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OTT Question Time #51 – The Netflix Effect on OTT

There was a long stretch of time, from around 2012 to 2017, when Netflix was the big buzz term in the OTT industry. Everywhere I went – panels, speeches, conferences – it felt like everyone was talking about it. Netflix the disruptor. Netflix the pioneer. Netflix, both the [...]

OTT Question Time #50 – Is the Great PVOD Experiment Over?

Over the past couple of years, and whilst the world has been in various shades of lockdown, film studios and distributors have ramped up the number of their titles available to watch via PVOD. Not without some reluctance. A PVOD-First strategy means potentially leaving a lot of money [...]

OTT Question Time #49 – Preparing to Go D2C

At this week’s OTT Question Time, Thursday 17 February, 4pm UK, we talked about the broadcasters, films studios and operators all over the world that have decided to launch their own stand-alone OTT services and go direct-to-consumer. These companies may already have dipped their toes in the water [...]

WEBINAR — The OTT Binge-Watching Phenomenon

If you’ve ever had a Star Wars night on VCR, a Friends fest on DVD, or gotten lost in a Lost box set on Blu-ray, you’ll know that TV and movie binge-watching isn’t a new phenomenon. What’s different now is the wide availability of titles to binge on, [...]

OTT Question Time #48 – Innovations in Green OTT Streaming

If you're analysing the environmental impact of OTT streaming you can choose to jump down any number of rabbit holes. The most obvious one is how much online video is actually being watched by any given person over the course of, say, a year? And what does that [...]

OTT Question Time #47 – The Other Streaming Wars

When we talk about The Streaming Wars who do we think of as the major players? Amazon, Disney and Netflix, undoubtedly, but also, given its huge customer base and deep pockets, Apple TV+? And surely Sky too as a trusted, multi-territory brand with bags of experience? But outside [...]

OTT Question Time #46 – Sky Glass

Sky’s launch, last month, of Sky Glass – the company’s new Smart TV – was celebrated in both the trade and national press. For consumers, Sky Glass offered the chance to subscribe to Sky TV without the need for a satellite dish or a separate set-top box. For [...]

OTT Question Time #45 – Germany OTT Special

At this week’s OTT Question Time, Thursday 28 October, we went to Germany! Not literally, alas, but we discussed the country’s flourishing OTT landscape with a panel of resident experts: Ralph Wagner, CEO of Axinom, the independent media consultant, Anette Schaefer, and Stefan Blickensdörfer, CTO of 3SS. Together [...]

OTT Question Time #44 – Netflix’s Technology Budget

Netflix’s technology and development budget has gone from $163m in 2010 to a whopping $1.83bn ten years later – an increase of over 1,000%. Certainly, large chunks of this increase can be apportioned to storage, content delivery and staff costs but what are they spending the rest [...]

Delivering Best-in-Class Smart TV Experiences

Designing OTT user interfaces and experiences for Smart TVs presents some unique challenges. Compared to smartphones and tablets, which can be deeply personal devices, television sets were – and increasingly are again – where families watch together. TV on a TV is watched from a distance rather than up close. [...]

OTT Question Time #43 – Kid’s OTT Market Strategy

At this week’s OTT Question Time (Thursday 30th Sept, 4pm UK) we talked about the supercharged growth of the children’s OTT market over the past few years. Absolutely, some of that expansion can be accounted for by more kids having been at home, for longer, during the pandemic [...]

OTT Question Time #42 – Online Video Players

It's sounds like the start of a riddle: what part of OTT UIs do you most use but hardly ever notice? Answer: online video players! Online video players have a gossamer quality about them in that they're both visible and not. They're the main way – the only [...]

OTT Question Time #41 – OTT Content Management Systems

A CMS – a content management system – does exactly what it says on the tin, right? It’s a system for managing content. But when it comes to streaming services, and looking at how content interfaces with both their back and front-ends, what is the scope of an [...]

OTT Question Time #40 – Whatever Happened to Social TV?

One of the best things about linear TV is the sense of a shared experience – of watching, for example, an international football tournament with family or friends and then celebrating (or in England’s case, commiserating!) together. Of tuning in to a worldwide event like the finale [...]

OTT Question Time #39 – The Transition from Broadcast to IP

Despite the resilience and stability of the infrastructure, the defined quality of the output, the guaranteed geographical coverage for audiences, and the decades of client and supply chain experience built up in the process, there was always going to come a time when it became cheaper to deliver [...]

OTT Question Time #38 – Content Rights 101

If you’ve ever found yourself confused about content rights, you’re not alone. I’ve been working in OTT since 2005 and I still don’t really understand why, for example, the Tom Holland Spiderman movies aren’t on Disney+ (Disney owns Marvel, right?), why I can’t find the 2019 season [...]

50 VOD Professionals 2021 — The Results

“Content is king” – the idea that OTT services need to consistently replenish their catalogues to attract (and retain) customers – is a phrase repeated so often that it’s almost become hackneyed. And yet, for broadcasters, film studios and service-providers, it’s never felt truer. Over the past sixteen [...]

OTT Question Time #37 – The TV & AVOD Advertising Recovery

Following the huge upheaval in the television and OTT advertising market last year, broadcasters and AVOD service-providers are now cautiously optimistic about the prospects for recovery and growth. ITV, for example, reported that its total ad revenue was down 11% in 2020 despite a 17% rise in [...]

OTT Question Time #36 — Industry Mega-Mergers

Consolidation isn’t new in the OTT industry – think AT&T and Time Warner (2018) or Comcast and Sky (also 2018) – but the last couple of weeks has seen a flurry of activity including the AT&T / Discovery deal, the acquisition of MGM by Amazon and the [...]

The Future of Streaming Technologies: The Next 5 Years

If not quite as riveting as the latest Netflix blockbuster, the evolution of OTT products – and related technologies – has been a fascinating watch. Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen broadcasters launch their own on-demand services, join forces to form aggregators like Hulu and BritBox and, more [...]

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