Ancast Intelligence Newsletter – Thursday, December 18, 2025

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This week in AI, technology, and broadcasting, several key developments have shaped the landscape, reflecting both challenges and opportunities within the industry. Notably, the release of Parks Associates’ latest report forecasts significant growth in the US subscription TV market, projecting revenues to reach $190.7 billion by 2030. This growth is mirrored by innovations in advertising technology, as evidenced by Xumo’s new findings on the effectiveness of home screen ads in connected TV environments. Meanwhile, the BBC embarks on a crucial Charter Review, a development that could redefine public broadcasting in the UK. These events, coupled with the fluctuating streaming market dynamics in Finland, paint a complex picture of an industry at the intersection of technology advancement and market shifts.

INDUSTRY NEWS
Forecast: US subscription TV revenue at $190.7bn in 2030
Parks Associates has announced the release of its Subscription Video Forecast: 2025–2030 report, offering an outlook on the future of the US TV and streaming video market. The report projects steady growth, driven by innovations in content delivery and monetization strategies.
Report: Home screen ads boost advertiser outcomes
Xumo, a streaming platform joint venture between Comcast and Charter Communications, has released a report that highlights the power of connected TV (CTV) home screen ads to drive measurable business outcomes. The findings suggest a significant impact on viewer engagement and ad recall.
BBC Charter Review launched
UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has launched the once-in-a-decade review of the BBC’s Royal Charter with the aim of bolstering trust in the broadcaster and putting it on a sustainable financial footing. This review could lead to major changes in how the BBC operates and is funded.
Research: Streaming market declines in Finland
Despite strong growth in ad-supported streaming, the Finnish streaming market has seen a decline in the autumn of 2025, reports Mediavision. Total paid subscriptions declined by 2 percent year-over-year, driven by market saturation and shifting consumer preferences.
TECHNOLOGY UPDATES
Report: Social media at the heart of EMEA digital advertising
DoubleVerify (DV), the media effectiveness platform, has released its 2025 Global Insights: How Consumers and Marketers Use Walled Gardens report. The report provides platform-level insights and examines the evolving role of social media in digital advertising across the EMEA region.
PGA Tour Studios signs SES distribution deal
SES and PGA Tour Studios have announced an agreement to provide tournament content delivery and orchestration with SES’s hybrid IP, fibre, and satellite network and the Sports Content Orchestration Enabled by SES. This deal highlights the growing importance of versatile content distribution networks in sports broadcasting.
MARKET TRENDS
2025 in review: A convergence of identities
Ian Wagdin, VP technology and innovation at Appear, looks back on a year when broadcasters have become streamers, streamers adopted broadcast discipline, and rights holders evolved into full media companies.
Report: Social media at the heart of EMEA digital advertising
The insights from DoubleVerify underscore the significant role that social media platforms play in shaping digital advertising strategies, highlighting the need for advertisers to adapt to the dynamics of walled gardens.

LOOKING AHEAD
As we look to the future, the trends highlighted this week suggest a continued evolution in how content is delivered and monetized. The growth in subscription TV revenues in the US indicates a robust market, but the shift towards more dynamic advertising models, like CTV home screen ads, points to an ongoing transformation in how media companies engage with audiences. Additionally, the outcomes of the BBC Charter Review will likely influence public broadcasting strategies globally, emphasizing the need for innovation and financial sustainability in this sector. These developments suggest that adaptability and forward-thinking will be crucial for industry stakeholders aiming to thrive in an increasingly digital and competitive landscape.
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Featured Blog Posts
Client: Adaptable International – Awe Realm Studios, Fukuoka, Japan What happens when visionary talent is held back by bandwidth? That’s the question we helped answer in our latest consulting engagement with Adaptable International—a music production and content studio based in Fukuoka, Japan. Founder Tom Southerton, operating solo out of a premium creative studio, faced a common problem: incredible creative potential—but limited time, zero scalable workflows, and a studio sitting below its potential. 🎯 The Challenge Tom was operating solo in a fully equipped, acoustically treated studio in Japan. But the business was bottlenecked by bandwidth It was clear: the studio had scale potential. But it needed a strategy. 🚀 The Solution: AI x Digital Nomad Talent Over a 2-week embedded consulting sprint, Ancast Intelligence developed a transformation strategy combining: 🔧 Deliverables Included: 📊 Forecasted Impact 👇 Why It Matters This wasn’t just about tech. It was about unlocking time, creativity, and new business models. For solopreneurs, boutique agencies, and creative founders—this project proves that scaling doesn’t mean losing control. It’s possible to automate the grind, protect your creative energy, and build something that works while you sleep (or jam). This strategy doesn’t just solve a production problem—it redefines what’s possible for solo creative entrepreneurs. It blends automation, real-world community, and AI-enabled scale without sacrificing authenticity. For small teams or founders looking to do more with less, this is the blueprint: 🔹 Human-centred AI workflows 🔹 Creative systemization 🔹 Smart collaboration models 🎛️ Want something similar? Explore ancast.co.uk or try out the conversational AI agent on our site—ask it about this project, our services, or how we build scalable AI solutions for creative businesses. Explore our strategy consulting and product innovation services at Ancast Intelligence or try our AI voice agent—ask it about this very project. #AIConsulting #DigitalTransformation #CreativeBusiness #VoiceAI #AIWorkflows #SolopreneurTools #RemoteWorkSolutions #DigitalNomadLife #ContentAutomation #MusicBusiness #AIinMedia #TechForCreatives #FutureOfWork #ScaleSmart #AdaptableByDesign
💡 Executive Summary Conversational AI is rapidly redefining how companies engage with customers — but it’s voice, not just text, that’s setting the next frontier. AI voicebots now allow brands to hold intelligent, human-like voice conversations at scale, enabling real-time support, sales engagement, onboarding, and more. At Ancast Intelligence, we’ve been exploring how voice-driven agents can augment human teams, reduce operational overhead, and create powerful new customer experiences — without the constraints of traditional IVR systems or live agent bottlenecks. 🎙️ Real Conversations. Real Impact. Voicebots are here. In a world where digital interactions often feel cold and mechanical, AI voicebots bring warmth and presence back into customer conversations — and they’re proving to be game-changers across industries. At Ancast Intelligence, we began experimenting with voice agents in mid-2025, following a demo of a basic RAG (retrieval augmented generation) chatbot during the UC Berkeley AI course. That demo, while simple, sparked something bigger — what if we could give that chatbot a voice? Already using ElevenLabs for podcast narration, we discovered its powerful voice agent capabilities and quickly built a conversational AI assistant, powered by our own cloned voice and a finely tuned knowledge base. The result? A seamless voicebot that now interacts with visitors on our site, guiding them through: And crucially — it feels like you’re talking directly to our founder. 🎙️ Why Voicebots (Not Just Chatbots)? Chatbots are now commonplace, but voice is how humans naturally communicate. AI voicebots unlock: Voice isn’t replacing people. It’s extending teams with superpowers. 📺 Broadcast & Media: Industry-Specific Applications With our deep background in broadcast workflows, we see several powerful use cases: 💡 Use Cases That Transcend Industries Voicebots are no longer a novelty. They’re intelligent, always-on assistants that can streamline operations, enhance user experience, and extend your team’s capabilities. 🏥 Healthcare 24/7 symptom checkers, Appointment confirmations, Post-visit surveys, Wellness reminders 🏢 Real Estate & Property Virtual property tours, Real-time Q&A about listings, Rental application screening, Multilingual tenant support 🛍️ E-commerce & Retail Conversational order tracking, Returns/refund queries, FAQ bots for product info, Loyalty program assistants 🎓 Education & Training Onboarding for online courses, Personalized tutoring, Answering admissions FAQs, Voice-led surveys and feedback collection 💼 Recruitment Vacancy match conversations, Candidate Q&A with a recruiter voice, Interview prep voice coaches, Auto-scheduling follow-ups 📞 B2B & Professional Services Lead qualification, Discovery calls, Explaining complex services with tone and clarity, Embeddable widgets on every client-facing page 🔍 The Tech Behind It Modern voicebots aren’t built on decision trees. They’re powered by: We build agents that learn, improve, and adapt to real-world customer interactions over time — not just regurgitate scripted flows. 🤖 Human in the Loop: Augmented, Not Replaced We’re not advocating for replacing teams — we’re augmenting them. Voicebots can handle the repetitive, high-frequency tasks so that your teams can focus on storytelling, strategy, and relationships. In broadcast, that might mean helping schedulers focus on macro programming trends. In property, it’s about freeing agents to handle serious leads. Across the board, voicebots reduce burnout, accelerate workflows, and increase satisfaction. 🚀 What We Built at Ancast Our voice agent: 🧠 Try the Voicebot Experience Want to hear what it sounds like to talk to an AI voice agent — or better yet, yourself? 👉 Visit our site to chat with our voice agent #Voicebots #ConversationalAI #AI #VoiceTech #BroadcastAI #AIConsulting #LLM #AugmentedIntelligence #AncastIntelligence #CustomerExperience
June 21st, 2025 By Ben Anchor Capstone project submitted for the Berkeley Executive Education Program in AI Strategy (April – June 2025) 📌 Executive Summary During my time at Berkeley, I explored a business case that had been forming in my consulting work: could external, real-time signals (like search trends, news sentiment, or social media) be used to inform broadcast scheduling — not to replace human decision-making, but to augment it intelligently? Rather than presenting a technical build or proof of concept, this capstone was designed as an eight-slide business case, showing how broadcasters might benefit from AI-powered scheduling layered with human editorial oversight. 🎯 The Challenge In the first module of the program, we were prompted to define a potential capstone topic — a “straw man” use case ripe for AI application. I initially considered projects related to accessibility in live sports and real-time captioning workflows, but I eventually settled on something that aligned more closely with my decade of experience: intelligent scheduling for server-based playout systems. Scheduling teams — the people responsible for aligning programming, creative content, and commercial obligations — work in high-pressure, manual environments. The aim of this project was to explore whether AI agents, augmented with external signals, could support these teams in making faster, audience-led decisions. 🧪 The Approach The capstone proposed a model that could ingest historical broadcast schedules, recent performance data, and third-party signals — such as: The concept wasn’t about full automation. Instead, it focused on “augmented intelligence” — with a human-in-the-loop approach designed to maintain trust and editorial oversight. To give it a realistic framework, I modeled the project using metrics like Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) — commonly used to track the gap between forecasted and actual viewership. Thresholds were established to guide how much intervention might be required, depending on performance range The plan also accounted for future hand-off to ML Ops teams to handle retraining, monitor model drift, and ensure the AI system would remain calibrated to changing audience behaviors and broadcast cycles. 💬 Reflections This capstone project felt like the culmination of the last ten years of my work in broadcasting — migrating scheduling systems, working side-by-side with programming teams, and observing how operational bottlenecks emerge. It also reframed what AI can offer to the industry. Instead of replacing creative and strategic input, this system is designed to free up time, so teams can focus on bigger-picture storytelling, campaign planning, and strategic collaboration — not just lining up promos in a spreadsheet.And importantly, it lets broadcasters respond to change at the speed of culture — adapting to shifts in minutes or hours, rather than days. 🚀 What’s Next This isn’t just a concept on slides — it’s now being positioned as part of the strategic advisory services we offer through Ancast Intelligence. Whether you’re exploring AI scheduling, signal-based insights, or the future of audience workflows, feel free to connect for a full slide deck presentation. 📬 contact@ancast.co.uk 🌐 Visit the new website!