Ep. 10: Data and AI in Media & Entertainment with Sanjeevan Bala, Group Chief Data & AI Officer at ITV
Ep. 10: Data and AI in Media & Entertainment with Sanjeevan Bala, Group Chief Data & AI Officer at ITV
In the Season 1 finale of The Analytics Edge, Sanjeevan Bala, Group Chief Data & AI Officer at ITV, discusses the role and impact of Data and AI in the Media & Entertainment industry.
Episode Notes
In the Season 1 finale of The Analytics Edge (sponsored by NetSpring), we are delighted to have Sanjeevan Bala, Group Chief Data & AI Officer from the British media giant ITV, on the show to discuss the role and impact of Data and AI in the Media & Entertainment industry. Sanjeevan goes in-depth on how ITV's commitment to being data-driven has propelled the business forward. He shares ITV’s targets for doubling monthly active users (MAU) through marketing activities, doubling viewing hours within the product, and doubling digital revenue on the commercial front.
In order to achieve these objectives, while we often talk about the data literacy of business teams, Sanjeevan exposes the need for business literacy on his data teams. This helps him determine the level of self-service vs. offering the “silver services” of an embedded team of analysts. Either approach presents their own set of last mile challenges, and he explains how a cloud data warehouse and having a single source of truth, can help align business teams around a shared view of customer segmentation and unified definitions of cross-functional business metrics.
Join us as Sanjeevan shares the triumphs and challenges for Data and AI at ITV, and leaves us with his expert predictions on how AI will continue to disrupt the Media & Entertainment industry!
Bio:
Sanjeevan Bala is a leader in the field of data and artificial intelligence, currently serving as the Group Chief Data & AI Officer at ITV. Recognized as the Most Influential Person in Data on the DataIQ 100 list for 2023, Sanjeevan has over a decade of expertise in the Media & Entertainment industry, having contributed significantly at ITV and previously at Channel 4. With a bachelor’s degree in management & computing from King's College London, his influence extends beyond his current role, as he holds multiple board and advisory positions, including engagements with Bakkavor, Evanta, and DataIQ.
Key Quote:
“Across Product, Marketing, and Commercial you sometimes get very verticalized KPIs. For example, Marketing often will look at cost per acquired user. Historically, the conversation would be we’ve acquired them – they don’t go and watch something, that’s not our issue! But increasingly what’s happening is Marketing will look at cost per acquired hour of a viewer. We start to join up parts of the organization with these unified metrics, driving the right kind of behavior thinking about the next step in that journey.”
- Sanjeevan Bala
Episode Timestamps
(Segment 1) (:56) Challenges
(1:29) Career journey in data leadership
(2:56) Integrated publisher/broadcaster model
(4:20) ITV’s unique data requirements
(9:38) ITV's modern data stack architecture
(12:02) Multi-cloud strategy for different workloads
(13:05) Challenges to making data-driven decisions
(15:25) How data warehouses address last mile challenges
(Segment 2) (17:07) Solutions
(17:30) Organization of data team to support business units
(20:44) Standard data models in Media & Entertainment
(23:26) Behavioral analytics and segmentation
(27:10) Data gaps in product analytics tools
(31:42) Impact of the data team at ITV
(Segment 3) (34:50) Business Opportunities
(34:52) The future of AI at ITV and for Media & Entertainment
(Segment 4) (39:53) Takeaways
