IBC Keynote preview - Paramount CTO Phil Wiser: “Content creation is our bedrock”

The evolving consumption patterns on linear TV, coupled with streaming TV viewing reaching a record high has created a seismic shift which the entire industry is grappling with. Phil Wiser, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Paramount Global, prefers to take a long-term view. “The major media companies are in the game. When you take a step back, you’ll see we’re pretty well positioned.

“The most important thing to talk about is our content,” he says. “There’s so much press written about shifts in content distribution, but it’s the content itself that is vital to the industry. Content creation is the bedrock of Paramount.

“We need to look beyond any single quarter to understand the transition to streaming,” he explains. “It’s been somewhat gradual relative to other industries over the past two decades. Clearly, it has accelerated recently, but it’s not as if the industry has been idle in adapting to change.”

Previously, Wiser was the CTO at Sony Corporation of America and Sony Music, responsible for creating the digital businesses at Sony Music, including the forging of the groundbreaking deal to launch iTunes. This background has given him the tools and the knowledge to ensure Paramount continues to innovate for the future, especially as the media landscape remains ever-changing.

“Most of the music industry failed to embrace internet distribution and either sat on the sidelines or tried to stop it aggressively. When the shift happened, they ended up with nothing and took a backseat to companies like Apple.”

Rather than resisting the shift to digital, Wiser says broadcasters and studios are keenly focused on the future of distribution and evolving business models.

“The performance of our streaming businesses demonstrates significant growth. This growth is nothing without the quality of our content. We have many high-performing shows and films in the library, and due to be released.”

AI in the mix

“AI is better applied and grown organically from within the community” Phil Wiser, Paramount Global

An increasingly potent part of the technology mix that Hollywood is grappling with is artificial intelligence (AI) and how best to deploy it. Wiser says that Paramount has taken a conservative approach to the broad adoption of AI, but the long-term impact remains a focus.

“Within the group, we’ve done a good job at training people on the potential of AI so that we’re in a strong position to organically adopt it, but as of today, it’s not having a significant business impact on how we produce content.

“That said, if you look out three to five years, we’ll see AI impact growth substantially. Some of the drivers of this will come from the maturity of the technology and the way AI tools become more applicable to our workflows.”

The nexus of technology and creativity has been at the heart of Hollywood’s success over decades, and Wiser sees no reason why that relationship should change. Indeed, he believes in doubling down on empowering creatives with new technology.

“Another big part will be the innovation that comes out of the creative community. I think AI is better applied and grown organically from within the community.

“It’s also worth noting that AI/ML is a very fluid environment,” he says. “Companies that may have invested heavily in the technology 18 months ago may not have found the return they were looking for. We see our role as enabling and educating the creative community in part by continuing to watch developments very closely.”

Cloud and sustainability update

Another long-term technology play overseen by Wiser, along with other studio CTOs is the move to cloud. This is being guided by the MovieLabs 2030 vision.

“It’s certainly been one of the most important strategic imperatives in the industry,” Wiser says. “It has enabled us at Paramount and our peer group to share meaningful conversations around what our ambitions should be and how we should collectively get there.”

“Over 95% of our enterprise systems are cloud-based, which includes our video-intensive tools, systems, and asset storage. The transition to the cloud facilitates more downstream fluidity and opens opportunities to better exploit assets. We’re seeing significant shifts in areas like animation, whereas cloud-based production remains a work in progress.”

Read more: IBC Conference: Hollywood heavyweights edge closer to seamless IP production ecosystem

The adoption of cloud technologies and virtual solutions emphasises Paramount Tech’s focus on sustainability. Over the last four years, the company has traded owned and operated data centres for shared facilities, which yielded near immediate carbon efficiency gains. The move to cloud and virtual solutions positively impacts the group’s focus on sustainability.

“The pandemic brought about a remote work model that reduced our physical footprint across the company and additional direct sustainability benefits. We continue to make progress in our efforts toward sustainable software engineering by weaning off inefficient systems and architectures with direct links to our energy consumption measurements,” Wiser says.

Consumers value content

“The primacy of the concept of storytelling in 5-10 years is probably going to be very similar to what it is today” Phil Wiser, Paramount Global

Despite being buffeted on all sides by changes in distribution, consumer behaviour, business model and technology, Wiser is confident that the importance of quality content will remain constant and valuable.

“I believe that the concept of story is not going to change even over a longer time frame. Certainly, the personalised organisation of content is going to continue to improve and refine. As we’ve seen from social media platforms, a change in the way content is surfaced can have a dramatic impact on the overall experience. End user services continue to become increasingly optimised around how they’re sorting content and pushing that to users.”

But Wiser believes there is still incredible value in expert content curation. “People want stories that have continuity, that they can go deeper into. The primacy of the concept of storytelling in 5-10 years is probably going to be very similar to what it is today.”

“Just look at the many attempts to move to a much shorter snackable form of content at broadcast quality. They haven’t really been successful. We’re still living with 20-30-minute episodic season-based constructs to tell a story. That’s not to deny innovation in terms of formats but in terms of story-driven content that people want to consume I feel that will remain the same in five years’ time or longer as it does today.”

At a time of change, Wiser’s IBC keynote will offer a steady hand in guiding the industry toward the business models that will drive long term monetisation.

Phil Wiser will be taking part in the IBC2024 keynote CTO Perspectives on Sat 14th Sept.

Read more IBC Keynote: Prime Video backs AI to redefine intuitive streaming