Netflix just overhauled its mobile UI for the first time in over a decade and the headline feature is Clips, a vertical scrolling discovery tool that looks a lot like TikTok. Which raises an obvious question: are the streamers genuinely experimenting with a new content format, or are they simply chasing younger audiences that YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have already captured?

Lydia and I get into the history of OTT interface design, who else is playing with vertical – including Disney Plus and Peacock, the latter with some actual data from the Winter Olympics – and why Quibi’s ghost still haunts this conversation. We also spend some time on micro dramas: a fast-growing format with some eye-catching market numbers attached to it.

The episode ends up somewhere rather bigger and more existential – whether broadcaster brands will survive a post-app world, and what a future dominated by a super aggregator might mean for the content we watch and how we find it.

As ever, feel free to reach out to me or Lydia on LinkedIn with any thoughts.

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Show Notes

• Our AI in OTT Survey which we’d love you to complete. The deadline is next Tues, 19 May.
• 50 VOD Professionals nominations (same deadline as above)
• The Netflix “Clips” press release
• And the Disney “Verts” press release

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