The video industry is drowning in data. Every device, app, stream, ad, and network connections generate a ton of metrics. In theory, this data should be a goldmine for smarter decision-making and competitive advantage. In reality, the data is often siloed, measured in inconsistent ways, and acted upon too late to deliver a real impact. As media services evolve, a key differentiator will be the ability to unify, interpret, and act on data instantly. That’s the next step in video analytics.
From detection to direction
Over the years, analytics in video services has evolved significantly. The first-generation analytics layer, while essential, often stops at detection. Today, video service providers are combining traditional quality metrics, like startup time, rebuffering, resolution shifts, with insights into customer behavior, product usage, and content engagement. This convergence, which we call, unified analytics, provides a single, actionable view of device health, user experience, and network performance. There is a difference between identifying that playback interruptions occurred due to CDN congestion and understanding which section of your audience was impacted as a result, on what devices, during what content, and how it affects your ad revenue.
Challenges that still hold us back
Even with powerful tools available, three major obstacles continue to limit the value of analytics:
- Data silos: Operations, product, content, and advertisement teams often work from disconnected datasets and have different priorities, creating conflicting views.
- Integration complexity: With lots of delivery partners, device types, and platforms, merging data into a coherent, reliable whole is difficult.
- Fragmented perspective: Insights delivered after the event are useful for post-mortems, but far less valuable for preventing churn or saving a failing live event.
These challenges mean that even sophisticated analytics investments can fail to deliver on their full promise.
What unified analytics really look like
When we talk about unified analytics, we don’t just mean a consolidated dashboard, we mean connecting every viewer, device, and network into one coherent, actionable view. Modern analytics bring together six core dimensions that have traditionally been tracked in isolation:
- Customer analytics – how users behave across mobile apps, smart TVs, and set-top boxes.
- Product & UX optimization analytics – how viewers navigate, what features they use, and where they disengage.
- Device performance analytics – performance by device type and software version to pinpoint technical issues affecting quality of experience (QoE).
- Content usage & engagement analytics – determining what drives audience loyalty and suggesting better content and scheduling decisions.
- Ad performance analytics – measuring ad-break impact by service, device, and audience segment to protect and grow revenue.
- Network & CDN performance analytics – breaking down performance by delivery network, CDN, and service to correlate the infrastructure health directly to viewer impact.
At Agama, our developments in Product Analytics and Content Engagement Analytics are helping video service providers bridge the gap between what’s happening and why it’s happening. This approach connects the dots across operational, customer, and business perspectives, empowering teams to act in the moment, not after the event has occurred.
[Image: Engagement Analytics]
Beyond more dashboards: knowing before it happens
The future isn’t just more data or prettier dashboards. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are enabling what we call Agama augmented intelligence, which allows insights to be automatically generated and presented, tailored for the use case and audience. This empowers teams to be effective and accomplish more, supported by an analytics system that predicts impact of issues and can recommend or automate corrective actions.
Imagine knowing, before your NOC team does, that a specific device model on a certain app version is about to trigger a spike in customer complaints. Or dynamically adjusting CDN routing based on real-time audience behavior rather than static rules. This is the shift from reactive action to proactive and predictive service assurance.
Closing thought: what’s next in video analytics
For video service providers wanting to stay ahead, several strategic focus areas are crucial. Those who will thrive are those who gradually break down data silos and adopt unified, real-time analytics as part of their company culture. The trend shows that analytics is evolving from a reporting tool to a decision and automation engine that powers product, content strategy, marketing, and operational excellence.
Unified video analytics is more than a monitoring evolution for service providers, it’s a strategic capability.
About Dora Voicu
Dora is driving global marketing at Agama by developing the right strategies to help customers understand the value of Agama’s offerings and the benefits for their business. She brings more than 18 years of telecom and video experience to the company.
