OTT Question Time2024-02-25T20:24:33+00:00

OTT Question Time

At OTT Question Time, we talk about the future of television with broadcasters, film studios, service providers, vendors and analysts from all over the world. 

Featuring (amongst others) ITV, Sky, SVT, A+E Networks, beIN Media, Nordic Entertainment Group, Foxtel and TVNZ, we’ve recently discussed topics including content recommendation, Netflix’s technology budget, green innovations in OTT streaming, OTT pay models as well as Germany, India, France and Sweden specials. 

Watch all episodes, free and on-demand. And join our mailing list to find out about upcoming sessions. 

OTT Question Time #70 – Streaming Services’ Profitability

What makes a streaming service profitable? As with any business the basic equation is income minus costs but this masks a world of complexity. What exactly is OTT income made up of (e.g. advertising, subscriptions, sponsorships etc.)? What about costs (content, staff, technology, R&D)? And how sustainable [...]

OTT Question Time #69 – Emerging OTT Services & Models

Whilst Netflix, Disney, Amazon and D2C services from the broadcasters and film studios tend to get all the publicity, it’s easy to forget that the OTT market also has a huge number of smaller streamers. The UK, for example, has 288 of them according to the European [...]

OTT Question Time #68 – OTT User Engagement

OTT Question Time returned last Thursday, 25th June, and to kick off the new season, we discussed OTT user engagement and sticky UI / UX. Together with Jonathan Kelly, Experience Director at Candyspace, Gulliver Smithers, formerly of Sony Pictures, BBC Studios and ITV plus Chris Ambrozic, VP & [...]

OTT Question Time #67 – The Most Popular OTT Devices

Take a look back at the history of the most popular devices for watching online video and a fascinating picture emerges. In 2011, for example, 67% of the BBC iPlayer’s 1.9 billion TV requests were made from computers (PCs, laptops and Macs). That’s no huge surprise – smartphones [...]

OTT Question Time #66 – Analysing OTT ARPU

In our recent OTT Question Time about Disney vs. Netflix, Alan Wolk of TVREV told us that although technically Disney had more subscribers than Netflix (222.1m vs. 220.7m) that might not be the best metric for comparing the two companies. Why? Because over a quarter of Disney’s customers [...]

OTT Question Time #65 – Innovations in OTT Pay Models

At this week’s OTT Question Time (Thursday 29th September 2022) we talked about established OTT pay models - PVOD, TVOD, SVOD, SVOD-lite, AVOD, BVOD and FAST - and explored the spaces in between. Could we see new tiers, for example, just for habitual binge-watchers? Or for digital-premieres? [...]

OTT Question Time #64 – IBC 2022 Review

After an absence of three years, IBC – the International Broadcasting Convention – was back last week. This was a chance for the industry to come together, share knowledge, exhibit technologies and solutions, and meet people for the first time who they might previously only have seen [...]

OTT Question Time #63 – Disney Overtakes Netflix?

Breathy headlines last week as Disney – now with 221m streaming subscribers – was reported to have edged past Netflix as the world's biggest SVOD. And they did it in less than three years! And Disney is still growing fast! Netflix dethroned!  But is that an accurate [...]

OTT Question Time #62 – The Economics of FAST

It’s easy to think of FAST as simply a nice-to-have mezzanine floor between legacy scheduled programming and true on-demand viewing. After all, aren’t FAST channels – which are pre-programmed “linear” streams delivered OTT – mainly used by cord cutters who want to retain the experience of having [...]

OTT Question Time #61 – Subscribe – Churn – Resubscribe

A recent consumer survey by Omdia (free with registration) found that in the USA, the percentage of users that permanently cancelled at least one online video subscription within the previous 12 months has nearly doubled over the past three years, from 18% in November 2018 to 34% [...]

OTT Question Time #60 – Paramount+ SWOT Analysis

With Paramount+ now live in the UK, and already boasting 40m subscribers at the end of Q1 2022, we did a SWOT analysis of the new service on this week’s OTT Question Time (Thursday 7th July, 4pm UK / 8am PST).  Together with Allan McLennan, CEP/Media, Head [...]

OTT Question Time #59 – EPGs in an OTT World

In the days of linear-only TV, the EPG (electronic programming guide) was the easiest way to find out what you might like to watch. Presented as a simple grid, or even just a list, it would tell you what’s on now, next and, if it was very sophisticated, [...]

OTT Question Time #58 – Disney+ & Netflix Going AVOD

On the one hand, last week’s news that Disney was planning to launch an ad-supported tier for Disney+ came as a bit of a surprise. After all, the SVOD, which has only been live since 2019, is still growing strongly and is forecast to overtake Netflix – [...]

OTT Question Time #57 – The Return of Bundles

In the old linear-only world, the proposition from Pay-TV companies was attractively simple. Join us and we’ll give you everything you need. Broadband! Landlines! Mobile! And as much television, from regular channels and premium providers, as you could ever hope to have. Problem was that customers were [...]

OTT Question Time #56 – Aggregators vs. D2Cs

With the launch of Peacock last year, the further rollout of HBO Max this spring, and Paramount+ coming soon to the UK, D2Cs (direct-to-consumer OTT services) are massively in vogue. At the same time, aggregators seem to be falling out of favour. NBCUniversal, for example, has pulled [...]

OTT Question Time #55 – OTT Product Development 2022

Take a look back at the history of OTT product development and you can see distinct cycles in action. 2005 to 2012, for example, was the pioneer phase which saw broadcasters setting up systems and workflows, digitising back-catalogues and launching their first-gen VOD services. Many of those [...]

OTT Question Time #54 – SVOD Pricing Strategy

Thousands of SVOD services - niche, regional and multinational - have launched around the world over the past 15 years and for each of them, someone (or perhaps a group of people) has decided what the monthly subscription cost should be. How do they do that? Have they [...]

OTT Question Time #53 – France OTT Special

With a population size comparable to the UK, a flourishing TV and film production sector, and a growing list of native-language titles appearing on the international streamers, it’s a little surprising that we don’t hear more about France’s OTT landscape. Especially so since last December when France became [...]

OTT Question Time #52 – Talking about ITV’s OTT Strategy

As a broadcaster, and as an OTT service-provider, ITV is a fascinating company to study and analyse. Sure, it comes with a legacy tech stack but has often been willing to embrace vendor and platform solutions to quickly get to market. It operates using lean teams full of [...]

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 [...]

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