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, the mode of consumption – via OTT – and the scale, both in terms of the numbers of people who enjoy watching multiple episodes of a title...

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 “cost” in terms of carbon emissions? (Short answer to that second question: Netflix estimates that an hour of streaming on its service is the equivalent to driving...

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 of this theatre there’s a parallel drama going on – what we might call The Streaming Skirmishes – between another group of huge companies like Discovery, NBCUniversal,...

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 the industry, it was an exciting new expansion of the OTT device family – one that could be developed for, partnered with and learnt from. And it...

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 we explored: Germany’s TV landscape: the big satellite and cable operators How German consumers, who have been used to a settled TV environment, have embraced OTT Germany...

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 of the money on? That was the topic up for discussion at this week’s OTT Question Time on Thursday 21 October, 4pm UK. Together with Matt Westrup, SVP...

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 but what’s just as interesting is the change in their viewing behaviours (by type of service and device preferences), the buying decisions of parents, and the knock-on...

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 way – that viewers can watch content but at the same time we don’t really see them unless we’re forwarding or rewinding or they’re not working properly....