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 S5, Ep 7 – Amazon Prime, Disney+ & Netflix Ad Strategies
In its recent Q3 report, Netflix reported that its AVOD tier was proving to be extremely popular: ads memberships were up 35% quarter-on-quarter and, in the countries where it was available, the ad tier accounted for 50% of new sign-ups. Over at Disney, D2C streaming revenues were up [...]
OTT Question Time S5, Ep 6 – The Dynamics & Future of Film & HETV Financing
Ben Keen, the renowned OTT industry analyst, recently published a report about the state of UK film financing for the British Screen Forum. In it he outlined some of the trends he’d spotted over the past 10 years including: total spending across all film and High-End Television (HETV) [...]
OTT Question Time S5, Ep 5 – OTT Service Feels
When you think, or talk, about various OTT services, what reactions do they evoke? Are they functional (catching up with Strictly Come Dancing on BBC iPlayer)? Transactional (Prime Video comes with my Amazon membership)? Or even, ahem, emotional (Netflix and chill)? Do we love, love, love our streamers, [...]
OTT Question Time Online, Season 5, Ep 4 – Olympics Debrief
Everything about the Olympics and Paralympics is at a gargantuan scale. The logistics, the venues, the ticket sales. The sponsors, the travel, the security. The inspiration, anticipation and the sheer spectacle of it all. And, of course, the people: the athletes and fans, volunteers and organisers, the media [...]
OTT Question Time Online S5, Ep3 – The Value of Content
One of the things that made the old TV model so successful was the relative scarcity of content. If you missed something when it was broadcast you’d have to wait for it to appear on the channel again, pay to rent or buy it, or subscribe to a [...]
OTT Question Time Online S5, Ep2 – IBC Preview
At this week’s OTT Question Time Online, Thurs 12 September, 4pm UK / 5pm CET, we’ll be talking about IBC – the industry’s biggest annual trade show in Europe. But fear not, it won’t be an extended sales pitch! Instead, and together with our guests, Jonas Engwall, CEO [...]
OTT Question Time Online S5, Ep1 – Back to the Future
OTT Question Time Online returned on 29 August and in the first episode of Season 5 we debated whether, with streamers increasingly adopting broadcaster characteristics, the old broadcast model was right all along. Together with Liz Bales, CEO of BASE (the British Association for Screen Entertainment), Gulliver Smithers, formerly [...]
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 – [...]
