Agency Reporter’s live roundtable, in association with Limelight Networks, hosted experts to decipher the current challenges of live streaming in the news sector
Agency Reporter, in association with Limelight Networks, hosted a live roundtable discussion on 30th June 2021, on the topic, ‘Live News: The modern challenges of live streaming faced by news channels’.
The roundtable included an expert set of panelists from the media industry, namely, Sebabrata Banerjee, Head Digital- Odisha TV Network; Krishna Mandera, Deputy Chief Technology Officer- VTV Gujarati, and Owais Baba, Regional Head- Limelight Networks. The discussion was moderated by Rahul Puri, Editor- Agency Reporter.
The discussion took the form of quite an insightful conversation wherein the panelists took a deep dive into the challenges that live streaming presents in the current scenario.
The discussion began with the impact of modern technology on journalism in the country, especially with regard to the TV journalism industry. Sebabrata Banerjee shared his insights on how digital streaming technologies made audio-visual streaming to be possible and rather, easier than it was 5 years ago. The TV journalism industry began to be more conversational and personal in nature, as traditional news and conventional patterns changed.
He also added how startups in the industry have started to add more value to what digital streaming can offer as compared to the traditional players. And how TV channels are currently robustly integrating their digital and traditional newsrooms together.
Krishna Mandera then took the stage by discussing how the challenges have changed over the past few years. She talked about the audience’s need for receiving news as fast as possible and the biggest challenge that inaccurate information on social media poses, to news channels nowadays.
The discussion was taken further by Owais Baba who discussed the challenges of delays in live streaming leading to loss of audience and revenue of news channels. He discussed the new video streaming technologies that can help solve the problem by reducing latency and ensure a high-quality viewing experience.
The panelists then discussed the nature of complex modern technology and the problems that come along. While Sebabrata shared his insights on the lags that are more prevalent in live streaming of sports and gaming events; Krishna discussed how news channels need multiple and adequate bandwidth lines to ensure quality and speed of content.
Owais discussed the possible solutions to such problems, such as using the right CDN partner with integrated solutions. He also talked about the business benefits of utilizing such solutions which can also news channels help to improve monetization.
Further, the panelists reached a consensus about how news channels always need to have alternatives in place and a plan B for contingencies at every stage of live streaming. This needs to be put in place to ensure that the content plays well on all bandwidths and last-mile delivery of content is adequately dealt with.
The discussion ended with closing remarks from all the panelists with Sebabrata discussing the need for CDN service providers to offer solutions at a lower cost; Krishna discussed the need to adapt to the dynamic demand of the news consumers in India and Owais shared his insights on the importance and reliability of new and modern CDN platforms that are equipped with robust infrastructure, well-equipped staff to monitor and handle large-scale streaming of events.