Mid-Year Review I: The Trends Taking 2024 By Storm

2024: Our Takeaways So Far

The halfway mark of 2024 is already upon us, and with IBC just around the corner – it’s time for us to look at how some of the predicted trends have performed so far this year. Unsurprisingly, 2024 started with some big goals and ambitions, and the industry has seen some unprecedented shifts and developments in almost every corner.

Following NAB LV 2024; we noticed a few key trends that are taking the industry by storm and a few that are yet to shine – so we wanted to share our thoughts at this halfway point in the year. In this blog, we will look at how 2024 has shaped up so far, and what we predict will be the key things to watch out for during the rest of 2024.

More personalized advertising will be needed

One of the biggest discussion topics in 2024 has been advertising. Many video providers are beginning to realize that to successfully thrive in this new ad-based landscape, they need to make a permanent shift, focusing on user experience and viewer engagement as well as meeting the needs of advertisers. With many developments in ad-tech already demonstrating the massive shift in this area, ad-optimization will need to be addressed in new and inventive ways if broadcasters and media providers want to continue to prosper as they have in the past.

Not only will personalization need to be considered in this new era of advertising, but the opportunity for contextual advertising will also need to be taken into consideration. As advertising shifts its focus towards consumer engagement and contextual-based advertising delivery, media providers will be faced with the challenge of keeping content relevant and providing higher-quality, lower latency and higher bandwidth content to keep up with ever-increasing consumer demand.

Increased AI in Ad Insertion and Administration

NAB 2024 and other events have already showed us the unimaginable possibilities AI portents for the future of the media and entertainment industry, but one space where it will likely thrive even further still is in ad-insertion and content creation.

AI has proven that it can successfully improve content creation, helping in tedious and mundane tasks to make space for more innovation and creativity. Our observation of AI’s likely increased use in ad-insertion continues at a pace with the development of more automation and generative ways of using the technology from content generation and automated decision making, to analytics monitoring and scheduling assistance. As ad-tech continues to evolve with more ways that lessen interruption of the live feed it is likely AI will have a role to play here too.

Another area where AI will undoubtably thrive for the remainder of 2024 and beyond is in company administration – eventually developing to handle issues such as budgeting, file administration and everyday maintenance of workflows and teams. AI really begins to shine where tedious, mundane tasks dominate, and this is the main area where AI will be a life changing tool for so many in the media and entertainment industry. With AI taking the role of administrator, this frees up available talent and resources for bigger projects and creative innovation, shining new hope on the future of content delivery, development and creation. It is becoming abundantly clear that AI will exist in our industry as a helping hand for years to come, offering services that many professionals originally believed it could not.

What To Watch Out For

2024 has already been a rollercoaster of a year, with so much unprecedented change and development happening within the industry. By far the most impactful trend the industry has seen is the rise of AI, with personalized, contextual based advertising having the potential for the most immediate impact. While still in their early stages, both should continue to grow to become commonplace for our industry, with many alterations already being made to workflows and systems worldwide to adopt.

However, there are a few other significant trends worth the cut that you don’t want to miss. Keep an eye out for the second half of our halfway blog coming soon, where we will take a deep dive into some more of the most newsworthy trends happening in 2024, and our thoughts on what to watch out for as we end 2024 and start 2025.