OTT Question Time Online

OTT Question Time Online is our weekly debate show on Thursday afternoons where we explore the future of television with broadcasters, film studios, service providers, vendors and analysts from all over the world. 

There’s always so much to talk about in the industry! Guests from, among others, the BBC, BBC Studios, Channel 4, Foxtel, Hearst Networks, ITV, Sky, SVT and Warner Bros Discovery, have joined us to discuss everything from advertising models and technology budgets to content discovery, sustainability, and market dynamics across Europe and beyond.

We continue the conversation in person each year at our annual conference, OTT Question Time Live.

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

  • OTT Question Time S6, Episode 1 – YouTube & The BVODs

    Ofcom’s latest Media Nations report, drawing on Barb data, suggests that YouTube has now overtaken ITV in total viewing, second only to the BBC channels. But is that really the full story? Are we comparing like-for-like when broadcasters and streamers are measured side by side? And

  • 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 15%,

  • 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, merely tolerate

  • 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 and the

  • 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 Pay-TV service

  • 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 of Bedrock Streaming,

  • 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 of Sony Pictures,

  • 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 is the

  • 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 Audiovisual Observatory’s database.