Developed by Hyunmin Jeon, the app impressed judges with what they described as a premium, streaming-grade user experience that translates the strengths of leading OTT services into a DVB-I environment.

The competition, launched by DVB in May 2025, challenged developers to design innovative clients and applications demonstrating how DVB-I can enhance content discovery and programme information across broadcast and IP-delivered services. An international panel of experts evaluated the entries across several categories, including usability, innovation and effective use of DVB-I metadata, with the winners announced during an online event in mid-January 2026.

StreamHub stood out by combining a clean, modern interface with deep integration of DVB-I features. The app supports automatic service list discovery via the DVB-I Service List Registry, selecting the most relevant service list based on a user’s detected country and region. Users can browse channels and rich EPG data, including genre, age rating and accessibility flags, and access live and catch-up streams with low latency. Additional features such as picture-in-picture viewing, restart TV, unified search, favourites management and Google Cast integration were cited by judges as evidence of a polished and intuitive experience that feels familiar to users of leading OTT services while enhancing the traditional TV channel experience. StreamHub topped three of the five judging categories by a clear margin.

The winning project will be honoured during a special session at DVB World 2026, taking place in Amsterdam on 17–18 March, including a presentation from its developer.

Second prize was awarded to Zappin Media for its Android app Zappin, which explores how DVB-I can bridge traditional broadcast and modern digital media. The application combines DVB-I service discovery and EPG browsing with AI-assisted content search, channel-based social interaction and an interactive live feed. It also supports companion-screen scenarios, allowing users to send a live broadcast to a connected TV while continuing to engage socially on a mobile device. Judges highlighted the app’s forward-looking use of AI, its flexibility and its clean, intuitive design, describing it as a strong and contemporary interpretation of DVB-I.

Third prize went to an AI agent for DVB-I developed by 3Cat, which also ranked first in the innovation category. The project integrates a conversational AI agent into a DVB-I environment, enabling viewers to search content, switch between live services or restart programmes using voice or text via a companion mobile app. By leveraging DVB-I’s structured metadata endpoints, including service lists, schedules and programme information, the system demonstrates how standardised data can act as a semantic backbone for AI-driven television interfaces. Judges described the entry as a standout innovation that could fundamentally reshape how audiences interact with TV.

According to DVB, the competition underlines the growing maturity of DVB-I as a platform for next-generation TV user interfaces, showing how standardised metadata can support both familiar streaming-style experiences and entirely new, AI-led forms of interaction.

The launch strengthens Titan OS’s offering of Dutch-language apps and reinforces its presence in the European smart TV market, according to Stoneroos.

NPO Start, the streaming service from Dutch public broadcaster NPO, is now available on Titan OS-powered devices, offering viewers easy access to a broad range of local programming.

Currently powering millions of Philips smart TVs across Europe and reaching over 5 million active users, Titan OS is set to roll out on additional brands including JVC in the near future.

“We are excited about Stoneroos focusing on Titan OS. They have an extensive track record in creating high-quality apps for TV and delivering excellent video user experiences,” said Rick Fens, SVP Business Development at Titan OS.

Robbert van Elswijk, Director of Stoneroos, added: “Stoneroos helps its customers maximise their reach. Titan OS is one of the most promising TV operating systems in Europe. With their truly independent approach and growing market share, it’s an ideal platform for customers to help maximise their reach.”

The six-month trial began last week and aims to enhance the accuracy of TV and video consumption data by incorporating usage insights from HbbTV-compliant TV sets and Sky Deutschland set-top boxes.

The trial is being conducted in cooperation with technology partner TV Insight and involves around 100 participating broadcasters. The goal is to assess whether return path data can improve the stability of audience figures and reduce the occurrence of “zero ratings”, particularly in a viewing environment that has become increasingly fragmented across platforms and services.

Return path data is collected using TV Insight’s HbbTV measurement library. Viewers must provide explicit consent for data collection via banners displayed on participating HbbTV channels, with the option to withdraw consent at any time.

“We are very pleased about the successful launch of the test phase of this ambitious project,” said Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, CEO of AGF Videoforschung. “The test for integrating return channel data represents an important step in the further development of AGF’s measurement methods. Our thanks go to all participating partners who have contributed their expertise to get this innovative project off the ground. We are looking forward to the first test results, which we expect in the coming months.”

Sebastian Hinterstoisser, CEO of TV Insight, added: “It is a great honour that TV Insight is able to participate as a technology partner in this pioneering project. AGF is one of the most renowned and influential institutions in the field of TV and video research in Europe – all the more we are delighted about the opportunity to contribute our technology in this context. We hope that our methodological approach can support the further development of existing measurement standards.”

The initiative follows a similar rollout in Austria, where return channel data from HbbTV was successfully integrated into the official TV ratings system, Teletest. The Austrian case has shown that combining traditional panel data with granular device-level usage can provide a more comprehensive view of audience behaviour – a model AGF is now testing for potential adoption in Germany.

If the proof of concept is successful, it could lay the groundwork for a broader implementation of return path data in AGF’s audience measurement system.

While Android-based platforms will account for nearly two-thirds of this expansion, the ecosystem is fracturing, with new OS contenders carving out regional footholds and formerly dominant platforms entering decline.

Android TV, Google’s flagship video platform, will expand dramatically, powered by a wave integrations and sustained retail adoption. But cracks are showing Chromecast OS is set to vanish entirely by the end of the forecast, and unlicensed AOSP forks are losing favor amid rising content security demands. Meanwhile, HarmonyOS (a forked Android variant developed by Huawei) has quietly built a domestic empire in China, projected to reach 932 million units globally by 2030.

RDK, once heralded as the open-source answer to Android’s dominance, will see its global installed base peak during the period, before contracting to 66.5 million. Its legacy in North American cable deployments is fading, and international traction remains sporadic.

New entrants are capitalizing on this fragmentation. India’s JioTele OS will surge to over 100 million units by 2030, thanks to bundled broadband and retail TV strategies. Titan OS, backed by TP Vision and Vestel, has emerged in Europe as a neutral, ad-friendly Linux platform. TiVo’s Linux-based TiVo OS also emerges, operating in tandem to the Android TV-based TiVo Stream.

Even niche platforms are making noise. ZEASN’s Whale OS, Roku’s white-label rival, is forecast to top 117 million units. Meanwhile, Ventura OS, launched by The Trade Desk to give advertisers more data transparency, looks doomed following the collapse of its Sonos partnership, leaving it without a hardware partner or deployment path.

The shift toward software-led ecosystems means that OS decisions are no longer just about UX – they’re about data, discovery, and monetization. “The OS is where the ad rails live, where the recommendation engines run, and where first-party data is collected,” said Rafi Cohen, Analyst at Rethink TV. “This is no longer a product or UX choice. It’s a hugely political and strategic one.”

Annual smart TV sales will continue to drive growth, climbing to 3.76 billion in 2030, while CTV device sales will decline slightly to 440 million, reflecting a shift toward integrated experiences. This tilt is most visible in mature markets, where HDMI dongles are being displaced by increasingly capable Smart TVs. But in price-sensitive regions, CTV devices still serve as retrofit solutions for legacy screens.

Rethink TV’s forecast draws on extensive modeling of OS-level market shares, OEM partnerships, app ecosystem dynamics, and regional video infrastructure. The report includes projections across five global regions, offering a granular view of where and how each OS will grow – or fall behind.

This innovative technology, co-developed with Nagravision, offers consumers a seamless and clutter less entertainment experience, eliminating the need for traditional set-top boxes.

Simplifying the future of live TV with TVKey Cloud, users can now access all their favourite live and on-demand content using a single Samsung Smart TV remote. This marks a major milestone in reducing additional cables and hardware, delivering a clean, modern, and highly intuitive viewing experience. The technology is compatible with Samsung’s 2023 and 2024 Connected TV models, including Ultra HD, OLED, QLED, and Neo QLED.

This state of the art technology allows the service provider’s subscribers to access premium content using TVKey’s unique on-chip security, ensuring a high level of content protection.

“TVKey Cloud technology is Samsung’s latest in a series of innovations towards powering Digital India. It helps cable and satellite television providers deliver secure and high-quality content so that consumers can enjoy their favourite content on Samsung TVs seamlessly. The innovative technology will set a new standard in India’s television industry,” said Dipesh Shah, Managing Director of SRI-Bangalore.

Samsung TVKey Cloud is currently available with cable & satellite television providers in India – GTPL and Dish TV – offering unmatched viewing experience to subscribers. TVKey Cloud will enable service providers to deliver a variety of services – from live broadcast to on-demand content – with minimal hardware. All that’s required is an internet connection (Broadband, 4G, or 5G) to authenticate the live TV signals fetched via Cable or DTH Antenna.

This strategic acquisition enhances Samba TV’s capabilities in delivering privacy-first targeting across digital and connected TV (CTV) platforms, further solidifying its position as a leader in AI-powered omniscreen advertising.

By acquiring Semasio, Samba TV will expand its global footprint as well as its capabilities for advertisers to define and reach granular audience segments through a unified approach that combines contextual, behavioral, and demographic data. Semasio, with over 100 customers in 50 countries across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, maintains over 1 billion stable user profiles globally and analyzes over 2.5 billion web pages each month, enabling advertisers to optimize campaigns in both ID-based and ID-less environments.

“Our vision is that AI-generated data and insights will create high-performance, privacy-first advertising solutions, so we are doubling down on that with this acquisition,” said Samba TV Co-founder and CEO Ashwin Navin.

“Samba’s AI capabilities have been focused on streaming video, but we are now complemented by Semasio’s semantic analysis of the open web. While our competitors are faltering or shutting down, we are accelerating and doing so with the power of GenAI as a tailwind for our business, without compromises to data protections and privacy.”

The acquisition enables Samba TV to expand the availability of its AI-powered solutions by integrating its video data into Semasio’s platform, enhancing advertisers’ ability to reach consumers with contextual relevance across digital, mobile, and CTV platforms. The Semasio platform is already widely deployed among programmatic trading desks enabling brands, agencies, and data owners to expand and activate first-party and third-party data at scale in dozens of countries worldwide. This combined offering addresses the increasing need for brands to operate in a cookie-less, privacy-conscious world, where first-party data and contextual intelligence are crucial for success.

“Before this acquisition, we were partners with Semasio and saw huge potential in the platform and for the team behind it,” said Samba TV CCO Aden Zaman.

“As a first-party data owner, we recognize and appreciate the importance of identity resolution, data distribution, and onboarding. The acquisition of Semasio expands our value proposition to data companies with global reach into the world’s most important media platforms.”

Combining Samba TV’s data and identity solutions with Semasio’s global audience and capabilities enables audience and contextual strategies to coexist seamlessly. By integrating Semasio’s robust data platform with Samba TV’s proprietary omniscreen measurement tools, advertisers will now have access to more precise and comprehensive solutions for campaign optimization and audience engagement across all digital and TV environments.

??Semasio CEO Jeff Ragovin will be transitioning leadership of the company to General Manager Zac Pinkham. Reflecting on the development, Ragovin, who successfully led Semasio as CEO, remarked: “Joining forces with Samba TV empowers us to fully realize Semasio’s vision by expanding investment into our next-generation platform, which seamlessly integrates audience-based and contextual targeting with greater reach across more channels. I’m excited to see how Samba TV’s expertise and resources will propel Semasio to new heights.”

“We’re excited to join forces with Samba TV globally to bring our capabilities to a broader audience,” said Pinkham. “Our unified targeting approach, combined with Samba’s deep measurement insights and video viewership data, will enable advertisers to achieve greater reach and increased ability to accurately measure the results.”

“We are enthused to see Semasio’s semantic analysis of the open web come together with Samba AI for streaming video,” said National Media Chief Innovation Officer Adam Wise. “The combined footprint creates a contextual targeting powerhouse that can address the most valuable audience attributes marketers care about, while being uniquely specific, scalable and privacy forward.”

“As a long-standing partner of Semasio, we’re excited by the news that Semasio’s semantic targeting capabilities will be combined with Samba TV’s comprehensive global first-party data and advanced AI solutions,” said Acxiom SVP of Channel Partnerships Martin Wexler. “This integration brings new possibilities to our data activation strategies and will unlock increased value for our clients in their cross-channel marketing efforts.”

Semasio will continue to operate as an independent business led by Pinkham who has been appointed general manager. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The channel remains predominant in the US capturing 83% of ad views. Programmatic ad views have registered double-digit growth in the U.S. (+15%) and Europe (+41%), compared to H1 2023.

Ad views that use audience targeting have drastically increased, rising +39% in the U.S. and +23% in Europe.

The FreeWheel Video Marketplace Report, based on aggregated data from FreeWheel, a leading advertising technology platform in Europe – highlights the changing dynamics of how enterprise-class content owners and distributors are monetising premium digital video content.

With FreeWheel’s extensive coverage and capabilities in Europe and the US, the data set included in this report is one of the largest available on the usage and monetization of professional, rights-managed, ad-supported video content across the two regions.

This edition of the report explores ad viewership trends across devices, transaction types, and content types for the first half of 2024 (H1 2024) in selected European countries and the US.

Ad viewership continues to grow in the US and Europe with total ad views up +11% year-over-year (YOY), +8% and +29% respectively. The findings mark almost a decade of double-digit growth in ad views in Europe, coinciding with viewers embracing the expanding and flexible offerings of digital and streaming platforms, including live video content.

Connected TV (CTV) has seen a +31% increase in ad views in Europe compared to the same period in 2023, and it is now the primary device (46%) through which viewers watch ad-supported content in the region. CTV continues its dominance in the U.S., capturing 83% of ad views in H1 2024. The analysis highlights the prominence of the large screen in ad-supported premium video environments.

Audience targeting has increased by double digits in the US (+39%) and Europe (+23%) compared to the first half of last year, as media companies increasingly leverage first-party data and advanced targeting capabilities to reach intended viewers. This trend is expected to continue in light of the growing complexity in the privacy landscape.

Both regions recorded overall growth in programmatic ad views, +15% in the US and an outstanding +41% in Europe. Regional differences were more apparent at device level with CTV accounting for 87% of programmatic ad views in the U.S. versus 28% in Europe. There’s scope for growth for this type of transaction in Europe, particularly as CTV continues to grow.

Live content represents an opportunity for advertisers and publishers to connect with large simultaneous audiences in both regions. Live ad-supported content captured 54% of ad views in the US in H1 2024; figures are lower in Europe (22%) but have grown from 18% for the same period last year. With the recent streaming successes from large sports events, live in Europe is likely to show an upward trend moving forward.

The strategic move places Hisense alongside other leading companies in a cross-industry group dedicated to fostering the growth of the 8K ecosystem.

“Hisense’s membership in the 8K Association marks a significant step in our ongoing mission to enhance the home entertainment experience,” said David Gold, President of Hisense Americas and Hisense USA. “We are eager to contribute to the 8K ecosystem and collaborate with other industry leaders to accelerate the integration of 8K technology into the home entertainment experience.”

Hisense’s commitment to 8K technology is not new. The company has been investing in research and development to improve the resolution and image quality of its TV sets. The membership will allow the company to have a more significant influence on the development and deployment of 8K technology, according to the Association.

“Hisense’s addition to the 8K Association expands our collective of industry leaders,” said Mike Fidler, Executive Director of the 8KA. “Their dedication to innovation and excellence in consumer electronics will be instrumental in our shared efforts to promote 8K technology and its benefits.”

Other 8KA members include Panasonic, Samsung, TCL, Google, Intel and Xperi.

ORS continued to rely on its long-term core technology partner 3SS to deliver this reach-extending service enhancement and enhance the user experience through a new feature created for football fans at the occasion of the European Football Championship 2024.

The highlight feature, a replay service, enables customers to re-watch game highlights even while the match is still underway or afterwards. It is expected that this innovation will especially appeal to groups of friends enjoying the match together.

The enhancement is being made available to all simpliTV users for a promotional period of two months on multiple simpliTV receiving devices: hybrid set-top boxes, Samsung, LG and Android smart TVs.

The smart TV app launched in under three months from kick-off including certification, according to 3SS. The project-critical objective, ORS’ fundamental requirement, was completion in time for the Euro 2024 football tournament, of which Hisense is gold sponsor, taking place from 14 June to 14 July 2024 in Germany.

“ORS, Hisense, VIDAA and 3SS all rolled up our sleeves and worked closely, with a high level of communication and responsiveness; with 3SS as prime integrator, and a shared focus among the partners, these innovations were delivered in the highest quality and in time to showcase the European football championship. We thank everyone involved,” said Philipp Dainese, CEO of simpliTV.

simpliTV’s 100+ channels bring together DVB broadcasting, OTT streaming and Google Play Store apps, combining digital satellite and DTT with today’s key online video features.

Telefunken and JVC are the first Vestel brands to have the operating system (OS) developed by US technology company Xperi on board.

The smart TVs offer access to live TV, streaming services and on-demand platforms on their user interface, including a search function, personalised recommendations and voice navigation.

“Together with Xperi, we are unveiling the future of entertainment for German TV viewers. The TiVo OS offers a whole new level of personalisation and content discovery,” said Taner Ayilmaz, Managing Director of Vestel Holland B.V. Germany Branch Office. “Gone are the days of wasting hours every week searching for a suitable TV programme. The new smart TVs offer an advanced, AI-powered user experience for quick access to a huge amount of content.”

Xperi recently stepped up its engagement of bringing TiVo to smart TVs with Panasonic being another brand that recently selected the OS for its range of TV sets.