Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to review Bending Spoons’ product roadmap for its Brightcove platform, providing the company with feedback at the executive level. While I can’t share the company’s detailed document, Bending Spoons is allowing me to highlight some of their plans for Brightcove’s product line and where they are investing.

Overall, I appreciated the clarity of their product strategy and their plans to build on Brightcove’s existing strengths by enhancing the reliability, performance, and user experience of the core products, while continuing to cater to the unique needs of their media and enterprise customers. Bending Spoons identified and reviewed over 100 feature requests and improvements, using data tied to revenue potential, operational costs and customer feedback to identify and prioritize a shortlist of the initiatives with the highest potential to impact their business and customers positively.

The key takeaway from my calls with Bending Spoons’ management team was that they will move quickly, investing in initiatives where they see success and reevaluating those where they don’t. While this sounds like a common-sense approach, it wasn’t always the way Brightcove previously operated, as the company would routinely roll out new products and features without much customer feedback or demand.

Here are some key takeaways on what is being worked on across the Brightcove platform:

• Adding support for Ultra-HD live streaming (Shockingly, Brightcove has never supported live 4K video)
• Improved UX to optimize for vertical video experiences by adding new vertical video components in the Gallery for an out-of-the-box solution
• A set of AI features, including improvements to Auto-Captions, Universal Translator, Metadata Enhancer, Content Multiplier, and new AI Advertising features
• Improving live streaming with SSAI, with the addition of content protection through DRM
• A visual redesign of the web player and significant Android SDK improvements
• Improvements to programmatic user provisioning and deprovisioning, streamlining onboarding/offboarding and reducing admin overhead
• Improving the Brightcove Player’s caching system to optimize page load times (not video start times)
• Improvements to viewership analytics, closed caption metrics, improved automated insights and search
• Roll out automated usage alerts to notify customers when they reach key thresholds, providing more transparency

With Brightcove’s new product roadmap now defined and shared with all Brightcove employees, the team is working to determine packaging and pricing strategies for select high-impact features, including the AI Suite, Live 4K, and the Recommendation Engine. Further details on packing and pricing are expected to be released shortly. Bending Spoons has also identified several potential opportunities for future iterations of its roadmap and is monitoring usage data, customer interviews, and market trends, reassessing these opportunities regularly.

In my conversations with the new owners of Brightcove, I was impressed by the time they spent talking to customers, gathering real-world feedback, and making product decisions based on data, rather than guesswork. Bending Spoons communicated a clear and detailed strategy to enhance the platform and expand the business, which will organically lead to sales. Bending Spoons told me they know execution is everything, and their success will lie in how quickly they learn and adapt as they begin to execute individual initiatives and communicate their strengths to customers. I think their product road map is on point, and if they execute on it, customers should be happy.

Some want to suggest that the “success” of the F1 movie at the box office shows that Apple can and will make more movies of this scale for theatres. However, Apple’s interest in the F1 movie extends far beyond the content. Apple spent a year developing advanced camera technology to capture the sheer force of auto racing, and Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, highlighted that the same tech is baked into the camera of the latest iPhone model. For Apple, the F1 movie was about much more than content. Additionally, Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Services, is a racing enthusiast who sits on the board of directors of Ferrari, so there’s a personal interest in the subject.

With Apple’s F1 movie nearing $300 million in box office receipts, headlines again suggest that Apple is reportedly in talks to acquire the U.S. broadcasting rights for Formula 1, when they become available in 2026. ESPN failed to strike a new deal with Formula 1 during an exclusive negotiating window that closed last year. However, it has been reported that ESPN is rumored to be still interested in Formula 1, but only if they can license select races, rather than the entire season.

Apple has previously stated that it prefers content licensing deals similar to those of the MLS, where it holds global rights. However, a worldwide deal with Formula 1 would be too complicated, as Sky Sports currently holds F1’s media rights for the UK, Germany, and Italy until at least 2029. And last year, Formula 1 announced a 10-year deal naming beIN SPORTS the exclusive broadcaster of Formula 1 racing across the Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and Turkey through 2033.

One of the most significant problems for any company licensing content is that Formula 1 races occur worldwide, and many take place early in the morning or overnight in the U.S. For most content owners, the Formula 1 audience isn’t large enough to justify the rumored $150 million and $190 million per year in domestic rights fees that Formula 1 is seeking.

On July 8th, ESPN reported that across ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC, the 2025 Formula 1 races are averaging 1.3 million viewers, a 7% percent increase over the season-to-date average for the 2024 season.

Even Versant, the new soon-to-be publicly traded company that Comcast NBCUniversal is creating by spinning off most of its cable television networks and related digital assets, who said they are looking to bid on live sports to add to its current portfolio, stated it is not interested in the Formula 1, as the audience is too small.

If a company outside of ESPN wins exclusive or partial rights for the U.S. market, it would be interesting to see if they change the viewer experience. ESPN uses Sky Sports’ feed, so U.S. viewers get the same coverage as fans in the UK. But a new distributor could develop its own coverage, making it more U.S.-focused.

This special CDN focused podcast details the latest on delivery pricing and industry trends. I discuss delivery commits, QoE measurement, DIY deployments, HD HDR bitrates, and the impact of vendors exiting the market. I also cover how content owners perform capacity planning at the ASN level, leaching, latency, and why multicasting and P2P won’t positively impact the industry. The data comes from my CDN pricing survey, as well as hosting panels and private events at the NAB Show Streaming Summit in April, which included OTT platforms, content owners, broadcasters, sports leagues, and others.

[Update June 30, 2025: Special CDN Podcast: The Latest on Delivery Pricing, Capacity Planning, DIY, Latency and Bitrate Trends]

My Q1 survey on CDN pricing is complete, with 704 customers disclosing the price they pay per GB delivered, as well as the decline in their pricing since their last contract. Respondents also detailed their overall delivery spend trends, the length of their contract, their expected traffic growth or decline this year, how they bundle delivery with other services, and other relevant contract details.

The raw data, without any customer information, is available for purchase. Please let me know if you are interested in more details. Of all the content I create, this is the only content for which I charge. Starting in 2008 and for 12 years thereafter, I provided all pricing data for free, two to four times per year. [See: this link]

A few years ago, I started charging for the data, as many customers, vendors, and Wall Street professionals relied heavily on it as a vital part of their decision-making processes. I’m glad that many recognize the value of the data and the process I’ve developed over the past 17 years to gather it.

Soon, I will write a blog post that recaps some of the highlights of the data, but it won’t break out the price per GB paid, based on deal sizes, commits, regions, and all the other specifics tied to CDN contracts. That said, my phone number has always been listed on LinkedIn, my blog, personal website, etc. It costs nothing to speak with me if you have any questions about the CDN market, including vendors, pricing, market drivers and restraints, market size, DIY deployments, multi-CDN strategies, QoE measurement, live event capacity planning, and related topics. Please feel free to reach out anytime. 917-523-4562

Phenix Real Time Solutions’ assets have been put up for public bidding by their VC firm, KB Partners. Phenix has been trying to sell the company for many months but has not been able to get the valuation they wanted. The company had approximately $5M in 2024 revenue and wasn’t profitable. By my last count, they had 21 patents. I’ve spoken to multiple CEOs over the past few weeks who reviewed the business but didn’t see any value in acquiring the technology. Phenix’s largest customer, SIS (Sports Information Services), also passed on the acquisition.

Despite the considerable talk and hype surrounding low and ultra-low latency, there is insufficient demand in the market or a lack of application use cases that can benefit from it. No vendor can survive by selling a stand-alone low/ultra-low latency as it must be sold as part of a larger video workflow platform. Perhaps this news in the market will help dampen the hype around ultra-low latency and force people to focus on what works as a business, rather than what can be achieved simply because the technology allows it.

Any party interested in bidding at the Auction must register by June 24, 2025.

Netflix has just entered the live TV business and will add live TV channels to its service in France. In a deal with TF1, starting summer 2026, all Netflix members in France will be able to watch TF1 channels (5 linear channels) and VOD content from TF1+ directly on Netflix at no additional cost. TF1 content is available for free on TF1+, and the broadcaster reports an average of 35 million users per month. It is being reported that TF1 will sell its own inventory for content streamed on Netflix’s ad tier through its sales house, TF1 PUB, with viewership being measured by the French TV measurement body, Médiamétrie. Greg Peters, co-CEO of Netflix, is reported as saying Netflix would see how the partnership works before exploring further tie-ups with other broadcasters. Netflix press release: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-and-tf1-group-join-forces-to-bring-tf1-to-netflix-members-in-france

Following a series of layoffs and cost-cutting measures, Qwilt has appointed Vito Palermo as its new CEO, with former CEO Alon Maor transitioning to a board advisory role. During my conversation with Vito over the weekend, he mentioned that he has been working hard on rationalizing the cost structure for Qwilt, a task that has been urgently needed. The company has recently secured additional funding from its existing investor, Digital Alpha, as it refocuses Qwilt’s offering and could potentially raise further capital in the near term.

While Qwilt is open to any acquisition that might be strategic for the company, Vito tells me his goal is to support Qwilt’s existing customers and expand the business over time. Qwilt has not yet disclosed its revenue numbers, but I expect it to reach $40-$45 million this year. The company has resized its workforce and now has over 100 employees. As Vito correctly pointed out in our conversation, Qwilt can’t survive focusing only on the delivery of video and large objects; over time, it must evolve into an edge compute platform for other applications beyond video.

Since its inception 15 years ago as a transparent caching provider, Qwilt has released no details on the health of its business outside of some high-level and generic network footprint numbers. Vito said that as Qwilt evolves, they plan to share metrics on its revenue, QoE, and other key metrics, providing the industry and its customers with a better understanding of the core business and the value Qwilt offers in the market. That will be welcomed by many who, for years, have asked me, “What’s the deal with Qwilt?” Providing some transparency into the business will go a long way with Qwilt’s vendors, customers and ISP clients.