formats,” Endemaño explains. “In all such cases AI can cut costs and make those processes more efficient. only Sora is going to kick things up to the next level.”
“Up until now, the impact has mostly been on entry-level jobs and on junior levels of productions,” he says. “only Sora can take on things like stop motion, particularly in TV advertising. Those cheap and cheerful first uses will become more and more sophisticated over time, [reshaping the workflows for] things like concept art creation and previz.”
As for the FAST model, Endemaño sees cause for optimism as the wider industry dusts off older approaches and gives them a fresh coat of paint. Though he predicts widespread consolidation of most studio-backed streaming services, such a development could benefit both consumers and producers down the line.
“Consolidation will leave us with four or five key players,” Endemaño predicts. “[Leaving the] the studios to revert back to a way of getting their great content out in the most economically possible way, priced across windows, working with different distribution partners, whether that’s Netflix or Apple or Prime or Disney, or any pay-TV, free-TV or digital platform from around the world.”
“The truth of the matter is, content creators want their work to be seen by the biggest audience possible, and they like to be paid,” he continues. “And here, both the ad-supported model and bundling can help reach a much wider audience – and a scaled one at that.”
Fittingly, given this future forecast of more bundling, windowing and ads, the industry transformation expert has titled his opening address, “Back to the Future.”
