At SmartBrief and Future B2B, we keep our fingers on the pulse of the trends and market forces shaping the industries we cover, and the leaders, organizations and businesses that are making a difference. Examining the stories our audiences find most valuable helps us better understand the trends that matter -- and enables us to more effectively serve our professional readers and clients.
Here is some of what our audience of industry decision-makers found most valuable last month.
Top stories from January:
TV Tech
Allen Media Group Scraps Plan to Replace Local TV Meteorologists
U.S. Appeals Court Strikes Down FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules
NAB Publishes Long-Awaited Future of TV Initiative Report
Scripps, Gray, Nexstar, Sinclair Form Powerhouse ATSC 3.0 Wireless Data Delivery
TVB Europe
Three of our biggest news stories in January covered AI, sustainability and the sale of Paramount Global — ongoing consolidation within the broadcast industry:
Looking forward: key industry figures on AI and media tech in 2025: https://www.tvbeurope.com/artificial-intelligence/looking-forward-key-industry-figures-on-ai-and-media-tech-in-2025
Research: Video streaming is twice as bad as aviation for carbon emissions: https://www.tvbeurope.com/sustainability/research-video-streaming-is-twice-as-bad-as-aviation-for-carbon-emissions
UK public service broadcasters challenge terrestrial TV switch-off date: https://www.tvbeurope.com/media-consumption/uk-public-service-broadcasters-challenge-terrestrial-tv-switch-off-date
RadioWorld
FCC Hears About ‘EAS at the Edge’
Elenos Group Acquired by Italy’s DACTA
Look What You Can Do With Ohm’s Law
Top trend
Jenny writes: While AI has been around in the industry for a number of years, it’s generative AI that is currently attracting all the attention. The creative side is worried about AI taking their jobs, and the tech vendor side is keen to stress that it can be used to help them be creative. It’s important for the tech vendors to get the message across that AI is there to help their customers, but not reduce their headcount (unless they want to).
Additional Trends
Tom writes: TV station group Allen Media Group’s ill-fated attempt to replace its local meteorologists with weather forecasters from The Weather Channel (which AMG owns) was a PR disaster for the station group. After numerous forecasters began announcing their resignations on local stations, viewer outcry was so intense that the company scrapped its plans less than a week later. The incident was one of the best and most recent illustrations of how important local news (especially weather) still is to local viewers and how unpopular so-called “hub” broadcasting from a remote location is. While this is more about programming than tech, relevant vendors include The Weather Company, Vizrt, Ross, Chyron
Tom writes: Other topics of current relevance are the impact of the new leadership at FCC; what will be the response to NAB’s NextGen TV report; and how are broadcasters able to compete against Silicon Valley for live sports rights?
Sustainability: We had a very popular article on how streaming is twice as bad as aviation in terms of its carbon emissions.
Media delivery: The UK and Europe are going through changes in the way they've traditionally delivered content to viewers. In January, we had an article that the UK's public service broadcasters are pushing back on a deadline for the switch off of terrestrial television.
Paul writes: Reader interest in the Radio World story “EAS at the Edge” (originally posted last fall and still drawing engagement) reflects the importance of two notable content areas in which Radio World is active: emergency alerting, and cloud & virtualization. Radio engineers definitely are watching to see how far their employers will go in moving tech functions into software and to the cloud
