Synamedia helps legacy TV create an owned-and-operated short-form experience
Synamedia is providing TV companies with a way to replicate the YouTube and TikTok experience within an owned-and-operated environment, enabling them to monetise short-form content themselves.
The video solutions vendor launched Synamedia Go Shorts on the eve of NAB Show 2026 to update the TV user experience for younger viewers, and especially Gen Z.
According to Tzvi Gerstl, EVP for media technology and cloud services at Synamedia, the shorts can serve as a new entry point to TV services and drive viewers to long-form content.
Synamedia Go Shorts enables TV companies to continuously queue personalised short-form content assets generated automatically from existing VOD libraries and live content using AI.
There is no content duplication, no new video processing and no new content workflows, he declared.
Synamedia anticipates that legacy TV companies could launch their own challenger streaming apps to deliver this Gen Z-focused user experience.
The company emphasises that a short-form UX could be offered in an existing streaming service and a new challenger service using the same infrastructure (underpinned by the Synamedia Go software-as-a-service OTT platform).
Mobile-first discovery
The expectation is that users will discover content on their mobile devices, enabling the TV provider to offer a truly personalised experience.
Gerstl claims younger demos, right up to millennials, are no longer browsing content catalogues and rails, but instead waiting to be served personalised short-form feeds.
“[TV platform] Operators have the best content, including live sport, but they are not fully prepared for this new audience behaviour,” he declared.
“There is a gap between younger behaviours and the TV user experience. We are trying to close that gap.”
Synamedia Go Shorts analyses content to determine the most relevant sections to attract users in short-form. It includes an audience engagement layer.
While the shorts will be a mobile-first experience, Gerstl presents Go Shorts as a two-screen solution. “Viewers can move directly from mobile to a television if you want them to.”
A simple swipe can switch the viewing session to a TV screen, at which point the mobile app acts as the remote control.
“This connects the two worlds,” Gerstl observes.
The idea is that shortform is an entry point, not an endpoint.
“We should not talk anymore about the primary and secondary devices because both of them are going to be primary with this audience.”
NAB Show demonstrations
Synamedia is currently demonstrating Go Shorts at the NAB Show in Las Vegas (April 19-22).
Go Shorts is a new module in the Synamedia Go platform.
The Go software-as-a-service platform includes Go Core (UX management, user entitlements, front-end apps, etc.), Go Plus (personalised search and recommendations, in-app purchases, etc.), and Go Smart (AI content enrichment, real-time AI-based recommendations, etc.).
Gerstl argues that, “The streamers who win with Gen Z won’t be the ones who simply mimic the existing and tired lean-back experience or the ones who build something new from scratch.
“They’ll be the ones who figure out how to make what they already have feel native to these audiences.”
He claims conventional responses to the viewing behavioural shift among younger generations do not work.
“Adding features at the margins doesn’t go far enough. Building a separate platform is expensive and slow. Go Shorts offers a distinct, alternative approach.”