LiveU Joins IBC Accelerator's Smart Stories Consortium to Define an Open Standard for Story Context Interoperability

LiveU connects live field acquisition to the Story Object Model, the open standard newsrooms are building so AI-enabled production tools work from one shared understanding of a story

HACKENSACK, N.J. , Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- LiveU is participating in the IBC Accelerator Incubator 2026: Smart Stories – The New Knowledge Architecture for Content Production, an industry-wide initiative developing the Story Object Model (SOM), an open standard for structuring and sharing editorial story context across newsroom production systems. SOM creates one story that every tool works from – cutting time to air, giving every team a single view, and preventing errors caused by rewriting metadata between vendors.

This new consortium spans more than a dozen broadcasters, news organizations, standards bodies, and technology vendors, covering the full content chain from news gathering through to distribution. Champions include ITN, BBC, AP (Associated Press), Al Jazeera, Channel 4, Washington Post, BBC, ITV, Sky, EBU, NBCUniversal, Reuters, Scripps, and SMPTE. LiveU joins the project alongside technology participants including Google Cloud, Shure, Trint, Cognizant, EVS, CUEZ, Trint, AWS, Nuvelics, Electric Sheep, the Weather Company, Moments Lab, HyperContent AI, Octopus, Fonn Group and Vizrt.

A gap AI can't close on its own

As content volume grows exponentially, broadcasters need better ways to discover and distribute it, and the ability to build one story into versions that span broadcast, social, and streaming. Today, producers hold that structure themselves, manually re-entering and aligning details. That slows production and raises the risk of error as stories advance toward air.

Smart Stories closes that gap with a new knowledge architecture for content production. MOS (Media Object Server), the broadcast industry's long-standing operational standard, connects systems by moving data between them but is editorially blind. In contrast, SOM is designed to connect them editorially: it gives every tool in the chain a shared, structured description of what a story is, what has changed, and what matters. AI agents and production tools can act on that understanding without a producer relaying it by hand.

The Accelerator project also defines Skills, so editorial standards, compliance thresholds and house style stay encoded and owned by the newsroom.

LiveU's role: a story-centric ingest workflow built around SOM

SOM extends LiveU's story-centric automated ingest and acquisition workflow by adding another layer of interoperability to LiveU's open EcoSystem. SOM enables editorial teams to share context in real time between vendors, leading to context-aware agentic workflows. LiveU Ingest today already shares live feeds and metadata with newsroom, editing, and distribution platforms outside LiveU.

"Live production has always depended on context traveling from the field into the newsroom and across every tool that touches a story," said Roy Hasson, VP Product Marketing and SaaS Sales, LiveU. "For years, producers held that context in their heads, as AI agents take on more of the production workflow, they need that same context to work from. Smart Stories is the industry building the standard that makes story-centric workflows possible, so systems understand each other and agentic AI can support the editorial process. Our field-to-cloud technology powers that work today."

One use case focuses on connecting acquisition units directly to the story. When a story breaks, LiveU suggests which unit to dispatch. That unit's feed carries the story's context into the cloud. Transcription and clip generation build on that context automatically. One person then confirms the story in a shared console.

Hasson continued, "We are committed to open industry standards, because they increase collaboration and interoperability between vendors across the production chain. That commitment shows up in LiveU's active participation in initiatives like SOM, MXL, and TAMS – open projects that keep our IP-video EcoSystem connected to outside tools and platforms."

Deliverables and live demo at IBC2026

The consortium will deliver three outputs before IBC2026 in Amsterdam, the Story Object Model specification, a Skills reference architecture and a live multi-vendor demonstration. The demonstration takes two forms: a filmed, end-to-end breaking-news pipeline, and a live event where a story changes mid-production, and every connected system responds in real time, with a human editor giving final sign-off. The consortium will also publish a three-tier integration guide, giving vendors a defined path to adopt SOM.

LiveU will join the consortium's live showcase on Saturday, September 12^th:

• Smart Stories Incubator showcase: 4:00–5:00pm, Future Tech Stage, Hall 14
• Accelerator networking reception: 5:00–6:00pm, immediately following the showcase

Network Control: Your Connection, Your Choice

LiveU is also participating in this second IBC2026 Accelerator Project, using open 5G network APIs to turn 5G from best-effort connectivity into a programmable, predictable and reliable production resource.

Network Control: Your Connection, Your Choice unites the BBC, EBU, DAZN, France Télévisions, GSMA, RAI Italy, RTL Germany, TV2 Denmark, Vodafone and Telefónica as Champions, alongside LiveU, Neutral Wireless, Haivision, SliceFinity and Vonage as Participants, with the University of Strathclyde serving as Academic Partner. Together, the group explores how open network APIs can help applications with specialized requirements interact with standardized network capabilities designed to meet defined quality requirements, supporting reliable and business-critical media production workflows over 5G.

LiveU's full IP-video EcoSystem will be on display at Stand 7.C24. To arrange a meeting or demonstration, visit https://get.liveu.tv/ibc-2026/

The IBC Accelerator Zone is located in Hall 14, D.25. The Accelerator PoC Showcases for the above projects will be on Saturday September 12^th 16-17.00hrs (Smart Stories) and Sunday September 13^th 11.30am-12.30pm (Network Control) on the Future Tech Stage, also in Hall 14.

About LiveU 

LiveU is the global leader in live IP-video solutions, transforming live video into real value. From breaking news and major sports events to enterprise communications and public safety, LiveU enables reliable and efficient live production and visual intelligence at scale. LiveU offers a comprehensive, modular IP-video EcoSystem spanning the entire live production workflow. Our solutions are powered by the resilient, low-latency LRT™ (LiveU Reliable Transport) protocol and further strengthened by LiveU IQ (LIQ™), which leverages AI–driven connectivity for optimal performance. With a strong focus on automation, LiveU reduces manual processes to help organizations deliver innovative, story-centric live productions – streamlining scheduling, content creation, ingest and orchestration. Supporting digital–first, hybrid and cloud–based workflows, LiveU provides flexible, scalable and future-proof solutions that support remote productions, on-premises/cloud integration, and multi-platform distribution. Actus Digital, a LiveU company, and the value leader in its space, combines quality assurance monitoring and compliance logging in a unified, affordable Actus X platform. Trusted by over 5,000 customers in more than 150 countries, LiveU is an American company, headquartered in Hackensack, New Jersey, and a multi-award winner. For more information, visit www.liveu.tv, or follow us on X, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Press contacts:
Kate Ford (Int'l)
+44-7740 948065
[email protected]

Joyce Essig (Americas)
201-906-9367
[email protected]

SOURCE LiveU