21581 - SCTE Broadband August2022 COMPLETE v1

29 Vol. 44 No. 3 - September 2022 Issue from the industry million for the Norwegian government in spectrum auctions - only increased the ready availability of broadband as a ready platform for future broadcasters. Coping with Change In some markets the incumbent providers can become a little too complacent. Or if not complacent, at least stubborn. And if not stubborn, just downright scared of change. This gives room for small companies with more foresight and agility to move in and poach the market from beneath, or - more commonly - for the global giants to steal audiences from above. No such thing has occurred in the Norwegian market. The four major incumbent broadcasters were quick to transfer their linear terrestrial, cable and satellite TV services over to a broadband-based provision service, leveraging satellite boxes where necessary, or simply tapping into the market’s growing appetite for smart TVs and dual-use screens. With this, they also bundled access to some of the major streaming providers’ content - thereby protecting themselves against replacement from more global competitors. The ‘big four’ resultantly continue to maintain a dominant market share, whilst the audience benefits from a much greater level of flexibility, quality, reliability and content choice. Home Team advantage It’s clear then that Norway represents an incredibly mature market in terms of broadband-driven broadcast. Which makes it no surprise that Bridge Technologies - long-term proponents and the earliest vanguards of the IP broadcast revolution - call it home, with offices on the Akerselva river in Oslo. Their analytics and monitoring technologies, which cover the full gamut of broadcast technologies - including RF, DVB, Satellite and Cable - increasingly serve broadcasters who are transitioning, or have fully transitioned, to IP and OTT- based provision. Their ability to provide insight across the full broadcast chain - from ingest, to playout, to distribution - is invaluable to broadcasters undergoing strategic adjustment to their fundamental content provision model. As a result, Bridge products have been integrated into the networks of all four major providers from early-on in the transition from convention to broadband-based content provision. Initially, this transition took the form of IPTV, leveraging dedicated networks to provide services to set- top boxes and - increasingly - dongles. However, as the broadband scene has evolved and the backbone network - both wired and mobile - has increased in terms of capacity, resiliency and cost-effectiveness, there has been an ongoing transition to OTT. The VB330 - which constitutes a part of all