There’s an idea that it’s only after a decade is over that one can – retrospectively – characterise it; distil 10 years into a few words (fairly or not).

So, the 60s might be Flower Power and/or civil action. The 70s: disco (and flares). The 80s: yuppies; get rich quick. The 90s: Cool Britannia. The 00s: The End of Optimism (9/11 and the financial crash). The 10s: Austerity.

In a similar way, is it possible to understand a business – and product development – cycle in any industry only after we’ve moved on to the next one?

Hmm. Maybe.

In our own sector, OTT, my thinking is that we’re now into the seventh major cycle since 2005 (and the launch of YouTube). The timeline goes something like this (the first three sections below copy/pasted from a post I wrote on this topic in December 2018):

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Cycle #1: 2006–2012: Getting your first VOD Products to Market

This was the pioneer phase which saw broadcasters launching first-gen services, attracting audiences, digitising back-catalogues (with the help of Netflix and Amazon who wanted to buy the content), securing rights, introducing simulcast and setting up asset and content management systems as well as new workflows for ingest, transcoding, metadata and live-to-VOD.

Cycle #2: 2012 2015: Upgrading Legacy Systems & Bringing in Specialist Suppliers

Many of those first major broadcaster VOD services were largely developed in-house using existing broadcast infrastructure. Whilst this methodology allowed for bespoke, fit for purpose, development, it was expensive and resource-heavy in terms of manpower, planning, designing and marketing. And by the time some technologies had been implemented, they were already semi, if not wholly, obsolete.

To overcome these issues, service-providers started engaging vendors who provided specialised solutions for each of the 30-odd stages in the “glass-to-glass” chain. By deploying external suppliers, broadcasters were able to take advantage of commoditisation, expert knowledge, experience of live implementations and increasing economies of scale to cut away some of their legacy systems and power their VOD products more cheaply and efficiently.

Cycle #3: 2015–2018: Monetisation, Getting on to New Platforms & Content Strategies

By now, boards of directors all over the world were looking for their VOD services to start paying for themselves. And they did – to an extent. Programmatic ad buying and SVOD experimentation led to greater digital revenues but generally not enough to cover the drop in linear ad income.

At the same time, product teams continued to optimise their backend systems, refreshed their UIs and got their services onto platforms like Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Smart TVs and HbbTV.

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Cycle #4: 2019-2020: Cut Short

This phase, I suggested back then, would see continued growth as the first OTT children became teenagers; greater innovation and experimentation in the ad market; and VOD and Broadcast teams remerging (internally at broadcasters). Oh, and I’d said that the Big CAPEX Era was over.

That cycle might have lasted longer but then came COVID and the introduction of an artificial chapter…

Cycle #5: 2020-2021: The Pandemic Surge & Business Resilience

My memories: Lockdowns. How to run major streaming services from home. Huge rises in live and on-demand viewing as people were stuck indoors. Disney+ launching. Screen time for kids. Ted Sarandos saying that Netflix had enough new content to last at least another 18 months. Socially-distanced content production. Swiftly-evolving roadmaps. Live sport in empty stadiums. Zoom. No IBC. No events. OTT Question Time Online. Cooking with a 2-star chef – also online.

Cycle #6: 2022-2024: Recalibration

As I wrote last month, the industry would have been in a very different place if the pandemic hadn’t happened.

• Subscriber growth might have been slower and shallower but retention and ARPU might look healthier
• Since content pipelines wouldn’t have been as disrupted, the content market might look less bloated and more competitive
• The AVOD renaissance was probably still inevitable but without the pandemic, it might have come later and would have felt like a strategic pivot rather than a survival mechanism
• Hybrid pay models might still be experimental; theatrical would likely still command greater weight in the release strategy mix. Windows might not have contracted to the extent they have.
• Lockdowns stressed networks and customer service lines. That justified crisis-driven tech spend like cloud scaling, automated customer service and recommendation algorithms. Without that surge in usage, these investments might have arrived 2–3 years later

Cycle #7: 2025 (-?): Orchestrated Growth

Of course, these things did happen and we’re now in a place where broadcasters and streamers (“breamers”?) are on a new plateau in terms of OTT viewing. The aim now is to sustain those numbers. How?

One strategy – which the excellent Alex Pumfrey, Director of Strategic Partnerships at ITV, told us about last month – is “Bonfires and Fireworks”. Bonfires keep the core business burning – steady, necessary, unglamorous. Fireworks are the highly visible, attention-grabbing bursts: short-term campaigns, tentpole shows, partnerships.

That’s definitely part of the next cycle.

Broadening that out is orchestrated growth: a deliberate, system-level design across content, product, marketing, and monetisation. It’s the shift from organic expansion to engineered performance – where growth is planned, measured, and repeatable.

Thoughts?

Orchestrated Growth & The Seventh Major OTT Cycle then is the topic of our upcoming OTT Question Time Live conference which we’re hosting in London on 27 and 28 January.

Speakers from the BBC, BBC Studios, Channel 4, DR (Denmark), Everyone TV, Hearst Networks EMEA, ITV, Metrotone, NRK (Norway), ProSiebenSat.1, TF1, TiVo, Tubi and UKTV are already confirmed with more to be announced.

Come join us!