As the television broadcast industry increases in complexity with producers churning out more content than any other time in history, where and how consumers view content has become anything but predictable. This has put strain and uncertainty on broadcast professionals, who are constantly building and adapting new content distribution models and working methodologies where no precedents currently exist. There is a lot at stake for broadcasters, since their function is critical to both the content producers and consumers.
Linear Acoustic, part of the Telos Alliance, continues to play an active role not only in helping define this new broadcast distribution landscape, but also in helping its international customer base understand and overcome these new challenges. Tim Carroll, founder of Linear Acoustic and Chief Technology Officer of the Telos Alliance, discusses the changes taking place and how Telos and Linear Acoustic are positioned to help customers navigate and overcome these challenges in the first of a three-part interview.
What are some of the primary issues the television broadcast industry has faced over recent years? What has changed and what has remained the same?
When we consider television broadcast as we know it today, we can safely say that the loudness and surround problems have largely been solved. As an industry we have been at this for over 20 years, and its mostly done. More recently, the way we are consuming television has dramatically changed. For example, I have a surround system, but I primarily listen to content in stereo. Many people in younger generations are consuming television online. Everyone is doing it differently; there are financial reasons for this, and the technology is making it easier to do so.
Has this made the traditional delivery method of television less relevant?
Well, most of the media says that it is still the terrestrial delivery of television that generates the most revenue per second out of any content. But this is rapidly becoming an incorrect perception, because nowadays it is so difficult to measure exactly how many people are watching television let alone the methods they are using to watch it. We see many more people watching television on mobile devices in the middle of the day, for example.
What changed for the broadcasters? How does this affect them and how do they now think about broadcast delivery differently?
To start with, the normal tool set that broadcasters have in a linear broadcast chain is now completely different. The processes used to deliver broadcast content second over second have changed completely. Now, much of the produced content is chopped up, jammed onto a server and oftentimes played back from multiple servers. Additionally, commercials now are inserted on your portable device as part of an app. In the past, we used to know where to put the loudness correction, but where do we put it now?
This means the content has been more difficult to contain since the central point of origin is not as easy to identify, right?
Yes. The industry has always had its eyes on the middle of the pie, because the middle is where traditional technology business is done at a television facility day in and day out - it's where all the servers have traditionally been located. You put a processor in there, and at prime time, it affects every sample of audio. But as soon as this center is fractured and audio is coming out from multiple places outside the edge of the pie, it becomes much more complicated and less predictable. We can control that content coming out of the middle of the pie where the central server is located, but we have no idea where the content goes after that. In some cases, broadcasters are making 8, 10 different versions of a single program to hit all kinds of mobile devices, to hit larger mobile devices, large and small. All of this has pushed us to accelerate our thinking at Telos and Linear Acoustic.
Can you give me an example of how broadcasting is now less location dependent?
Sure. Let's say I am making a program - a police drama. After it is produced, what happens is not necessarily up to the production people - it's up to the broadcasters who say, Hey, thanks for the content, we have to get this through our linear paths without touching it. We've also got to send it out to all these other destinations, and we better get it onto YouTube before somebody rips it or sells it. Yesterday, you could often go to whoever owned the television station as a single point. But today, that producers broadcast content could be housed in servers across multiple locations and therefore becomes much more difficult to manage.
Can anything be done to remedy this?
We can help the broadcasters get the loudness or the 5.1 correct, but eventually the garden hose turns into a firehose before the content is sprayed out across the universe. And if nobody was touching it, our job would be done. But with Internet, it is essentially the Wild West. So with our normal tools, we have to start thinking outside the box. We need to look at the guts of our products and say to our customers, Hey, we are happy to help you integrate our technology in your server hardware instead of selling you boxes that might not fit your workflow.
Is technological innovation helping resolve these issues or exacerbating them?
Its a bit of cat and mouse. If you go and see a movie today, you might be lucky enough to find a theater and a piece of content that is being played back in Immersive Sound. Now, program producers are saying, Wow - we can do a 360 degree immersive audio experience. But then the questions start coming out: Hey, can we get this same experience to consumers? Then the broadcast industry says, We just delivered 5.1 and now you want us to carry 128 channels to consumers? But that's what ATSC (Advanced Tel
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
As the television broadcast industry increases in complexity with producers churning out more content than any other time in history, where and how consumers view content has become anything but predictable. This has put strain and uncertainty on broadcast professionals, who are constantly building and adapting new content distribution models and working methodologies where no precedents currently exist. There is a lot at stake for broadcasters, since their function is critical to both the content producers and consumers.
