Amagi and WideOrbit Team Up to Enable Seamless Broadcast Transition to OTT and CTV

Amagi and WideOrbit have partnered to enable dynamic ad decisioning and insertion in live stream TV. Together, Amagi and WideOrbit will empower broadcasters to leverage existing linear workflows for digital streaming via OTT (over-the-top) and CTV (connected TV), allowing them to converge broadcast ad breaks with the power of digital ad insertion. Specifically, the ad server within WideOrbit’s Digital Suite and Amagi’s THUNDERSTORM technology allows local TV broadcasters to dynamically insert ads into livestreams within their existing broadcast infrastructure.

“This partnership brings together Amagi’s expertise in streaming and OTT with WideOrbit’s expertise in linear broadcast TV,” says Amagi co-founder Srinivasan KA.  “We’re providing the best of both worlds to local TV broadcasters as they move into streaming via OTT and CTV.”

Amagi’s patented “fingerprint” technology allows WideOrbit to address the absence of cue tones (or SCTE markers) to indicate ad breaks in broadcasters’ live newscasts and other livestreams. This technology, based on advanced machine learning, identifies ad breaks, then communicates with the WideOrbit ad server to indicate the ad break duration and other targeting parameters, so the server knows exactly where the ad should be inserted. This enables WideOrbit to provide targeted, broadcast-TV quality ads which are stitched into OTT and CTV streams by Amagi’s THUNDERSTORM Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) solution. WideOrbit’s Digital Suite, which includes WO Steaming and WO Ad eXchange, also allows broadcasters to schedule ads, target ads, and leverage our programmatic ad exchange to maximize the value of any unsold inventory opportunities.