NATPE taps Charles Weiss as head of business development heading into NATPE Miami 2019

December 5, 2018 Robert Brownlie
Former Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News Publisher Brings Years of industry Experience and Expert Knowledge to the Organization The National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) announced today the appointment of Charles Weiss...

Bob Gold & Associates Receives 2018 Global Leader Award on Clutch

November 30, 2018 BG&A Staff
Since our company’s start in 1997, we have consistently delivered powerful results through strategies that reflect our unparalleled connections and industry insights. For years, we have been recognized for our strategic thinking and our expertise across all areas of communications in industries as varied as cable TV, programming networks, sports, telecommunications, technology, real estate and health care. To continue growing our clientele and our brand, we partnered with Clutch.co this year. Clutch is a business-to-business ratings and reviews firm in Washington, DC.   After being with Clutch for only a short period of time, we have received five incredible reviews by our clients, earning us a 5 star rating! Our clients have shared some incredibly kind comments, like: “They did a great job introducing our company to the world.” – Founder & CEO, Global Net Solutions “[Bob Gold & Associates] provides a good product, a good profit, and good process management.” – Executive Director & Founder, MESA “They’re the best firm we’ve ever worked with.” – Chief Marketing Officer, Viamedia   Because of our positive client reviews and our strong market presence evaluation, we’re ranked on Clutch as the number one PR firm in Los Angeles, we’re listed on their sister-site The Manifest amongst the top 100 PR firms worldwide, and we’ve joined the elite Clutch 1000, which is a new award rolled out this year that highlights the best agencies on Clutch regardless of industry.   We can very confidently say that 2018 has been a great year, and we’re very grateful to our business partners and supporters over the years who have helped Bob Gold & Associates get to where it is today. Public relations firms have always been an integral part of running a successful business, and it’s only becoming even more important for brands to maintain a solid reputation in today’s digital age. As we continue to grow as a company and as we accomplish new goals, we are excited for the projects that we’re working on now and for the new projects that will come our way in 2019. Reach out to us today to get started!

Ooyala Powers Content Management, Syndication and Delivery for Turner Asia Pacific

June 29, 2018 Robert Brownlie
Ooyala Flex Media Platform Helps Turner Automate and Orchestrate Workflows, Reducing Content Processing Time by 85% Ooyala is powering content syndication for Turner Asia Pacific with the Ooyala Flex Media Platform, a flexible and configurable content supply chain optimization platform that automates tasks, simplifies workflows and speeds up the time to market for Turner. With increasingly complex content formats and requirements, Turner’s technology and operations team needed a single platform to power their syndication workflows. Turner required greater visibility into campaigns and projects in order to manage, add and deliver content to new and existing partners quickly, and expand revenue opportunities. The Flex Media Platform manages all campaigns, content, metadata and business rules, providing Turner with complete visibility into its operations, reducing manual tasks, saving time and freeing up resources. With the solution deployed in the cloud, Turner’s operation teams across the Asia Pacific region have seamless access and control anytime, anywhere. “Our syndication business in the Asia Pacific region is both fast-changing and complex, requiring us to get content to our partners quickly and efficiently,” said James Crossland, Turner International’s Regional Vice President of Technology & Operations. “The Ooyala Flex Media Platform, with its flexibility and strong orchestration capabilities, allows our team to configure workflows according to our business rules and automate manual processes to reduce repetition and unnecessary delays.” “Television companies today are dealing with accelerating complexities and time pressures in delivering content,” said Jonathan Huberman, CEO, Ooyala. “We are delighted to partner with Turner, to streamline their media operations with the Ooyala Flex Media Platform, and to bring them cost savings and efficiencies. Together, we’re expanding their business with the same resources while increasing revenue from their partners.” Ooyala, a leading provider of software and services that simplify the complexity of producing, streaming and monetizing video, developed the Flex Media Platform to connect the entire video content supply chain for broadcasters and content owners, from production to profit. The Flex Media Platform provides central workflows, shared metadata infrastructure and open APIs to integrate with existing systems and to provide a single source of truth for the content owners. For Turner, the Ooyala Flex Media Platform keeps track of content that has been processed and archived so that newly on-boarded licensees can immediately receive content from Turner’s existing catalogue. This provides not only greater visibility, but also opportunities for rapid expansion. “To be ready for tomorrow’s media and entertainment world, we must be agile and adaptable. We expect our technology solutions to be future-proof and scalable,” added Crossland.

Ooyala Adds VR360, HEVC Streaming And More To Flex Media Platform With Updates To Its Digital Video Playout Solutions

June 29, 2018 Robert Brownlie
Greater Bandwidth Efficiency and Immersive Viewing Complement New Capabilities Designed to Meet Today’s Video Marketplace Needs Ooyala today announced a suite of new capabilities and features for OoyalaLIVE, its application for effortless creation, management, delivery and monetization of live streamed events and linear TV channels on any device. Among other developments, Ooyala’s Digital Video Playout solution now enables the Ooyala Flex Media Platform to support VR360 content. Exhilarating immersive experiences for viewers are now possible, including live streaming with OoyalaLIVE, VOD content with OoyalaADAPT and playback support on all major platforms and devices leveraging OoyalaPLAY, Ooyala’s video player. The open and extensible Ooyala Flex Media Platform allows media companies to better optimize the content supply chain with customizable workflows, seamless integration of third party tools and a common data set across the entire video operation. “We are at the forefront of our industry, recently providing the workflow infrastructure for the VR360 experiences of the 2018 Winter Olympics as well as high quality and low bandwidth HEVC streaming solutions,” said Jonathan Huberman, CEO, Ooyala. “Providing the best live video experience is a major part of our mission, and we’re leveraging best-of-breed Ooyala Flex Media Platform solutions to realize that objective for our customers.” The new features include: Multi-audio: The ability to deliver multiple audio streams in a single player, enabling multiple language tracks, additional audio commentary, or even audio description for the visually impaired, both for live streaming and VOD content. HEVC Streaming: The addition of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2 offers approximately 30% bitrate and bandwidth savings, enabling users to reduce bandwidth costs or deliver higher quality for the same bitrate – and making 4K delivery a reality for more consumers. VR360 Support: Ooyala’s Digital Video Playout solution supports the ability to stream, upload, store and play VR360 content, offering viewers an immersive experience, live and VOD, in both monoscopic and stereoscopic formats. Enhanced Live Clipping: Building on OoyalaLIVE’s existing capabilities users can now open live streams in OoyalaMAM to clip up VOD assets and highlights during live events, with timed markers and rich metadata. Leveraging the Ooyala Flex Media Platform, it is now easier than ever to automate syndication workflows for VOD assets, orchestrating distribution to multiple platforms with a single button-click, saving manual steps and reaching eyeballs faster. Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI): Support for Google DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) brings monetization opportunities to DFP subscribers. SCTE-35 markers are now supported providing frame-accurate and unique, per-user localized frame-accurate ad insertion. The latest Digital Video Playout updates follow a combination of late 2017 updates, including real-time monitoring, improved support, and back-up systems and scheduling tools, collectively offering content providers a 99.95% uptime for their video streams. Ooyala’s Digital Video Playout solution has been designed with a focus on ease of use to help broadcasters and other TV and video content providers, operators and online media publishers reach and monetize their audiences with high-quality and highly reliable live streams. The integrated solution provides all the advantages of the Ooyala video platform, including content management; analytics; monetization; publishing; and player management for channels, events and live-to-VOD recordings. Ooyala will showcase these new features as part of the Ooyala Flex Media Platform at Broadcast Asia, Singapore, June 26-28, and the MESA Media & Entertainment Day at the Microsoft Tech Center, New York, July 24.

Video Highlights from NAB 2017 Breakfast Panel with Cisco at IBC: IP, OTT, OMG!

April 11, 2017 Robert Brownlie
Content owners, distributors and creators gathered for an important thought leadership breakfast on Tuesday, April 25th at NAB to discuss the rapidly evolving media and broadcast landscapes. The breakfast addressed many of the complex questions facing content owners and end users in the evolving digital media ecosystem for delivering interactive, anyscreen experiences.Cisco and its technology partners, including Intel, Grass Valley and Presidio, were joined by the chair of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council, for a panel discussion “IP, OTT, OMG!” which featured many of the innovative challenges which must be addressed by the industry in the next five to 10 years, including: Tipping the scale: How do you easily scale digital distribution of live and premium content?IP for Anyscreen TV: Broadcast video functions and processes are shifting to IP and cloud/virtualization; What does the optimized future supply chain across the ecosystem (production to distribution) look like? How does it open up more revenue sources?Managing Expectations: How do media companies manage expectations for next gen technologies including Ultra HD and Virtual Reality? Watch the video below to see and hear what they had to say. Also available on FierceVideo here - https://www.fiercevideo.com/sponsored/ip-ott-omg-cisco-partners-nab-thought-leadership-breakfast 

Rise of the Machines: Artificial Intelligence Marches Forward – Cablefax

April 5, 2018 Bob Gold
Elon Musk warned of its unchecked dangers at SXSW. Fox is piloting AI-focused game show “Man Vs. Robot.” But whether on the backend or consumer-facing front, artificial intelligence is making its way to prime time. ZoneTV, a company with partners including Microsoft, this summer will launch a package of 14 AI-powered “dynamic channels” in North America. But CEO Jeff Weber tells  CFX  the channels —including Foodies, Great Outdoors, Playground and Styler —will augment the core linear experience and serve as a complement, not competitor, to existing pay TV distributors. “We believe in pay TV, we are a friend of pay TV. We think there’s a lot of opportunity here, yet they need to evolve,” he says. With a library of some 70K licensed or acquired shows in place, ZoneTV has deals with an operator in both North America as well as parts of Europe to personalize the viewing experience similar to the way Spotify customizes audio—all using existing set tops and hardware. “Linear, by definition, is static… but we reprogram the channels based on the metadata of what you’re watching and enjoying,” Weber says. Meanwhile, Comcast is leveraging AI across several areas including X1, IoT, customer experience and network performance and “working on AI- and machine-learning-powered experiences in a number of stages of development from experimental to fully deployed,” Jeanine Heck, vp, AI product, told  CFX . That includes the X1 voice remote and computer vision. “Last year, we introduced an AI-powered feature that made it easier for customers to see what was happening on their home cameras. That’s the first of what we think will be many advancements in making our Xfinity Home cameras smarter and more powerful,” Heck said. Comcast also developed and trained its Natural Language Processing platform using AI to “really understand our customers’ intent, and deliver highly relevant, accurate results.” John Holobinko, Cisco director of cable access strategy, cited “a number of areas of low hanging fruit. Machine learning to optimize networks will likely become a reality within the next 12-24 months.” That includes Cisco’s recently announced Crosswork Automation product, which aims to collect, store and process network information using machine learning on an end to end basis, including self learning and self healing networks. Cisco recently bought AI startup MindMeld, a move Holobinko says “is all about developing computer-based conversational interfaces. While the greatest demand for these interfaces is with customer service organizations, think consumer products, in the future we may leverage this technology to assist technicians in solving difficult plant issues.” –  Cathy Applefeld Olson

Santa Monica Teens Launches Innovative Robotics Program for Students in Compton

February 23, 2018 BG&A Staff
Ben Indeglia, a senior at our client, New Roads School, helped bring his love for robotics to middle schools in Compton Unified School District. Today's youth are truly a group of fearless individuals with the determination to make real positive impact! KTLA 5 News Coverage
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