M+E Daily

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the game for media and entertainment, forcing industry players to quickly shift both their workflows — and mindsets — to keep business running in this new work-from-home reality.

On May 27, the Hollywood Innovation and Transformation Summit (HITS) Live — the industry’s annual gathering of its CIOs and top technology minds— will tackle the quickly shifting IT needs of studios, networks, media service providers and more, and the many ways M&E vendors are stepping up to meet those needs … this time as an all-live, virtual, global conference, allowing for real-time Q&A, one-on-one chats with other attendees, and more.

Content creators are in dire need of a wide range of tools to make working remotely a success, from addressing home bandwidth concerns, choosing the right collaboration tools, addressing remote cloud and storage issues, tackling quality control with workers spread outside the office, and meeting localization deadlines with contributors working at home offices around the world.

Attendees of the HITS Live event will be treated to answers to those topics and more. And in addition to two hours of main-stage programming, HITS Live will bring back the ever-popular HITS Innovation & Technology breakout session series, which will explore the industry’s biggest technology shifts, covering how traditional IT is impacting programming, productions, and direct-to-consumer (D2C) services.

An early look at those sessions includes:

• Windowless Video Distribution: Embracing this “Black Swan” Moment
• Connecting with Consumers with the Right Content During Massive Social Shifts
• Tales from the Trenches – Working Remotely Before, During and After COVID-19
• Turbo Charge Your Digital Supply Chain to Scale
• Innovating your Most Critical Assets by Breaking Through Technical Legacy Challenges
• How COVID is Changing Customer Experience in the Entertainment Space

HITS Live is programmed under the guidance of the Content Advisors of the Hollywood IT Society, which includes Steve Andujar, EVP and CIO of Sony Pictures Entertainment; John Herbert, EVP and CIO of Fox Corporation; Steve Lapinski, CIO of filmed entertainment for NBCUniversal; and Theresa Miller, EVP CIO of Lionsgate.

HITS Live is presented by Microsoft Azure, with sponsorship by RSG Media, Signiant, Tape Ark, Whip Media Group, Zendesk, Eluvio, Sony, Avanade, EIDR and the Trusted Partner Network (TPN). The event is produced by the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) and the Hollywood IT Society (HITS), in association with the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA) and the Smart Content Council.

For more information, click here. To Register, click here. To become a sponsor and participate in the event, contact Evie Silvers at [email protected].