Overview

The following questions are intended to help stakeholders involved in an SSAI setup define all requirements and successfully launch an ad-insertion deployment with Nowtilus. While not all questions directly impact the technical feasibility of server-side ad insertion, they are relevant for understanding and adapting the underlying over-the-top (OTT) acquisition and streaming workflow for live-linear content,for example, to ensure ad markers are inserted correctly.

Questions for Broadcasters

1. What kinds of programs do you broadcast, such as live sports, movies and TV shows, special interests, niche themes, or other?
2. Do you reach large audiences associated with live sports and event television?
3. What is your current ratio between program content and advertising on an average, daily, and hourly basis?
4. Do you have any legal restrictions regarding ad replacement of your programs when distributed OTT?
5. What are the market share, average viewers, and peak viewers of your programs in your home territory?
6. Do you currently stream your programs via an OTT setup, for example, to iOS or Android mobile devices)?
7. What is the reach of your programs via OTT live streaming (average and peak viewers)?
8. Are your source feeds DRM-encrypted? If so, which encryption is used?
9. Do you offer Catchup TV or DVR for your programs? If so, is ad insertion intended to support these services?
10. Do you have exclusive ad-serving deals with Sell-Side Platforms (SSPs), or do you operate your own technical ad server?
11. Where are your broadcast feeds available for acquisition? Are direct IP feeds available at your own location or at a third-party TV headend?
12. Do you require DRM protection for your live-linear channels and VoD catch-up content when distributed and streamed OTT?
13. Do you provide SCTE-35 ad markers to signal ad breaks in your broadcast feed?
14. If SCTE-35 is not provided in your source feeds, are there alternative ad-signaling methods you support and can make available to Nowtilus as a third-party ad-insertion vendor?
15. Would you allow complete ad blocks for ad replacement, or only dedicated ad pods within an ad break?
16. Do you have any limitations regarding the lengths of advertising breaks in your programs?
17. Do you have a POIS system we need to interface with to provide ad-insertion allowances for certain campaigns?
18. Once in BAU (business as usual) operations, can you provide source assets of ad campaigns that you are currently broadcasting? ⓘ Note: Reference assets of ad campaigns can be utilized by our ad-recognition service to determine whether ads are enabled or disabled for ad replacement.

Questions for Service Providers and TV Platform Operators

1. Do you plan to support ad targeting?
2. Do you have an existing ad-serving or Sell-Side Platform (SSP) in place to serve ad campaigns into your content inventory?
3. Do you require DRM protection for your live-linear and VoD catch-up content when distributed and streamed OTT?
4. Do you have a Data Management Platform (DMP) and Customer Data Platform (CDP) in place? These are required to enable ad targeting and programmatic advertising. They allow decisions on individual impressions based on audience and/or optimization goals, such as audience targeting or segmentation.
5. Where do you currently acquire your linear TV feeds?
6. Are the TV feeds of the channels you distribute available in MPEG-TS/SPTS or already in HLS and DASH ABR format?
7. Do you manage your live-streaming pipeline (encoding, packaging, origin, CDN) in-house with third-party components, or is it outsourced as a managed service? Please provide details of your current workflow.
8. Which streaming formats do you require (DASH, HLS)?
9. Do you plan to do ad replacement in live-linear streams and/or ad stitching in VoD catch-up content? Please describe your intended use cases in detail.
10. Do your broadcast partners provide SCTE-35 ad signaling in their linear TV feeds?