5 Ways to Prepare Your Video Service for the Holidays

The holiday season brings more than just festive cheer: it leads to a huge spike in viewership, as families gather to enjoy their favorite shows, movies and seasonal offerings. With viewers spending more time at home and streaming expectations at an all-time high, it’s essential to make sure video services are fully prepared. We’ve created a checklist to help streaming providers deliver an exceptional viewing experience this peak season.

Test your vacation catalog

It’s not enough to just have great content, viewers should be able to find and play the content quickly and with minimal fuss. Recently, a major North American video service provider discovered that its content was not showing up in default search results on Android TV-based set-top boxes – instead redirecting viewers to YouTube. This affected the viewing experience, but also presented a lost opportunity for content that the provider had already licensed. In addition to basic playback, ensure your holiday content plays correctly across all viewing scenarios, testing closed captioning, multiple audio tracks, and subtitled content variants. These details can make or break your viewing experience.

Real-time monitoring and service alerts

Teams are often leaner during the holidays, which makes robust, real-time monitoring even more important. With more viewers at home and increased risks to quality of service, automated monitoring systems should be the first line of defence. These systems should provide real-time visibility into service performance, allowing quick response times to incidents even with reduced staffing. Furthermore, set up comprehensive alerts that can distinguish between isolated incidents and systemic issues, allowing for appropriate escalation paths.

Improving the quality of experience

Quality of experience includes startup times, buffering rates, and resolution stability, not just streaming video quality. During peak viewing periods, it is necessary to achieve a dynamic balance between these factors. Consider implementing adaptive bit rate (ABR) strategies that can elegantly lower quality rather than interrupt playback during network congestion. In particular, special attention should be paid to how services are performed during high-profile events such as popular sports games or premieres. Viewer tolerance for quality issues tends to be lower during holiday specials.

Infrastructure is widespread

Modern live streaming infrastructure requires a sophisticated approach to scaling. Many providers are using a multi-faceted strategy that combines internal CDNs, commercial CDN providers, and open caching nodes provided by ISPs – some providers are even implementing AI-driven CDN selection to improve delivery. However, simply having these capabilities is not enough – they must be verified to work as intended under real-world conditions. It is important to monitor CDN switching logic and validate override scenarios. Keep a close eye on both performance and cost metrics, as incorrect use of a CDN can impact the quality and bottom line. Test your expansion strategies before the holiday rush to ensure smooth execution when it matters most!

Processing customer support

Support teams need tools and data to make fast and accurate decisions, not just scripts. When a viewer reports a problem, support staff must determine whether it is an isolated incident or an indication of a broader problem. Empower support teams with tools that allow them to verify issues in real-world conditions. If a viewer in a particular region reports buffering, support should be able to check how the service is performing on similar devices in that region. This capability not only speeds up the resolution process, but also helps prevent small issues from becoming major incidents during peak viewing periods.

Make the most of the season

Remember, the holiday season is the time when services really shine — or suffer unforgettable failures. By comprehensively preparing for these five areas, providers will be better positioned to deliver the reliable, high-quality streaming experience viewers expect during their festive celebrations, making the holiday season more fun and enjoyable for everyone.

[Editor’s note: This is a contributed article from Witbe. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]

Related articles

Chick-fil-A’s Play: A family-focused strategy with a strategic advantage

Why the hell would Chick-fil-A start a streaming channel? Is this a completely new strategy or a copycat move? I tried to figure it out, and this is what I learned.

02 December 2024

How can AI determine what emotions make up the “holiday spirit” in CTV content? Q&A with Wurl’s Ron Guttman

Q&A with Ron Gutman, CEO of Wurl, about Gen AI technology that matches CTV ads to the emotion and context of what viewers are watching using Plutchik’s Emotion Wheel. This technology identified the emotions that make up the “holiday spirit” and found that the main emotions are “trust and joy.”

November 26, 2024

CTV Advertising Strategies for the Holiday Season – Q&A with Lemma’s Angelina Marmorato

With the holiday season upon us, consumers are spending more and turning to CTV more than ever before. Angelina Marmorato, associate vice president of sales and partnerships at Lemma, has compiled a set of actionable strategies for brands to maximize the impact of holiday advertising on CTV. In this Q&A, she learns the details of each point of her strategy and how advertisers can best improve it.

November 21, 2024

The mentioned companies and suppliers