Why survive when you can thrive? OTT is the key for Pay TV
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Why survive when you can thrive? OTT is the key for Pay TV
Over-the-Top video consumption is growing and expanding to more premium types of content as well as becoming accepted across almost all demographics.
In addition, content owners, horrified at the havoc wreaked by the online music industry, are pro-actively seeking OTT distribution (directly and indirectly), and in lieu of their traditional distribution partnerships with broadcasters, reach content contracts with players like Netflix. Anyone caught outside of this race can expect a dwindling subscriber base, lower viewership (in terms of hours spent) and fewer revenue opportunities.
Join us for the free webinar brought to you by Orca Interactive and Viaccess to discover:
- 1. How can operators leverage existing solution components to extend their services over-the-top?
- 2. Why is a multi-device experience so crucial for an OTT video service? What is the advantage that Pay TV operators have in this field?
- 3. What are the common threads that tie together the different “arms” of a multi-device service?
- 4. What cross-over strategies can operators apply in order to leverage both closed garden and open access content?
- 5. Why is the “TV Everywhere” model so compelling and how will it outshine all other models?
Webinar Speakers:
Mr. David Leporini, Chief Technical Officer, Viaccess
Mr. Sefy Ariely, Vice President Sales and Marketing, Orca Interactive
Tags; Archive, IP&TV, Orca Interactive, OTT, Pay TV, telecoms.com, Viaccess, video
The Q&A session is now closed. Thanks for joining.
Thank you all on behalf of Viaccess and Orca – Hope you enjoyed it!
David (David.Leporini@viaccess.com)
Am i able to use your slides to educate my organisation?
Gurjit,
you are an SI, right? We’ll contact you to help you in educating your organization.
Would OTT be more relevant to a broadcaster than a content-distribution company like cable or DTH?
By broadcaster, I assume you mean broadcast/TV channels, in which case the answer is that OTT is relevant to both broadcasters and content distribution companies (for example catch-up services on OTT platforms for TV channels would bring them increased reach and consumer data while for a content distribution company, bringing Web-based content onto their platform, provides enriched experience leading to increased customer loyalty).
Are you going to share the presentation slides with us?
I am not a TV platform but a content owner thus what are the challenges for the pay TV platforms when selecting OTT TV services? Virgin has gone with off the shelf product TiVo and Zon & UPC have chosen NDS. How do they choose?
The main challenges for Pay-TV operators in embracing OTT are related to management of convergent services, meaning a truly IP-based and integrated service and rights mangement platform able to address multiple devices with multiple biz models.
I am located in the USA and I’m trying to put together an OTT video for 1,100 members (these members consist of 1,100 Telephone Operators). My question is while I have a STB, content is an issue and do you know of any content providers that would be interested in participating in a revenue sharing opportunity with my members? Thanks…
None of them come directly to mind, although I have seen some Linked IN discussion groups whose members have posted that they have content that is available through rev share. You might want to try the VOD Content discussion group.
We believe the market is evolving and in fact there are already examples of operators providing multi-screen services in agreement with rights owners (e.g., Orange in France).
What is your opinion regarding linear and non-linear OTT? Thay have different strenghts but also different implementation challenges? What’s your view on that?
It seems that the trend towards OTT is mirrored by a similar, even stronger trend, towards non-linear viewing. Fewer and fewer TV events elicit loyal viewers who MUST view them in real-time. Time-shifting and place-shifting are growing and there is a very high degree of takeup wherever they are offered. So, while it appears that linear programming is still relevant in broadcast, its relevance is diminished when it meets the OTT environment.
What does Google TV mean for Pay-TV operators? Will Dish benefit from its deal with Google?
It does not appear that the business model of Google TV is geared to serve the goals of an operator, despite their claims that it is an add-on, not a replacement, to existing Pay TV. Many of these devices will be connected at the discretion of the user, so Google TV, or an Android-based Connected TV, becomes just another type of device that an operator should address. I expect Dish may benefit in the short term from the novelty factor of being the first to publicly cooperate the Google, but in the mid to long-term, they may find that the Google TV interface has stolen away valuable engagement time.
I believe that Google TV can be an enabler for a Pay TV provider’s OTT solution. If a Pay TV operator has a strong channel and content offering, then most searches on that content would end up pointing Google TV users to their content offering, thereby increasing traffic and interest to theit Pay TV offer and thus hopefully increasing the Get of new subscribers.
This is only if you believe that the most widespread method of discovering content will be proactive searches. from our experience, this is not the way most customers see their TV. Their is a fundamental difference in behavior between TV viewing and web browsing; even the most pro-active searchers on the PC tend to become much more passive when sitting on the couch with an ice-cold beverage.
I understand that parterning with someone like Netflix does not give the pay TV company any extra revenue. Are there any content providers that you are aware of that are looking to team up with pay TV operators that will share revenue? IF not – do you think parterning with someone like Netflix is a good idea… there may not be any revene generated but it may help you keep your customer…
From the point of view of a network operator, it is always tougher to negotiate with the “big” content players than the smaller ones. Netflix, having worked long and hard to establish themselves as a brand, would have more leverage and might marginalize the Pay TV company. Once a Pay TV company takes the pains to establish themselves with an OTT presence, they wield a powerful club that is the size of their subscriber base. This is the value that they can bring to the negotiating table and justify a share of the revenue from customer-starved content providers. Partnering with Netflix at low-to-zero profit may help preserve a customer, but it poses a very real risk of cannibalizing any premium content offer you may have established independently.
How can a pay TV Operator actually connect the OTT content to its
IPTV platform ?
The “Through the Middle” approach has the pay TV operator actively aggregating OTT content, so in this strategy, the operator is bringing in the content and taking responsibility for the quality, categorization, etc. of the content.
Another option is for partnerships to be established whereby the operator’s UI includes OTT content from select sources in an “affiliate” model. Since this model allows a little more “freedom” to the viewer, guiding the viewer through a Content Discovery experience is the best way an operator can ensure an enjoyable, efficient experience. Remember, just adding thousands of OTT titles to a Pay TV service, exacerbates the navigation difficulties of the normal viewer.
Netflix and other such OTT providers offers the service at a very lower cost. How the telecom operator (also a pay TV provider) justify the high cost charged for the same?
Netflix is pure VoD based content…Pay TV is VoD + linear channels (often more than 150 channels), so not the same thing. If you were comparing purely on the VoD service, the Operator would be significantly cheaper than the OTT operator…One thing to remember is that an OTT operator (such as Netflix) needs to pay for all transmission costs associated to the streaming of SVOD content to the end user, while a pay TV operator such as a cable operator does not…
The question is whether there is a valid comparison between the content offered. For premium content, I do not believe that Netflix have a magic potion. They are leveraging high numbers of subscribers to negotiate good content deals (I expect that these content deals may not stay at the same levels, since the content providers do not like to feel that they are leaving money on the table). When a content provider sees that the low prices negotiated by Netflix are cannibalizing revenues from other distribution channels, they will surely move to balance this. Smaller OTT providers may be even more challenged to provide good quality content at a low price. For non-premium content, it should also be possible for a Pay TV operator to lay their hands on the same content, if it is in high demand. Our view is that since Pay TV operators have existing content contracts/relationships, have an existing subscriber base to leverage in negotiations and are still the “default option” for many TV viewers, in a like-for-like situation they would have an advantage. The main advantage that Netflix and others still have is that the Pay TV operators have not embraced OTT distribution, so they have no choice, if they want to achieve the widest possible market for their content, but to provide their content to dominant OTT players who have a strong negotiating position,
this was very interesting. I want to communicate this to my organisation and would like to use some of your slides – are they available
You can contact Marketing@OrcaInteractive.com with this request.
Yes Gurgjit, we will contact you later with the slides.
Do Pay TV players have good customer data today to be able to act as an “enrichment broker”? Don’t Netflix, Apple, Google etc have much better data and could therefore win?
Operators for having a long and intimate relationship with their customers do actually have a rich base of customer data. They will guard it closely unless there is e.g., a potential rev sharing business model in place.
Why chose only one strategy? Wouldn’t combining through the middle, TV erverywhere, & Enrichment Broker actually be the best strategy?
I like the way you think!!
How do you see the pay tv ops managing the dist. of content outside of their geo/franchise areas?
Once you have overcome the challenge of getting these rights (and some of you may have your own, newly acquired, content providers) there are existing methods to filter users and their viewing eligibility according to the geographic limitations of those rights. This is actually one of the strengths of an OTT platform, as some of our customers are discovering.
What about the studios carving up rights across the plaforms making TV anywhere difficult. How do you solve that problem?
More than ever, rights are being acquired X-platform by Pay TV providers…and studios are accepting. This dilutes the “per platform” rights costs by allowing for some form of X-collaterization of MGs (for example) by the Pay TV operator…when you are paying millions in licensing fees for content, adding mobile rights for a small additional fee is quite common.
Can customers skip ads in OTT?
This capability, in a similar fashion to Pay TV, is up to the implementation. It is certainly an option to disable ads skipping, especially since OTT video is often ads-supported.
Hi, you’re welcome to send a request to marketing@orcainteractive.com.
We shall be happy to process your request and send it over.