Two decades ago, OTT teams were often made up of seconded broadcast staff, building the first on-demand services as bolt-ons to linear TV. As streaming grew in scale and profitability, dedicated hierarchies and specialist roles emerged. In 2025, there’s no single recipe for success: today’s VOD organisations can involve dozens of functions across a range of departments, experimenting and innovating across product, tech, branding, marketing, and content. What’s the right operating model for today? Is there an established set of best practices to help balance efficiency with growth and adaptation? In short, what does a modern OTT operation look like?

In this episode we explored these questions with Leah Hooper Rosa, EVP Streaming, WBD, and Julie Mitchelmore, VP, Product and Commercial Partnerships & Regional Director MENA.

We also talked about:

• How WBD is managing and tailoring services across 40+ EMEA markets
• Lessons from new launches in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Turkey, Greece and Ukraine
• The announced Sky distribution deal for the 2026 HBO Max UK & Ireland launch (and what’s public so far)
• Managing multi-brand, multi-platform, multi-pay model strategies
• Distribution strategies: D2C, walled gardens, partnerships