2.6-202509 Public Comment Feedback

[hillslatt]

Please comment on this issue with feedback on updates to the OpenRTB updates pertaining to Live Event Signaling in Public Comment

• Addition of recorded, capturedlive and firstbroadcast attributes to Object: Content
• Implementation Guidance on use of new attributes to better describe Live programs
• Addition of Table of Contents to Implementation Guidance

Public Comment Extended to 10-Oct (originally 19-Sept 2025)

[jameswilhite-ix]

Would it be overly complex to add another attribute for a binary dvr attribute? We wanted to add it to livestream a few years ago but didn't want to introduce a breaking change to the livestream by making it an enum.

[jameswilhite-ix]

I don't understand this example. Why are we setting firstbroadcast to true if it was broadcast on another channel first? Every other example of this value being set to true in the implementation guide is during an initial broadcast.

The first airing of a program or event that has played previously on a different channel in the same market should use a firstbroadcast value of 1; indicating the current showing is not its original broadcast.

[bmayd]

I agree with @jameswilhite-ix, a program that was previously broadcast, whether on a different channel or different mode (e.g. VOD) should not be considered firstbroadcast.

[vbedirian-code]

In 7.15.4 Example Scenarios

1. Shouldn't the combination cell between LiveStream and 'Replay of award show, programmed streaming on an ad-supported channel' be 1, much the same way it is between LiveStream and 'Replay of past sports game, programmed streaming on an ad-supported channel?'
2. Shouldn't LiveStream and 'News program after the program has completed' be 0? Believe the scenario is written to imply an on-demand (thus 0) situation? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding it.
3. Shouldn't Recorded and 'Sitcom rerun streaming on-demand' be 1?
4. CapturedLive is highly correlated with Recorded. And the two scenarios where they are not, I'm not sure I follow. Are we trying to define CapturedLive as 'Scripted' (1) vs. 'Not scripted' (0)?

[bmayd]

I’d like to suggest the following definitions:

First, I think we should replace "livestream" with "linear" and I’ve done so in what follows. The reason is that “livestream” conflates content and broadcast attributes whereas “linear” relates only to the broadcast. With the 4 attributes outlined here, a livestream would be defined as: linear = 1, recorded = 0, capturedlive = 1, firstbroadcast = 1.

• linear: “The method of broadcast of the content,” with options:
  0 = not linear: the broadcast is not scheduled (e.g. it is VOD or otherwise user initiated).
  1 = linear: the broadcast is scheduled
  2 = unknown

Note that linear doesn’t guarantee live consumption, it speaks only to whether or not the broadcast was scheduled, consumers can still record it and replay it at another time. If linear is 0 (on-demand), recorded must be 1 (the content must be recorded) and firstbroadcast must be 0 (the broadcast isn’t scheduled, so there’s no way to contextualize “first”).

• recorded: “The content broadcast is from a recording,” with options:
  0 = not recorded: the content is broadcast as it is happening (e.g. live sports, SNL on US east coast, breaking news).
  1 = recorded: the content is recorded (recorded sports, SNL on US west coast, breaking news on a VOD platform).

This attribute is intended to distinguish live events being broadcast as they’re happening from content that isn’t. If recorded is 0, linear must be 1 and firstbroadcast must be 1 since the event must be broadcast as it is happening.

• capturedlive: “The primary content was captured from a live event in real time,” with options:
  0 = not captured live (e.g. scripted, edited and assembled from multiple takes)
  1 = captured live (e.g. live sports, SNL on east coast, awards ceremony, breaking news)
  2 = unknown

Intended to distinguish planned, scripted and edited events from those that aren’t, though there's likely a lot of gray areas (e.g. filmed before a live audience, reality TV, documentary footage). The capturedlive attribute relates to the nature of the content and is independent of the linear, recorded and firstbroadcast attributes which relate to the broadcast of the content.

• firstbroadcast: “The first time the content is available to an audience,” with the options:
  0 = not first time being broadcast
  1 = first time being broadcast
  2 = unknown

Intended to distinguish content which is new to an audience from content they may have seen previously. The notion of firstbroadcast implies a schedule, so it should only be 1 when linear is also 1.

These changes would result in changes to the following example scenarios (* is changed, indicated broadcast method as VOD or not-VOD, only included changed examples):

Scenarios	linear	recorded	capturedlive	firstbroadcast
Replay of past sports game, programmed streaming (not-VOD) on an ad-supported channel	1	1	1*	0
Sports game streaming on-demand (VOD)	0	1	1*	0
International sports coverage (e.g., Olympics, Tour de France, Formula 1) recorded abroad and aired later (not-VOD)	1	1	1*	1
Episodic content with real time tune-in (not-VOD)	1	1	0 or 1*	0* or 1
Episodic content with on-demand viewing (VOD)	0	1	0 or 1*	0
Replay of award show, programmed streaming (not-VOD) on an ad-supported channel	1*	1	1*	0
Award show streaming on-demand (VOD) after the event has completed	0	1	1*	0
Talk show streaming on-demand (VOD)	0	1	1*	0
News program after the program has completed (VOD)	0	1	1*	0
Sitcom rerun, programmed streaming (not-VOD) on an ad-supported channel	1	1	0 or 1*	0
Sitcom rerun streaming on-demand (VOD)	0	1*	0 or 1*	0

Lastly, it would help to be clearly distinguish between video-on-demand and linear; there are a number of places in the implementation guidance where "streaming" appears to refer either to linear or VOD specifically and really both are streamed over IP.

[jarredwilichinsky-ship-it]

Looking over this proposal I don't believe the programmer community will be on board to support this. To begin with the complexity around content metadata and accurately passing these is extremely difficult. Dealing with CMS issues and alignments in media companies is a never ending issue and this level of complexity is not going to pass accurately.

Also I don't see a single programmer signed up to take on this work. This should not move ahead

[hillslatt]

closing in lieu of a 3rd round of Public Comment based on Working Group agreement after Public Comment. Please refer and comment on the updated issue.