The value is not the playlist. It is knowing, without driving anywhere, that every site is showing what the advertiser is being billed for.
Large-format sites carry a high cost per physical visit. Content is scheduled by daypart and location and distributed to each player in advance, so degraded connectivity at play time does not blank a paid placement. Each screen reports its actual render state and frame rate rather than acknowledging a dispatch.
The operational value is verification: confirming remotely that every site is displaying the content the advertiser is billed for.
Content pre-cached on the device, so playback does not depend on the network at the moment it matters.
Render confirmed from the device itself, not assumed from a dispatch.
Temperature and storage health reported continuously, which is what actually kills a player in a hot enclosure.
Hundreds of screens, running continuously, where a blank one is noticed by thousands of people. The fleet reports its own condition so a failing display is a ticket before it is a complaint, and updates roll out without a visit to a gate.
The part most signage software does badly is the interruption. An announcement here takes over every screen at once, in priority order, with the text spoken aloud, and nothing can outrank it. That is the same mechanism that carries a lockdown message in a school, which is where it was hardened.