Microsoft Expands Deployment of Silverlight with College Basketball Streaming

The U.S. college basketball championships, know as March Madness, has been one of the 10 biggest Internet events, according traffic tracked by Akamai.

It has been a huge event for CBS Sports and for CBSSports.com.

Yesterday, Microsoft and CBS announced that March Madness would be streamed in Silverlight, the rich media, web plug-in from Microsoft. Big win for Microsoft. For more about the deal and expectations for big web viewership during the games, check out this story in Contentinople by Steve Donohue.

In September on the MIT campus, I interviewed Microsoft's Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, on Silverlight. I've republished that interview today.

— Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

By Andy Plesser on February 18, 2009 @beet_tv

Recent Videos

Toward ‘Ultra-Premium’: NBCU Research Spotlights Viewer & Buyer Attitudes to Modern TV

LONDON – What constitutes a high-quality, “premium” TV viewing experience in the eyes of audiences? It’s a question that is hotly debated in the TV and advertising industries. To get a handle on it, NBCUniversal and FreeWheel conducted research putting a range of content and ad experience options to 8,000 viewers. The research, “Prescribing Premium“, […]

CTV Advertising Gains From More Powerful Contextual Signals: Beachfront’s Marni Rommel

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Contextual advertising has been around for years, but its role was somewhat diminished as marketers relied on tracking cookies to improve their audience targeting online. With connected television, which is a cookieless environment, contextual advertising is getting supercharged with advances in technology. “Contextual targeting is going to play a significant role […]

Sneakers & Sports: PMX Lift’s Serina Spencer Heads Into 2025 With CES, Audiences In Mind

With another Consumer Electronics Show just around the corner, professionals are set to flock to Las Vegas, including those from advertising and media. Serina Spencer, SVP, Enablement, PMX Lift, Publicis Media, is no stranger to CES. In this video interview with Beet.TV, she shared her advice for first-time attendees: comfortable shoes, hydration, and careful scheduling […]

Addressable TV Advertising Set for Takeoff as Buyers Seek Performance: Go Addressable’s New Chairman

Addressable TV advertising has hit an inflection point. More marketers are turning to it as a “must-buy” to achieve better performance, even as overall TV ad spend remains under pressure. That was the view of one ad industry executive speaking at the Go Addressable summit this week. The summit, which brought together hundreds of attendees […]

Streaming TV Blends Brand & Performance: Index Exchange’s Tigg

LONDON – TV may have traditionally played a largely brand-building role for advertisers, but the new-look TV supports both branding and performance marketing. “I think it’s true that the lines between brand awareness and performance are starting to blur, particularly on streaming TV,”said John Tigg, SVP, Buyer Development EMEA, Index Exchange, in this video interview […]

TV Needs Big Tech’s ‘Simplification Playbook’: Comcast’s Rooke

LONDON – The advertising industry is grappling with a paradox. As premium video content flourishes, accessing it can sometimes seem like a labyrinthine process, particularly for smaller advertisers seeking to expand their reach. No wonder many in advertising are technology are trying to simplify the complexity that has grown up. “The number one change or […]

Neutral OS for CTV Improves Viewer Experience, Advertising: Xperi’s Chris Kleinschmidt

LONDON – Every major brand of smart television has its own operating system to run apps for connected television, but this predicament isn’t ideal for consumers who want a user-friendly experience. Xperi, the parent company of TiVo, developed a neutral operating system intended to avoid creating another walled garden. “There’s the need in the industry […]

Mentors Can Play Key Role in Women’s Workplace Advancement: Effectv’s Pooja Midha

Women in the past 50 years have steadily risen into top managerial roles in the advertising and media industries, but there’s still more work to be done in terms of equal pay and greater diversity in the C-suite. Amid these efforts, women can help each other, a key theme of the “Lift As You Climb” […]

Our Consumers Insights Are Valuable Amid CTV Growth: PCH Media’s Chris Moore

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – While Publishers Clearing House is well known as a sweepstakes company, it has evolved in the past decade into a digital marketing and commerce company that has vast troves of opt-in data about consumers. This information is considered valuable as more households connect their televisions to the internet, opening up another […]

Sky Media Enters 2025 With Sport, Smarts & Science

The death of linear TV may have been greatly exaggerated, says a UK executive who has an expanding portfolio of live sport, coupled with a growing range of ad-tech products. “We talk a lot about the demise of linear TV and I certainly don’t see or feel that,” said Ruth Cartwright, Investment Director, Sky Media, […]

Generative AI Can Be Your Creative Assistant: Moloco’s Berger On Marketing Adoption

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – As CEOs, CMOs and agency clients demand AI strategies, marketing executives are grappling with how to harness the potential of artificial intelligence in its early, fast-evolving days. So, how have the early forays shaken-out, as we head in to 2025? “The smartest marketers that I talk with are really thinking about […]

As AI Takes Center Stage at CES, Consumer Data Still Rules: Epsilon’s Gillian MacPherson

CES 2025 is expected to showcase the ways that technology companies and makers of consumer electronics are adopting artificial intelligence to improve their products and services. For AI to be effective for advertisers and marketers, it needs high-quality data. “One of the things that hasn’t been talked about enough, perhaps, is the data that goes […]

Addressable Advertising Needs Reliable Data to Deliver Results: Blockgraph’s Jason Manningham

Addressable advertising is making great strides in fulfilling its promise to show different commercials to different households during the same television programming. These capabilities rely on various sources of first-party data, which advertising data and insights platform Blockgraph brings together. “Having really accurate first party data is critical for advertisers who want to reach their […]

TV Is Everywhere and Data-Enriched: Paramount’s Scoles

The worlds of television and streaming have blurred, and many children no longer recognize the difference between traditional television and apps, according to Travis Scoles, EVP, Advanced Advertising at Paramount. Scoles highlighted how this generational shift has influenced viewing habits and challenged the traditional definition of television. Speaking at Beet Retreat, he said TV advertising […]

Programmatic Tools Make TV Ad Campaigns Feasible for More Brands: Publica’s Cameron Miille

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The software tools to automate the buying and selling of digital and mobile advertising are transforming the connected television ad market. The adoption of these programmatic tools are helping startup CTV apps to sell ads and making the television advertising more accessible to marketers with smaller media budgets. Programmatic is “lowering […]

Gen AI Unleashes More Creative Power for Advertisers: Adobe’s Sam Garfield

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers popular apps such as ChatGPT, is changing the way brands and agencies develop campaigns, and the reshaping has only just begun. “Generative AI is going to be the most transformational technology in our lifetime,” Sam Garfield, head of digital strategy for communications, media and […]

Omnichannel Lets Brands Reach Customers Amid Fragmentation: T-Mobile’s Zapata

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The fragmentation of media has made it much harder for marketers to achieve the kind of reach and scale they once enjoyed through traditional linear channels. But an omnichannel approach, informed by audience data, can help brands connect with customers more effectively across a range of different media experiences. That’s the […]

CES Helps Us Meet With Key Advertisers in CTV, Retail Media: Zynga’s Gabrielle Heyman

CES showcases the latest electronic hardware such as high-definition televisions, gaming computers, wearable devices and WiFi gear, but they all need software including videogames for the fullest “wow” effect. “We love going to CES. It sets the tone in a lot of ways for the rest of the year,” Gabrielle Heyman, vice president of global […]

OpenX’s Bohrer: Data-Driven Curation Is Changing Programmatic Ad Buying

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Programmatic ad-buying has long relied on carefully selecting digital properties and packaging them for buyers. Traditionally, supply-side platforms (SSPs) like OpenX have curated ad inventory by choosing websites and apps, bundling them and making the packages available to DSPs through deal IDs. Advertisers then would apply their own first- or third-party […]

Albertsons’ Argyilan Wants More Businesses to Support Leaders’ Mid-Career Family Ambitions

Perceptions of women business leaders may have shifted in recent years — but is there still a misunderstanding about female leadership? In this video interview with Beet.TV, Kristi Argyilan, SVP, Retail Media, Albertsons Companies, said the distinction between the perceived styles of men and women leaders remains an open item for business to address. Meanwhile, […]

CTV’s Growth Will Pivot on Audience Data, Viewer Experiences: Mindshare’s Denise Ocasio

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Connected television is in its infancy compared with decades-old linear television, and its ultimate success as an advertising medium will depend on a dynamic mix of influences. Two key components will be data usage and the viewer experience. “How CTV platforms use data, what integrations they’re looking at, who are they […]

Microsoft Expands Deployment of Silverlight with College Basketball Streaming

Share: Microsoft Expands Deployment of Silverlight with College Basketball Streaming

Direct Link:

Embed Code:

Recent Videos