In the first of a series of extended interviews for our 50 VOD Professionals survey, which we publish on Wednesday 13 June, Sarah Milton, Head of VOD at Channel 4, tells us about how 4oD got started, her contribution to its continuing success and outlines some plans for the future of the service. 

KAUSER KANJI: Hi Sarah, you've been at Channel 4 since 2004 and were involved in the first iteration of 4oD so let's start by talking about how the product was developed and the strategy behind it. Was it as simple as somebody, somewhere saying "Right, let's launch a video-on-demand service for Channel 4 programmes"?

SARAH MILTON: Not quite that simple. There were a few people involved, both in what was then the new media division and also the business development team.  I was in the strategy team, where I had helped on various digital channel initiatives including the launch of More4, and the decision to take E4 and Film4 free to air. I was also writing online strategy paper s and in 2005 I began working on an idea around VOD along with a number of other people in the organisation. As it gained momentum and became a solid plan I took the opportunity to move across into the business and play a role as Content Manager for the launch of 4oD.

KANJI: So was the 4oD strategy propelled by commercial pressures?

"The market has moved so much in terms of consumers understanding of what VOD is and their willingness to use it and pay for it online."

MILTON: It was a number of things.  I think it's fair to say that there was a lot going on in the industry at the time. We'd been focused on PVRs - Sky+ had lately emerged on the scene - so we were working out how that was going to affect things.  I went to the States to talk to a few people about PVRs and came back having heard some really interesting ideas about video-on-demand. Also faster broadband had started rolling out to the mass market - the internet was starting to be able to cope with video - and in a sense that was Channel 4's moment as a broadcaster to make a statement online. There was a defensive element to it too - our rights position with PACT had quite recently changed, and we wanted to ensure we were the natural home for our programmes beyond the linear broadcast window.  4oD was the result.

KANJI: I remember when 4oD came out very well. It was a desktop app wasn't it?

MILTON: It was. So funny now given the prevalence of "apps" in a slightly different context.

KANJI: And when it first launched it was a mix of free and pay content -

MILTON: It was primarily pay content but it did move quite rapidly to being free. The ad market got behind it very quickly so that became a model that was appropriate and achievable and one that could deliver much greater scale than a pay proposition was ever going  to in those early days when consumers were getting into VOD for the first time.

KANJI: That's interesting because we're now almost coming full circle with ITV working on micropayments.

MILTON: Yes, I agree it is coming full circle to some extent - although the ad funded model remains the most significant for us. But, to be fair, the market has moved so much in that time in terms of consumers understanding of what VOD is and their willingness to use it and pay for it online. Partly I think because of the mass adoption of apps - in a smartphone / tablet sense - paying for online services has become much more widely accepted so that the prospects for a pay, transactional proposition are better now. Not that we had bad uptake when it was pay when we launched  but it was evident that it ought to be primarily free to drive scale and get momentum behind 4oD.

KANJI: So, how has 4oD developed over the last 5 years then? You were the first terrestrial broadcaster to launch a VOD service…?

"There's loads of stuff going on at the moment including expansion to more platforms and our product team thinking about and developing a more personalised, cross-platform experience."

MILTON: Yes, we were actually the first broadcaster anywhere in the world to launch a comprehensive video-on-demand service. We've gone from being available on three platforms at launch to, depending on how you count, twelve plus now including online, TV platforms, games consoles, smartphones and tablets. The array of options for accessing 4oD continues to expand and the product itself has evolved. Our archive service has grown to be over 6,000 hours and we've improved our ability to recommend content to users. We've launched 'My 4oD' which allows you to personalise the service - another step on the roadmap to making the product far more tailored to individual users. We've done online premieres like Fresh Meat, Skins, Peep Show, The IT Crowd and New Girl which all form incentives to register. Increasingly, we now have online exclusive content - so we had an episode of Misfits which was created just for online and we've done similar things with Skins and Made in Chelsea. So there are lots of ways in which the product has evolved and the availability of it has expanded.

KANJI: And are there any future plans for 4oD that you're able to talk about?

MILTON: One of the favourite bits of my job is working out how we develop the product, what platforms it's going to be made available on next, how we commercialise it and so on. And it's quite a challenge because you have to tread the line between lots of different objectives which aren't always necessarily compatible. So, on the one hand it's a commercial P&L, generating profit which gets fed back into Channel 4's commissioning budget. And on the other 4oD is an integral part of delivering our public service remit because, for example, for younger users, 4oD is becoming one of the main ways in which they consume our content. C4's stated ambition of getting to know our users better - collecting and collating data - is obviously highly relevant to 4oD too.

So there's loads of stuff going on at the moment including expansion to more platforms and our product team thinking about and developing a more personalised, cross-platform experience. 'My 4oD' is going to be extended too so that the product is even better for the user, more targeted, with better recommendations and functionality that synchronises 4oD across devices. It's an exciting proposition for us to take to the ad market. And of course there's the imminent launch of YouView which is obviously going to be good for 4oD.

KANJI: And the buzz in the industry is about Social TV. Any comments on that?

MILTON: Yes, there's a lot going on here around Social TV. Channel 4 is engaging more with social TV generally and there is much discussion and development work, and some really successful early trials, for the second-screen. From a VOD perspective, we have the ability to share content on Facebook and Twitter already and we plan to take the integration of social functions on 4oD further - that will be one element of the product personalisation developments.

KANJI: And final question: what's been your proudest achievement at Channel 4?

MILTON: I feel generally proud of 4oD - of the service we launched and have since evolved, of how well it has performed and of how much we punch above our weight in terms of views, commercial impact and innovations. But I guess I feel most proud of my influence in defining the overall vision for 4oD - particularly over the past 18 months or so that I have been Head of VOD - and my role in steering a fantastic team of people, across many departments in C4, towards achieving that vision. We have made some difficult decisions about what to pursue, what to prioritise and focus on over that period, and indeed what not to. The result has been a constantly evolving and improving service and some really exciting, successful product and platform launches. And there's much more to come!