HomeAuthor Kauser Kanji

I've been working on a client project this year for a European broadcaster and part of the job has been to figure out how to take payments for their new SVOD service. Should they go direct and perhaps set up accounts with companies like Recurly and Stripe? Maybe let their new end-to-end platform partner handle it? Or how about engaging with a specialist payment solutions provider? These are some of the questions we discussed with

At this week’s OTT Question Time (Thursday 28^th January, 4pm UK) we talked about the VOD landscape in India which, according to PWC’s latest Entertainment & Media Outlook, is the world’s fastest growing OTT market. Indeed, with a population of 1.37bn and 40+ major OTT services already in operation, PWC suggests that India will overtake Australia, Germany and South Korea to become the sixth-largest OTT market by 2024. In this light, and together

At OTT Question Time this week (Thursday 14 January, 4pm UK), we rang in 2021 with some industry predictions for the year ahead. Together with renowned analysts Allan McLennan of PADEM Media Group, Maria Rua Aguete of OMDIA, Simon Murray of Digital TV Research and Tony Maroulis of Ampere Analysis we discussed:

• The upcoming launches (or international rollouts) of new SVODs like Peacock and HBO Max
• The prospects for the incumbent streamers like Netflix, Amazon

What would 2020 have been like for the OTT industry if there had never been a pandemic? In many ways it might have been business as usual: VOD viewing - compared to linear - would have gently increased along with addressability and AVOD revenues. Disney+ and Peacock would still have launched. Quibi might have been a success. And PVOD may have remained a greyed-out item on executive wish lists - desirable but with little likelihood

How do you know how many people have watched a title on your OTT service? How do you know how much of the show they watched? Whether they switched off after six minutes or enjoyed it so much that they immediately binged through the rest of the season? What content should you recommend they try next? And can you infer (if not measure outright) how highly your subscribers value your catalogue or if they're about

It's been nearly two months since ITV launched its new addressable advertising platform, Planet V, and at this week's OTT Question Time (Thursday 26 Nov) one of the architects of the service, Rhys McLachlan, joined our panel. Together with Leon Siotis, President EMEA of SpotX and John Tigg, VP & Managing Director, EMEA at Cadent, we talked all things addressable including:

• The different flavours of addressable TV advertising
• The size of the

We've undoubtedly been living in a golden age of television. The number of original scripted series in the USA has more than doubled since 2010 (from 216 to 532 in 2019). The range of platforms we can watch on - both in terms of hardware (TVs, phones, tablets) and services (like Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer) - has massively expanded over the same period. Content production budgets have increased, consumers are spending more on subscriptions

Disney has played a long OTT game. Through the last decade, the company monetised established distribution channels and pay windows – cinema, DVD / TVOD / EST, SVOD, free-to-air – whilst continuing to make mass audience TV shows and movies. It acquired the Marvel and Star Wars universes and developed (or re-developed) both franchises into new recurring global revenue streams. And instead of relying on multiple technology vendors, it bought a majority stake in Bamtech